The Retention Research Companies Refuse to Read

Your VP of HR just finished another book on employee retention. She highlighted the important parts, shared key insights at the leadership meeting, and got everyone nodding in agreement.

Three months later, your company is doing exactly what the book warned against. Marathon interview processes. Retention bonuses for people already checked out. Engagement surveys that change nothing. Measuring everything except what the research says actually matters.

The books on her shelf aren’t wrong. The research is solid. Decades of evidence show exactly why people leave and what prevents turnover.

Companies just won’t implement it. Because the real solutions require admitting something uncomfortable about how hiring and retention actually work.

What the Research Has Known for Decades

The academic literature on employee retention isn’t new. Researchers have studied turnover patterns since the 1970s. The evidence is overwhelming and consistent.

Here’s what Managing Employee Turnover: Dispelling Myths and Fostering Evidence-Based Retention Strategies found after synthesizing volumes of research:

The retention fictions companies believe:

• Exit interviews tell you why people leave
• Retention bonuses keep valuable employees
• Competitive salaries prevent turnover
• Better benefits solve retention problems
• Engagement surveys predict who’ll quit

The research-based facts:

• Exit interviews get sanitized answers, not truth
• Retention bonuses delay departures but don’t fix root causes
• Pay ranks 5th among reasons people leave
• Benefits matter, but culture and work fit matter more
• Engagement measures feelings about work, not energy fit to work

The book’s core message, backed by decades of data: 75% of employee turnover could have been prevented if companies better understood what employees actually wanted.

Yet most retention management efforts remain based on misleading data, generic best practices that don’t translate, or managerial gut instinct at odds with research evidence.

The Books Everyone Reads Then Ignores

Let’s look at what the leading retention experts actually say:

Managing Employee Retention by Jack Phillips and Adele Connell

This book from the Improving Human Performance Series presents a logical process for managing retention:

1. Identify true turnover costs (not just recruiting expenses)
2. Determine root causes (not exit interview explanations)
3. Design solutions that match actual causes
4. Track turnover with alerts when action is needed
5. Measure ROI of retention programs

The research in this book shows replacing an entry-level employee costs 30-50% of salary, mid-level costs 125-150%, and senior executives cost 200-213%.

What companies do instead:

Calculate only direct recruiting costs. Miss the 60-70% that’s hidden. Never connect turnover to lost productivity, team morale hits, or customer relationship damage. Continue seeing retention as an HR problem rather than a strategic business issue.

The book spells out exactly how to calculate full costs. Companies read it. Then continue using incomplete numbers that underestimate the problem by half.

The Employee Retention Handbook by Stephen Taylor

Stephen Taylor’s handbook examines the causes of staff turnover and the most effective ways of measuring, costing, predicting, and preventing it.

It includes six detailed case studies covering retailers, graduates, engineers, and other roles. Real examples showing patterns across industries.

The key insight: Different roles have different turnover drivers. What keeps a retail employee isn’t what keeps an engineer. What prevents graduate turnover differs from what retains senior leaders.

What companies do instead:

Apply one-size-fits-all retention strategies. Give everyone the same engagement survey, same recognition program, same career development approach. Wonder why turnover remains high despite “best practices.”

The handbook shows exactly how to segment your approach. Companies read it. Then implement generic programs because customization requires more work.

401 Proven Ways to Retain Your Best Employees by Greg Smith

This practical guide from Chart Your Course International offers 401 specific retention ideas with case studies and implementation advice.

The reviews from HR leaders are telling:

“There is no need to search other books and articles on employee retention. It is all here. Greg has distilled it all into a simple, easy approach to transforming your workplace.”

“This book is jam packed with ideas and suggestions that will attract, keep, and motivate your employees.”

What companies do instead:

Pick 2-3 easy ideas that don’t threaten existing practices. Skip the uncomfortable ones about changing how managers operate or rethinking role design. Implement surface fixes while avoiding systemic changes.

The book provides 401 options. Companies try five, see modest improvement, then stop.

What Research Actually Reveals About Turnover

Here’s what decades of academic study consistently show:

The Top Reasons People Leave (Research-Based)

Work Institute’s comprehensive analysis of why people actually leave:

1. Lack of career growth (22% of departures)
2. Poor management (18% of departures)
3. Lack of work-life balance (12% of departures)
4. Toxic culture (11% of departures)
5. Inadequate compensation (9% of departures)

Notice what’s fifth on the list. Yet companies focus most retention efforts on pay.

The Hidden Pattern Nobody Measures

Here’s what the research shows but most studies don’t explicitly name:

Someone can have excellent career growth opportunities, a great manager, perfect work-life balance, positive culture, and competitive pay. They still leave.

Why? Because the daily work itself drains them fundamentally.

Research published in medical journals links job seeking stress to clinical depression. 72% of job seekers report mental health impacts. 66% experience burnout from the process.

