Guide to employee retention: how to keep your best talent
No business can expand if the people driving that growth don’t stay
In this guide, we’ll share hands-on tips and tactical insight to help business leaders make a measurable, long-term difference to employee retention. Our aim is to give you practical steps not only to hold on to your top performers, but to keep them motivated and productive for years. We’ll cover how to foster a robust and supportive remote work culture and the locally tailored benefits that guard against competitor poaching. We’ll also set out the core principles behind successful, sustainable remote teams:
- Flexible and asynchronous work
- Communication and documentation
- Connection and belonging
Why does retention rate matter?
Keeping people — and rolling out programs to measure and support that retention — is essential if you want your business to scale and prosper. With remote work now mainstream, many companies are struggling to define what sets them apart and why candidates should choose them over others.
Employee turnover has risen 8.7% since 2019.
By keeping a healthy retention rate, you’ll benefit from:
And, in the end, you’ll see a significant lift in your bottom line. Companies with strong retention are more resilient in any economy and better placed to grow. When talented people want to stay with you, your options expand dramatically.
Increased productivity
Better customer experiences
Reduced recruitment and onboarding costs
Improved team morale
Great word-of-mouth about working for your company
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you calculate your retention rate?
You can’t improve retention until you know where you stand today.
To calculate retention, first pick the time window you want to measure—say the past year or a single quarter. Then identify two figures:
The number of employees you had at the start of the period
The number of employees at the end of the period (excluding any new hires)
Next, use this calculation to determine your staff retention rate:
So, for instance, if you began a quarter with 162 staff and finished with 170, 20 of whom were new, your calculation would be:
((170-20) ÷ 162) × 100 = 92.56%
You must subtract new hires to avoid overstating retention. For example, if you have 100 employees and add five new starters with no leavers in three months, your raw figure would read 105%. Removing new hires gives a truer picture.
Over longer periods, people may join and leave within that window. In those cases, calculate new-hire retention separately—use the number of new hires and how many remain. So, if you take on 20 people in three months and one departs, the new-hire calculation is:
((20-1) ÷ 20) × 100 = 95%
Generally, retention above 90% is considered strong. For new starters, you’d expect 95% or higher, since most shouldn’t leave shortly after joining.
Roles with the highest turnover include Product (36.4%), Information Technology (36%), and Engineering (35.2%).
Employee retention tactic:
Try computing retention for on-site teams and remote teams separately. If results differ, remote staff may be feeling less supported than office-based colleagues.
Why does top talent choose to leave?
Keep in mind retention varies by industry: retail, tech and media, professional services, entertainment and accommodation often have lower-than-average retention. If your company sits in these sectors, your target retention rate may be beneath the global benchmark.
If your retention isn’t where you’d like it, you’ll want to understand why people are leaving.
McKinsey’s 2022 Great Attrition, Great Attraction Survey 2.0 gives useful insight. According to the survey, the top reasons people quit are:
Lack of career development and advancement
Inadequate total compensation
Uncaring and uninspiring leaders
Lack of meaningful work
Unsustainable work expectations
Unreliable and unsupportive colleagues
Lack of workplace flexibility
Lack of health and wellbeing supportA non-inclusive and unwelcoming community
Addressing these problems inside your organisation is vital if you want to enjoy strong remote retention. With those drivers in mind, let’s explore the best ways to improve retention at your company.
The role of equitable global compensation in staff retention
Employees are likelier to stay if they feel respected and treated fairly. Both evidence and plain sense suggest equitable pay is one of the simplest, most effective starting points.
Why is equitable compensation so important?
When staff feel they’re paid fairly for their skills and relative to colleagues, they are generally happier and more motivated.
Equitable pay is a cornerstone of retention. A clear compensation philosophy builds trust and confidence, encouraging employees to perform and stay.
Paying people appropriately is crucial, though the maths can be tricky. For guidance, see our guide to remote worker compensation.
Remote & Async Work
Developing an equitable compensation package for your employees
You must look beyond skill and seniority when designing a fair pay package. For staff in different countries, several local factors matter. Consider these on a country level:
Mandatory employer-provided benefits
Cost of living (and what that means for salary expectations)
Compulsory salary deductions
Employee expectations around pay and benefits
Taking these into account allows you to craft a total rewards policy — a compensation package with fairness and value built in. Your total rewards policy covers bonuses, benefits and other incentives you offer staff.
