Measure the share of employees who stayed through a period, the other side of turnover.
Retained = employees at end − new hires.
Retention rate = retained ÷ employees at start × 100.
A restaurant group starts the year with 50 employees, hires 8 and ends with 52. 44 of the original 50 stayed, so retention is 88%.
Retention looks at the people you started with: how many are still here? It is useful for checking how well you keep existing staff, separately from hiring.
Calculate it for the same period each time and by team or location to see where people leave.
A small HVAC company starts the year with 14 employees, hires 4 who are all still on staff at year end, and ends with 15. Employees retained are 15 – 4 = 11, so retention is 78.6% and 3 of the original 14 left. Headcount grew by one, yet more than one in five of the starting team is gone.
Retention follows only the people on staff at the start, so it is not affected by how many people you hired. The new hires field should hold only hires still employed at the end; entering hires who already left subtracts them from people who never left and understates retention. Small teams swing hard, since one departure from a team of 10 moves the rate by 10 points.
| Location | Start | Hires still on staff | End | Retention |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Downtown | 18 | 5 | 20 | 83.3% |
| Airport | 14 | 6 | 15 | 64.3% |
| Mall | 12 | 2 | 12 | 83.3% |
| Suburb | 6 | 1 | 7 | 100% |
The airport site keeps fewer than two in three of its starting staff. Look at what is different there before assuming pay is the cause: shift times, commute, the manager and how schedules are published are common factors.
For new hires, set the hiring month as the starting group and enter 0 new hires. Compare the share still employed at 30, 90 and 180 days. If most losses happen in the first month, the fix is usually in onboarding and early schedules, not in long-term pay.
Related but not exactly; turnover counts all leavers including new hires who left.
Usually a year, or a quarter for seasonal businesses.
Not in this formula; they show in turnover.
Compare with your history and industry.
Yes. Enter the number hired in that month as employees at start, those still employed after 90 days as the end count, and 0 new hires. The result is the share of that class who made it to 90 days.
Leave out seasonal staff whose end date was planned, or run them as their own group. A ski shop that counts its winter crew in December will otherwise show poor retention every spring, even though everyone left on schedule.
Not for the company figure. For a location figure, decide whether a transfer out counts as a loss for that site, and apply it consistently.
More for the same job
Instead of adding up timesheets before you open the employee retention rate calculator, let EZTime total employee hours. Book a demo to see it with your team.