Guide to Assessing Flight Risk of Key Talent

Retaining employees is a top priority for organizations, but turnover of key talent is common. In fact, 75% of industries report increased turnover among high-potential employees (Workday, 2024).
In addition to the financial costs of turnover, there are also intangible costs associated with losing key talent, including a loss in productivity, knowledge, and specialized skills.
Organizations often struggle to retain key talent because they lack early visibility into the employees’ unique experiences and only become aware of an employee’s intent to leave when a resignation is submitted. Without proactive strategies in place, organizations miss critical opportunities to intervene early and reduce the costs associated with unexpected turnover of key employees.

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Critical Insight

Informal flight risk assessments are subjective and lack accuracy. A clearly defined process that prioritizes data analysis, meaningful stay conversations, and human-centric insights into an employee’s experience is essential for retaining key talent and fostering a supportive environment.

Impact and Result

Proactively identifying employees’ needs and interests that influence their intent to stay or leave the organization allows HR and managers to provide tailored support that drives the retention of key talent.
A consistent and data-driven approach to assessing employee flight risk enables organizations to forecast potential future gaps in talent based on areas with higher levels of flight risk and develop plans to mitigate risk and prevent turnover.
Assessing flight risk using not just quantitative data but also qualitative data and in-depth stay conversations empowers managers to contribute relationship-based insights to an employee’s experience, builds trust, and strengthens the connection between employees and their leaders.

Guide to Assessing Flight Risk of Key Talent Research & Tools

1. Prepare to assess flight risk

Prepare to assess employee flight risk by establishing the scope of the assessment, determining the timing and relevant data to include, defining flight risk criteria, and exploring the use of technology to support assessment.

2. Conduct flight risk assessments

Conduct flight risk assessments by establishing HR and managers’ role in the process, analyzing and interpreting data, conducting effective stay conversations, and assigning flight risk levels.

3. Mitigate and monitor flight risk

Mitigate and monitor flight risk by developing action plans to address flight risk employees, equipping managers to continuously monitor flight risk employees, and consistently evaluating the accuracy of the assessment.

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Guided Implementation 1: Prepare to assess employee flight risk

Call 1: Confirm the scope of the assessment and determine when the assessment will occur in alignment with broader talent decisions.
Call 2: Define the flight risk scale and flight risk criteria that will be used to guide the assessment.

Guided Implementation 2: Conduct flight risk assessments

Call 1: Identify the relevant quantitative and qualitative data to include in the assessment.
Call 2: Create guidelines for conducting effective stay conversations with employees being assessed.

Guided Implementation 3: Mitigate and monitor flight risk

Call 1: Develop action plans to address flight risk employees.
Call 2: Evaluate the accuracy of the assessment and identify areas of improvement for the next assessment.

Contributors

Christopher Toth, Senior Manager, Organizational Effectiveness, Owens & Minor
Dick Finnegan, CEO, C-Suite Analytics
Julie Thiel, Founder & CEO, Thiel Talent Strategy LLC
Dr. Lepora Flournoy, CEO, AI Talent Strategist, Executive Coach, Nextgen People