Remember that equitable compensation is a powerful mechanism.
Modern professionals expect to influence company success and see tangible returns. Leading compensation strategies connect employee success with company success. Bob notes pay must go far beyond market salary to be a true differentiator. A forward-looking approach combines salary, bonuses, superannuation, and equity with important “professional” and “lifestyle” benefits. Crafting the right mix is complex, so lean on modern HR tech to validate how your choices land with candidates, teams and leaders.
Annie Rosencrans, U.S. People & Culture Director @ HiBob
When your compensation strategy meets employee needs, you’ll drive motivation and long-term commitment.
How to construct a benefits program to retain top global talent
Organisations that let staff work remotely tend to have lower turnover than office-only firms. Remote’s research suggests this gap may widen to 4.4% in 2023.
To attract and hold a global team, offer a locally tailored, globally competitive benefits plan.
While a ‘one-size-fits-all’ benefits package is tempting, it rarely meets local needs. Benefits should reflect local customs and cultural differences. That approach not only attracts great people but is crucial for retention.
Joana Viana, Senior Global Benefits Design & Strategy Expert
To tailor benefits packages and compete with local employers, you need deep local insight.
Here’s an example:
In the UK
Offering a medical plan with maternity cover in the UK isn’t usually a standout perk because NHS-provided healthcare, including maternity care, is already available for free.
In Singapore
Conversely, a medical plan with maternity cover in Singapore can significantly influence a potential hire. Maternity care there can cost thousands, so such cover provides real reassurance. In Singapore, maternity healthcare can end up costing thousands of dollars, so anyone considering parenthood would feel reassured to have this type of cover as part of their benefits package.
Local insight is essential for benefits design, but gathering it yourself is time-consuming. That’s why we built the Global Benefits Report to help companies quickly compare favoured benefits across countries and regions.
Want extra support with your global benefits strategy?
Remote gives businesses access to local benefits experts so you know which benefits are legally required and which are optional. We also provide curated plans for each country, saving time and expense.
"Remote helped us build loyalty with employees by providing world-class benefits and the rights that come with being employed locally."
Heather Miki, People Operations Manager @ kWh Analytics
"We wanted to quickly grow our Mexico presence without navigating incorporation, payroll and benefits ourselves. Remote let us do exactly that."
Greg Kefer, CMO @ Lifelink Systems
Build a remote-first culture to manage global teams effectively
Remote-first companies aren’t only for remote workers. By adopting remote-first practices you create a fairer experience for everyone, wherever they are based. Emphasising documentation, asynchronous work practices and a results-focused culture benefits the whole organisation. Here’s how to build your own remote-first environment.
How to reduce employee turnover with a strong talent retention strategy
What do we mean by remote-first?
Remote-first means treating remote work as the default. Whether employees sit at HQ or have never been to the office, their experience of working for your company should be the same.
Remote-first culture | In a genuine remote-first culture, every aspect of the employee experience — from manager support to team bonding to career progression and tools — is available to all staff, regardless of location. |
Culture isn’t only about social activities; it’s also about how the work is done. We’ve prepared a guide to building a strong, supportive remote culture to walk you through the steps. What needs to change to go remote-first?
Switching from office-based to remote-first has challenges. If you simply copy office habits to a remote setting, you’ll only get part of the way there.
Remote staff can’t swing by a colleague’s desk for updates or chat casually on the way to the carpark. Missing those informal interactions can leave remote employees feeling isolated, overworked and ineffective. New remote managers often make avoidable mistakes that worsen this:
Common remote leadership mistakes to avoid
If you fail to communicate openly and often, employees may feel disconnected from the organisation’s goals.
If you don’t respect downtime and contact people off the clock, team members risk burning out.
If you don’t model a healthy life-work balance, staff may feel pressured to work excessive hours and suffer as a result.
If you micromanage with constant check-ins or trackers to reassure yourself that people are working, you’ll push top talent away.
If you misuse communication tools — for example, DMing instead of posting publicly — information gets lost and people feel excluded.
Those mistakes can create a poor employee experience and undermine retention efforts.
Regular employee surveys and exit interviews help leadership gauge—and improve—overall job satisfaction, which lowers turnover.
The problem with micromanagement
Micromanagement is a frequent issue in remote work. Some employers are uneasy about giving employees autonomy over their day.