But here’s the critical finding: this happens even to people in “good” jobs at “great” companies. People burn out not from overwork but from wrong-work. From spending their days doing tasks that exhaust them even though they’re skilled at those tasks.

The academic term for this is “person-job fit” or “person-environment fit.” The research is clear: when there’s misalignment between what a person finds naturally engaging and what their job requires, burnout and turnover follow.

The RIASEC Framework Companies Ignore

Occupational psychologist John Holland developed the RIASEC model in the 1950s. It’s been validated by thousands of studies over 70 years.

The core finding: people are energized by different types of work. Not personality types. Not skill categories. Types of work activities.

Someone energized by analyzing complex problems versus someone energized by helping others versus someone energized by building tangible things. These aren’t preferences. They’re fundamental patterns in what gives energy versus what depletes it.

The research shows when people’s work matches what energizes them, they experience flow states, sustained motivation, and long-term career satisfaction. When there’s mismatch, they burn out regardless of how skilled they are or how well they’re paid.

This isn’t new research. It’s seven decades old. Thousands of validation studies. Used in career counseling worldwide.

Companies ignore it entirely during hiring and retention. They test for skills, not energy fit.

Job Demands-Resources Theory

The JD-R model, developed by organizational psychologists in the early 2000s, provides another framework companies read about then disregard.

The research shows: every job has demands (things that require effort and deplete energy) and resources (things that restore energy and motivation).

When demands consistently exceed resources, burnout happens. Regardless of engagement scores, recognition programs, or compensation levels.

The critical insight most companies miss: demands and resources aren’t the same for everyone. What drains one person energizes another.

Extensive stakeholder management is a major demand for someone who needs solo deep work time. It’s an energizing resource for someone who thrives on collaboration. Documentation and process work depletes someone creative. It’s satisfying for someone who loves organizing information.

The research has proven this for 20 years. Companies measure demands and resources generically, missing that person-specific fit is what predicts burnout and turnover.

The Gap Between Research and Reality

Here’s what makes this fascinating and frustrating:

The research is available. The books are bestsellers. HR leaders read them, highlight them, discuss them. The evidence is overwhelming and consistent.

Then companies do the opposite of what the research recommends.

What Research Says vs What Companies Do

The gap isn’t because HR leaders don’t know better. It’s because implementing research-based solutions requires uncomfortable changes.

The Uncomfortable Truth

Here’s what the research consistently shows but companies don’t want to admit:

You can’t survey your way out of energy mismatch. Engagement surveys measure how people feel. They don’t measure whether daily work energizes or drains each person fundamentally.

You can’t recognize your way out of wrong-fit roles. Someone can feel deeply appreciated while still burning out from work that exhausts them.

You can’t predict your way out of the root cause. AI can identify flight risks with impressive accuracy. It can’t tell you someone’s leaving because 60% of their role uses work that drains their specific type of brain.

The research points to the same conclusion across frameworks, across decades, across thousands of studies:

Match people to work that energizes them. Not just work they’re skilled at.

Most companies refuse to measure this. Because it means admitting their entire hiring and retention process is optimized for the wrong thing.

The Books Nobody Wants to Implement

Let’s be specific about what the leading retention experts recommend:

From “Managing Employee Retention”

The recommendation: Calculate full turnover costs including lost productivity, knowledge loss, and team morale impacts. Use real numbers to build business case for retention investment.

What companies do: Use only recruiting costs. Underestimate true impact by 60-70%. Continue treating retention as cost center rather than strategic priority.

Why they don’t implement: Full calculations make turnover look worse than leadership wants to admit. Easier to use incomplete numbers that don’t trigger hard questions.

From “Managing Employee Turnover”

The recommendation: Identify specific root causes of turnover for each role and employee segment. Design targeted interventions that address actual causes, not generic best practices.

What companies do: Apply same retention strategies to everyone. Wonder why turnover continues despite “investing in retention.”

Why they don’t implement: Requires more work than generic programs. Means admitting different people need different approaches. Challenges assumption that best practices work universally.

From “The Employee Retention Handbook”

The recommendation: Predict turnover by tracking leading indicators specific to different roles and career stages. Intervene early when patterns emerge, before people start job hunting.

What companies do: React to turnover after resignations. Offer counteroffers when someone already has another job lined up.

Why they don’t implement: Tracking leading indicators requires systems and discipline. Easier to be reactive than proactive, even though it’s far more expensive.

From “401 Proven Ways”

The recommendation: Try multiple retention strategies simultaneously. Track what works for your specific organization and roles. Continuously improve based on results.

What companies do: Pick one or two easy ideas. Never measure effectiveness. Assume if turnover doesn’t drop immediately, the approaches don’t work.

Why they don’t implement: Testing and measurement require commitment. Admitting some approaches fail means acknowledging wasted effort. Easier to claim “we tried that” than to actually implement and measure properly.

