Updated September 2026
Most advice on keeping staff is about what happens after they arrive: pay, benefits, development, flexibility, a good manager. All true, and all HR's job. This post is about the part of retention that is decided before the person starts, because that is the part a recruitment process controls and the part almost nobody measures.
Why people leave in the first year
Strip out the genuine surprises, the relocation or the illness, and first-year leavers fall into two groups. The first found the job was not the one they were sold. The working pattern was stricter than the advert implied, the workload was heavier, the tasks were different, the manager was not who interviewed them, the pay progression they were told about did not exist. The second could have done the job but nobody helped them succeed at it: a first month with no plan, a manager who was not involved in the hire and does not feel ownership of it, no check on whether they were coping until the resignation arrived.
Both begin in the recruitment process. Both are cheaper to fix there than anywhere else.
Sell the job you have, not the one you wish you had
The single biggest cause of early leaving is a gap between the advert and the reality. The temptation in a tight market is to soften the edges: "hybrid" for a four-day office policy, "fast-paced" for understaffed, "opportunity to shape the role" for nobody has defined it. Every candidate who accepts on that basis is a leaver in waiting.
Our survey of 116 UK insurers found that half of companies mandating four or five office days reported a fall in retention, and 44% of those with fixed hours did; the findings are in what 116 insurers told us about flexible working. The report's advice was to state the actual days and hours in the advert. Some candidates will not apply. Those were the ones who would have left. How to word the policy, and what to do if you have to be office-based, is in is your office policy costing you candidates?.
Hire the right person in the first place
A hire who cannot do the job, or cannot do it here, leaves or is asked to, and the cost lands in the first year. What that cost looks like is in the hidden costs of a bad hire. The prevention is a hiring process that decides, per role, what must be there on day one and what can be learned, assesses both against written criteria, and does not let the interviewers' warmth towards a candidate override a gap in the scores. That is covered in skills or fit: which to hire for and which to train.
Two things in the process itself predict retention more than most employers realise. The hiring manager being in the interview, so the new hire has already met the person they will work for and that person has a stake in the hire working. And the candidate being told the truth at offer stage, including the parts that might make them decline. A decline at offer is cheap. A resignation at month eight is not.
The first ninety days are part of the hire
Onboarding is where the hiring process hands over to the business, and it is where most of the second group of leavers is created. The fix is not complicated. A written plan for the first weeks, agreed before the start date. A named person to ask. What the person should be able to do at four, eight and twelve weeks, so probation is a set of checkpoints rather than a feeling. A check-in at thirty days about what is not as expected, while it can still be fixed. A recruitment process that ends at the signed contract has stopped one step early.
Different people, different reasons
The reasons people stay are not the same across a workforce, and a retention strategy built on one assumption will hold some and lose others. Our research on what each generation looks for in an employer is in how to attract a multi-generational workforce. Wellbeing is its own subject and has its own post: mental health in the workplace.
Make retention someone's number
Nothing above happens unless retention is measured and owned. Track twelve-month retention of new hires by the quarter they started, split by team, by working pattern and by how they were recruited. Record the reason for every leaver in a way that can be counted. Then put the number in front of the people who can move it, including your recruitment provider: twelve-month retention of their hires is a fair measure of whether the shortlist was right and the job was honestly sold, and it belongs in the contract alongside time to fill. How to set and review those measures is in how to review your RPO partner.
Where Vermelo comes in
We report twelve-month retention on the people we place, and we will take it as a contract measure, because we think a recruiter who will not be judged on whether their hires stay is telling you what they are optimising for. Honest adverts, structured assessment, the manager in the room and an onboarding plan before the start date are how our embedded talent teams run a client's hiring.
Talk to us if your first-year leavers are costing more than your vacancies.
Retention and hiring, answered
Pick a period, count who is still there at the end of it, and split it by when and how they joined. The two figures worth tracking are twelve-month retention of new hires (of the people who started in a given quarter, how many are still employed a year later) and overall annual retention (headcount at the start of the year still there at the end, ignoring joiners). The first tells you about your hiring and onboarding; the second about the business as a whole. Split both by working pattern, by team and by route in (permanent, contractor converted, referral, agency, direct), because the averages hide the pattern. Then record the reason for every leaver in a way that can be counted, not only in a free-text exit interview. A business that has these four numbers can see where people leave and why; most do not.
Usually because the job turned out not to be the one they were sold, or nobody helped them succeed in it. The first shows up as a gap between the advert and the reality: working pattern, workload, the actual tasks, the manager, the pay progression. The second shows up as a first month with no plan, a manager who was not involved in the hire, and no check on whether the person is coping until it is too late. Both are fixable before the offer is made: an honest advert, the manager in the interview, and an onboarding plan written before the start date. Our survey of 116 UK insurers found half of companies mandating four or five office days reported falling retention, which is one example of a mismatch that begins at the advert.
Yes, for the part they control. A provider cannot be responsible for a manager who drives people out, but they are responsible for whether the candidate understood the job, whether the shortlist was right and whether the checks and onboarding were handled properly, and twelve-month retention of their hires is a fair measure of that. Put it in the contract alongside time to fill and quality of hire, define it in writing, and review it quarterly. A provider that resists being measured on whether their hires stay is telling you what they are optimising for.