That has led some organisations to install tracking tools on staff computers to monitor productivity. The result is that experienced employees don’t feel trusted.
This breeds resentment and damages mutual respect. It can also prompt key employees to do only the minimum required.
So, what should remote-first managers do differently?
Assess staff by output and impact, not by hours logged.
Essential elements of a remote-first culture
Having ruled out what remote-first culture shouldn’t be, what are the basics leaders must implement to make remote work succeed?
Communication standards
Purposeful communication about progress, performance and recognition is essential
Asynchronous work
A way of working that lets team members be productive and connected across time zones and at any hour.
Documentation
Every employee contributes to a documentation culture where key information is recorded, stored and shared with the whole team.
Connection
Channels for non-work chat help colleagues get to know one another better.
A closer look at asynchronous work Asynchronous work means team members don’t need to be online at the same time. Async working is vital for a high-performing remote team. It allows people to be productive with access to necessary resources whenever they sign on, supporting work-life balance and flexibility. Async practices are also a strong retention lever—staff value flexibility, trust and understanding. If you’re unsure whether async will suit your business, see the guide from Remote’s COO and CTO Marcelo Lebre.
How supportive remote-first management boosts retention
Cultural shift only happens when forward-looking managers adapt. For remote teams to thrive, remote-first culture needs supportive managers. What does that look like? Great remote-first managers treat teams with respect and trust while keeping them accountable. They don’t obsess over when people are online, provided essential meetings are attended and customer needs are met. They don’t care which hours people work, but they insist documentation is current and updates are shared publicly. They use 1:1s to connect, gather feedback and develop culture—not to run through to-do lists.
Remote-first isn’t about shirking responsibility. Remote staff often need to be even more accountable than office workers. Hire well and show trust from day one, and you’ll get excellent work delivered quickly.
Job van der Voort, CEO of Remote
Being a strong remote-first manager isn’t a checklist. It’s about saying “I trust you” and having that trust repaid when team members meet goals and provide clear public updates.
Effective employee retention strategies for every business
The workplace is evolving, so focusing on strong retention strategies is crucial. Whether your team is remote, on-site or hybrid, keeping talent is key to a healthy culture and high engagement.
The following retention ideas can help you achieve that.
1. Foster career development
Give employees clear career pathways and growth opportunities to improve retention. Mentoring and regular reviews also raise job satisfaction. Promote these during hiring to attract top candidates.
Opportunities for advancement increase satisfaction, especially when paired with recognition programmes. These build loyalty by showing staff they’re valued and have genuine prospects to progress.
2. Create meaningful work
Job satisfaction grows from meaningful tasks. Assign employees to projects that match their interests and align with company goals to improve retention. Learn about those interests during onboarding.
Seeing their work make a difference enhances the employee experience and helps build a more inclusive culture where people feel integral to company success.
3. Set realistic work expectations
Keeping workloads balanced is vital to morale and preventing burnout. Offer flexible options, set achievable goals, encourage holidays and provide the right tools to support a healthy work-life mix.
Respecting employees’ personal time improves happiness and job satisfaction. When expectations are reasonable, engagement and effectiveness increase, reducing unwanted turnover.
4. Cultivate a supportive team environment
Build a supportive team culture with team-building activities and open communication to boost morale and engagement.
A strong, inclusive culture increases loyalty and job satisfaction. When staff feel part of a cohesive team, they’re more likely to stay, reducing turnover.
5. Prioritize health and well-being
Support physical and mental health as part of your retention plan. Wellness initiatives and remote options show you care about staff wellbeing, helping them maintain life-work balance and lowering attrition.
In short, these retention strategies help create a positive culture and encourage people to stay.
Why remote-first management is so powerful
Employees today value flexibility above almost everything else. Remote’s Global Benefits Report found people want flexibility in their workday more than almost any other perk, including four-day weeks and retirement benefits.
What does that mean for managers of remote teams?
People want workplaces that fit around their lives, not the other way round. They still want to do great work, but they won’t put their lives on hold to do it.
Prioritise diversity, equity and inclusion to keep employees engaged
Employees increasingly seek diverse, equitable and inclusive employers. Remote-first organisations are well placed to accelerate better DEI practices.
How a more diverse and inclusive culture benefits retention rates
DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) is one of the strongest multipliers for retention. Embedding DEI into your culture yields:
How to develop a diverse, equitable and inclusive global workforce
Building a diverse, equitable and inclusive global workforce takes ongoing commitment.
