Today I stumbled across the work of retention expert Dick Finnegan. He has spent decades helping organizations reduce turnover through stay interviews, employee engagement, and management accountability.
As I was reading through his work, I found myself thinking about my own research and consulting interests. Much of my recent work has focused on onboarding, organizational socialization, and turnover intention. The assumption is that if organizations do a better job of onboarding employees, those employees will be more likely to stay.
I still believe that.
But it raised a bigger question.
Are we spending too much time asking why people leave and not enough time asking why they stay?
At first glance, turnover intention and retention intention sound like the same thing. They are related, but they are not identical. An employee may have low turnover intention because they need the paycheck, have limited options, or are close to retirement. That does not mean they are engaged or enjoy their work. It does not even mean they want to be there.
Retention intention is different. It asks whether employees actually want to stay.
As I thought more about it, another question surfaced. Is onboarding really what keeps people? Or does onboarding create the conditions that allow trust to develop?
Many employees do not remember every detail of their onboarding program. What they remember is whether their manager showed up. They remember whether expectations were clear. They remember whether someone cared about their success. In many ways, those are trust questions disguised as onboarding questions.
The real challenge is not simply reducing turnover. Perhaps the challenge is creating workplaces where people trust their leaders, feel valued, see a future for themselves, and want to stay.
I do not have the answer yet.
But I am beginning to wonder if the better question is not, “How do we keep people from leaving?”
Instead, maybe we should be asking, “What makes people want to stay?”