What Seven Decades of Research Actually Proves

Synthesizing across the major retention books and underlying research, here’s what’s been proven repeatedly:

About turnover causes:

• Most turnover is voluntary and preventable
• Primary drivers are career growth, management quality, and work-life fit
• Pay matters, but ranks lower than assumed
• People leave managers, not companies (but it’s more nuanced)
• Culture impacts retention more than perks

About prediction:

• Early warning signs exist and are measurable
• Declining engagement predicts turnover 6-12 months out
• Peer departures trigger additional turnover
• Tenure patterns show high-risk periods (first 90 days, 18-24 months)
• But all these are symptoms, not root causes

About prevention:

• Career development opportunities strongly impact retention
• Manager quality is critical (but it’s not the only factor)
• Recognition programs work when genuine and frequent
• Flexible work arrangements significantly improve retention
• Onboarding quality predicts long-term tenure

What’s missing from nearly all the research:

Direct measurement of whether the type of work someone does daily matches what energizes them versus what drains them at a fundamental level.

The research talks around this concept. Person-job fit. Person-environment fit. Work engagement. Intrinsic motivation. Career interests matching.

But few studies measure it directly. Because until recently, there wasn’t a practical way to quantify energy fit at scale.

The Research That Led to Korture

The irony is that the frameworks exist. RIASEC (what type of work energizes people) has 70 years of validation. JD-R theory (demands versus resources) has 20 years of research backing.

The gap was application.

Academic career counselors use these frameworks one-on-one. Organizational psychologists discuss them in journals. HR leaders read about them in books.

Nobody applied them systematically to employee retention at scale. Nobody measured whether someone’s current role matches what energizes them, then tracked that against actual turnover.

That’s what Korture does. We took the validated research frameworks and made them measurable and actionable for companies.

Not engagement surveys asking how you feel. Not skills tests showing what you can do. Measurement of what type of work energizes versus drains you, and whether your current role matches that.

The product manager who’s skilled at documentation but drained by it. The analyst who’s great at management but misses deep analysis. The creative who’s competent at operations but dying inside.

The research predicted this would drive turnover. The books explained why. Companies kept measuring the wrong things.

What Implementation Actually Looks Like

Here’s what the research says should happen:

1. Measure what energizes versus drains each person (not just skills or engagement)
2. Assess whether current roles match that (not just performance or satisfaction)
3. Identify mismatches before burnout happens (not after people start interviewing)
4. Adjust roles or match people to better-fit work (not just offer raises)
5. Track energy fit as a leading indicator (not just engagement or flight risk)

This isn’t speculation. It’s what seven decades of occupational psychology research proves works.

Companies read the books. They nod along. They agree with the research. Then they continue measuring engagement, offering retention bonuses, and wondering why people leave anyway.

Because implementing what the research actually recommends requires admitting something uncomfortable:

Your hiring process catches skills. Your retention efforts optimize engagement. Neither measures the energy fit between person and daily work.

That’s what drives preventable turnover.

The Books Were Right All Along

Go back and read the retention classics. The recommendations are consistent:

• Understand why people actually leave (not exit interview explanations)
• Measure leading indicators (not just react to departures)
• Match solutions to root causes (not generic best practices)
• Track effectiveness (not assume programs work)
• Prevent rather than react (not counteroffer after resignation)

The missing piece: a practical way to measure whether daily work energizes or drains each person, and whether their role matches that.

The research showed it mattered. The books explained why. Technology now makes it measurable at scale.

Most companies will keep ignoring it. They’ll continue reading retention books while doing exactly what those books warn against. Because implementing the research requires changing how hiring and retention fundamentally work.

A small number of companies will actually apply what the research has proven for decades. They’ll measure energy fit, not just skills and engagement. They’ll catch mismatches before burnout. They’ll adjust roles based on what sustains people, not just what they’re capable of doing.

Those companies will have an enormous competitive advantage. Because they’ll prevent the 75% of turnover that the research shows is preventable but that most companies never address.

This is what Korture enables. The practical application of what retention research has proven all along. Not another engagement survey. Not another recognition platform. Not another predictive analytics tool.

Measurement of the energy fit between person and work. The thing the research said mattered but nobody measured. Until now.

See how Korture applies what research has proven for decades

Key Sources:

• Managing Employee Turnover (Business Expert Press)
• Managing Employee Retention by Phillips & Connell
• The Employee Retention Handbook by Stephen Taylor
• 401 Proven Ways to Retain Your Best Employees
• Holland’s RIASEC Model (Wikipedia)
• Job Demands-Resources Theory Research
• Work Institute Retention Report
• SHRM: The Real Costs of Recruitment
• NCBI: Job Seeking and Mental Health
• FlexJobs: Mental Health and Job Search