Create a remote DEI committee to identify challenges and opportunities.
Ask your team for candid feedback on DEI performance.
Maintain a formal DEI policy and update it regularly with team input.
Embed DEI in hiring by using inclusive hiring practices.
Support inclusion of underrepresented groups, including women, ethnic minorities, LGBTQ, and neurodivergent employees
Want to be a globally inclusive employer? Watch our webinar: Building a globally inclusive recruitment strategy.
5 pillars to motivate and retain a high-performing remote team
Motivated, productive teams are happier to log on each day. Leaders must nurture the employee experience from hire to onboarding and beyond to sustain performance across a global team.
Intelligent recruitment
Start well by using value-led, remote-first recruitment practices.
Communicate clearly and transparently
Adapt interviews to candidates’ time zones
Share what a remote-first culture looks like for employees
These practices help you find candidates who share your values, fit the team and know what to expect when they join.
Seamless communication
Good communication and employee experience go together. To improve communication, follow our communication guidelines for remote teams:
Prevent notification burnout. Encourage staff to switch off notifications when they need focus.
Make updates transparent and searchable. Record meetings and progress, then store documents publicly so everyone can access them.
Establish communication norms. Make sure employees understand the best ways to communicate across your company’s platforms.
Never sacrifice 1-1s. Regular one-on-one meetings let you get to know staff and give them space to raise issues.
Comprehensive onboarding
Onboarding is a powerful lever for retaining remote workers.
Employee turnover can be as high as 50% within the first 18 months. To avoid this, the ideal remote onboarding program should include:
Engaging, self-serve resources
Assigned onboarding buddies
Introduction to company values and culture
Information on company communication norms
Expectations and goals for the first weeks at work
Regular manager check-ins
Clear progression opportunities and communicated career paths are the most effective way to boost retention (63%) — even more than pay rises!63%) — even above increasing salaries!
Smart meetings
Meetings can disrupt focus. Too many meetings reduce productivity and may add little value. Poorly run meetings also leave staff frustrated and bored.
So what can you do? Rethink meetings for a remote-first organisation. Try these tips:
Create an agenda, then cancel if it can be handled async
Set shorter time limits to keep discussions sharp
Rotate essential calls to respect different time zones
Allow non-essential attendees to leave meetings when not contributing
Schedule bonding and fun face time so work meetings stay brief and less frequent
Run remote meetings with these tips in mind, and they’ll become effective forums instead of drains on people’s time.
Supportive management
When you don’t see your team face to face, spotting signs of stress and burnout is harder. Managers of remote teams must be alert to burnout risks and work to prevent them.
That might include:
Keeping on top of employee workloads
Setting realistic deadlines
Making time for non-work team activities
Encouraging staff to take breaks and book leave
Model good life-work balance so staff don’t feel pressured to skip breaks
Support employees to prevent burnout; they’ll be more productive and likelier to stay longer.
How flexible work practices can help you retain top global talent
Employees prize flexibility, remote work, async hours and autonomy. With a remote-first approach you can offer those benefits while raising productivity, responsiveness and accountability.
Flexible working: a top priority for remote workers
Flexible working — the freedom to choose where, how and when you work — is a top priority for many employees.
Remote’s Global Benefits Report found flexible working matters to everyone, especially women and younger workers. Women often shoulder more domestic responsibilities, so flexibility helps them juggle roles. Younger people tend to be more mobile, so flexibility helps them build the lives they want while growing with your company.
Our Global Benefits Report emphasised flexible working’s importance for remote roles and distributed teams.
This data should shape your recruitment and compensation decisions.
Be proactive about keeping your top performers. Ask what they value most and make changes to boost retention and show you care.
Offering clearer promotion pathways, performance-based pay moves and more flexible work conditions is usually far cheaper and faster than losing key staff and recruiting replacements.
Flexible work is a top priority for 29% of employees
But flexibility isn’t just for a few people — it’s for everyone.
More flexible companies better weather downturns and seize opportunities. How can you offer the flexibility staff need? For many, flexible work can decide whether they accept or stay in a role. Overall, 29% of employees rate flexible work as a top consideration, with higher rates among subgroups: Contractors 38% (top priority); Gen Z 35% (third priority); Women 32% (fourth priority).
Offer the conditions top talent seeks
69% of employers believe they offer flexible working, but only 47% of staff say they receive it.
There’s a gap between the flexibility employers think they provide and what employees experience. Leaders may define flexibility differently, or senior leaders might have a different experience to the average employee. Whatever the cause, organisations that fail to offer the flexibility employees want risk higher turnover and disengagement.
Hidden retention benefits of offering autonomy
Autonomy and trust are key drivers of workplace happiness. How do you build a culture around them?
It starts with transparency, strong communication and meaningful support. That creates psychological safety so employees feel confident and can perform at their best.
How to improve your flexible working benefits
Flexible working shouldn’t undermine team cohesion or career progression. If remote staff get flexibility while others receive raises and promotions, they may feel penalised and leave.
By contrast, 45% of on-site staff view telecommuting as a top perk (almost as important as core benefits like health cover and paid leave). For global employers, the message is clear: satisfy flexible work needs and staff tend to be content with overall benefits.
So, how can your company be the destination for both flexibility and productivity?
Remote, for example, makes its entire company handbook publicly available.
Walk the walk
Leaders should be open about taking leave and adopting “nonlinear workdays” so staff feel comfortable doing the same.
Judge results and not hours
At performance reviews, grade employees on outcomes, not hours logged.
Lean into public channels and documentation
No one is exempt from documenting work, meetings and plans!
Set a minimum PTO instead of a maximum
Unlimited PTO can carry stigma; setting a minimum encourages people to take more leave and avoid burnout.
The cost-saving benefit of a flexible working offer
Beyond being a prized perk, flexible working can give you more latitude in setting global pay.
Remote workers value telecommuting as a top perk—almost as important as core cover like health insurance and paid leave. If their remote needs are met, they’re often more tolerant of the broader compensation package.
Rhiannon Payne, Remote Work Advocate
For many remote staff, remote work is the benefit they value most, so they’re less critical about other elements of an employer’s package.
Only 36% of remote employees name benefits and perks among their top considerations for a job. In contrast, 45% of on-site staff regard telecommuting as a top-tier perk (nearly as important as health cover and paid leave). In comparison, 45% of on-site employees see telecommuting as a top-tier essential perk (ranking almost as important as core benefits like health insurance and paid holidays).
The message for global employers is clear. If top talent are satisfied with flexible work, they’re generally content with the rest of the benefits package.
Hear experts discuss managing global benefits in Remote’s on-demand global benefits webinar.
You should be able to trust employees from day one. If you can’t, why hire them? Trust early and measure results rather than hours: that creates a great environment for most people while quickly exposing anyone abusing the freedom.
Job van der Voort, CEO of Remote
How to foster transparency and trust for remote and global teams
Remote teams perform best when everyone knows what’s happening. Transparency—before, during and after work—creates that cohesion.
Create clear project outlines and set expectations
If someone wants the latest on a project, they should be able to open public docs and see progress. Performance data should also be accessible.
Let employees design their workdays
Some people are night owls, some work best early. Others prefer short bursts of work. As long as people document and communicate, the system works.
Record, write and inform
Keep everyone across time zones informed by recording meetings and posting regular updates in public places like open Slack channels. Tag people and foster a culture where people read updates at their own pace rather than constantly watching screens.
Communicate in public forums
Make communication transparent, searchable and accessible. Instead of a DM, post in a public channel or Notion page and tag the person. That way anyone interested can see the information.
Use face time to build connections
Don’t spend valuable shared time on work that could be done async. Reserve 1:1s and team time for bonding, games and catching up. Keep the heavy lifting in documentation so people can collaborate without being online together.
Demonstrate respect
Respect time zones, preferred hours and remote work feedback. Stay open to iteration. Responsive leaders empower everyone to deliver their best while preserving life-work balance.
Start using these retention tactics to keep star performers
Holding on to remote talent today isn’t easy, but we hope this guide has given you practical next steps.
With this guide in hand, you now know:
Why remote staff retention matters
How to calculate your staff retention rate
What makes a remote employee want to stay at your company
Actionable tactics to improve retention for your remote workforce
The tips in this guide will help, but there’s always more to learn. If you’re hiring globally, you can contact Remote to make it easier to onboard, pay and manage your remote team. We can also help you prepare and structure competitive offers in new markets so your global pay plan stays effective and compliant.