Guide to employee retention: how to keep your best talent
No business can expand if the people who drive that growth don’t remain with you
In this guide, we’ll share hands-on recommendations and tactical perspective, tailored to help business leaders deliver measurable, long-lasting improvements to employee retention. Our aim is to provide pragmatic guidance so you can not only hold on to your top performers but also keep them motivated and productive for years to come. We’ll explore how to cultivate a resilient and compassionate remote work culture and the locally relevant benefits that deter talent poaching. We’ll also set out the guiding principles behind successful, sustainable remote teams:
- Flexible and asynchronous work
- Communication and documentation
- Connection and belonging
Why does retention rate matter?
Keeping people — and putting in place systems to measure and support that retention — is essential if you want your organisation to flourish. In the age of remote work, many firms struggle to define what sets them apart, and therefore what makes them the preferred employer for current and prospective staff.
Employee turnover has risen 8.7% since 2019.
By sustaining a strong retention rate, you will benefit from:
And, ultimately, a substantial uplift to your bottom line. Building an organisation with excellent retention means creating a business that can withstand challenges and prosper across economic cycles. When talented people want to remain with you, your possibilities are limitless.
Increased productivity
Better customer experiences
Reduced recruitment and onboarding costs
Improved team morale
Positive word-of-mouth about working at your company
Frequently asked questions
How do you calculate your retention rate?
Before you can act to raise retention, you must first know what your current retention rate is.
To calculate your retention rate, choose the time window you want to evaluate — for example, the past year or the past quarter. Then gather two figures:
The number of employees at the start of the period
The number of employees at the end of the period (excluding any new hires)
Next, apply the following formula to determine your staff retention rate:
So, for illustration: if you began the quarter with 162 employees and finished with 170 employees, 20 of whom were new hires, your calculation would be:
((170-20) ÷ 162) × 100 = 92.56%
You must exclude any new headcount so you don’t inadvertently overstate retention. For instance, if you have 100 employees and add five new hires with no departures in three months, an unadjusted figure would show 105%. Subtracting new hires produces a truer measurement.
When analysing longer spans, some people may join and leave within that timeframe. In such cases, calculate a separate new-hire retention figure, using the number of new hires and how many of them remain. So, if you onboard 20 people in three months and one departs, the new-hire calculation would be:
((20-1) ÷ 20) × 100 = 95%
Typically, retention rates above 90% are considered healthy. For new hires, you would expect that figure to be 95% or higher, since new employees are less likely to leave within a few months.
The roles with the highest turnover are Product (36.4%), Information Technology (36%), and Engineering (35.2%).
Employee retention tactic:
Try measuring retention separately for in-office and remote teams. If you detect a gap, it may indicate remote staff feel less supported than their office-based counterparts.
Why does top talent choose to leave?
Bear in mind that turnover varies by industry: retail, tech and media, professional services, entertainment, and accommodation have lower-than-average employee retention rates. If your company operates in these sectors, your realistic retention benchmark might be below the global norm.
If your retention rate isn’t at the level you expect, you may be asking why employees decide to move on.
McKinsey’s 2022 Great Attrition, Great Attraction Survey 2.0 offers useful insight. According to that survey, employees most often cite the following reasons for leaving:
Lack of career development and advancement
Insufficient total compensation
Leaders who appear uncaring or uninspiring
A lack of meaningful work
Unrealistic or unsustainable work expectations
Unreliable or unsupportive colleagues
Lack of workplace flexibility
Insufficient health and wellbeing supportA non-inclusive and unwelcoming community
Addressing these issues inside your organisation is vital if you want to benefit from strong remote retention. With these causes in mind, let’s review the best approaches to improving retention in your business.
The role of equitable global compensation in staff retention
Employees remain with organisations when they feel respected and treated fairly. Both evidence and common sense indicate that fair pay is one of the most direct ways to begin addressing retention.
Why is equitable compensation so important?
When staff perceive their pay as fair relative to their skills and compared to peers, they are generally more content and motivated.
Equitable compensation is a foundational pillar for retention. A transparent compensation philosophy builds trust and confidence among employees, motivating them to perform well and remain with the company.
Paying your people appropriately is essential, but making those calculations can be complex. To ensure you’re on the right track, see our guide to remote worker compensation.
Remote & Async Work
Designing an equitable compensation package for your employees
When defining a fair compensation package, you should look beyond skill and seniority. For teams spread across countries, many factors come into play. Consider the following on a country-by-country basis:
Mandatory employer-provided benefits
Cost of living (and implications for salary expectations)
Compulsory salary deductions
Local expectations around pay and benefits
By accounting for the above, you can create a total rewards policy — a compensation framework with fairness and value at its core. Your total rewards policy incorporates bonuses, benefits, and other incentives offered to employees.
Remember that equitable compensation is a potent tool.
Modern professionals expect to contribute to their company’s success and see tangible returns. Leading compensation strategies look ahead and link employee success to company success. Bob has observed that compensation must extend beyond a market-rate salary to deliver competitive advantage. A progressive pay approach comprises six elements — salary, bonuses, pension, equity, and importantly, “professional” and “lifestyle” benefits. Crafting the right compensation mix is complex, so it is wise to use modern HR tech to measure the effect of chosen strategies on candidates, staff, and leadership.
Annie Rosencrans, U.S. People & Culture Director @ HiBob
When your compensation strategy aligns with employee needs, you will motivate staff and encourage long-term engagement with your organisation.
How to build a benefits program that retains top global talent
Companies that permit remote work tend to have lower turnover than those that require office-only attendance. Remote’s research indicates this gap was projected to widen to 4.4% in 2023.
If your goal is to attract and keep a global workforce, you must provide a locally tailored, globally competitive benefits plan.
While it’s tempting to adopt a ‘one-size-fits-all’ benefits package, offering identical benefits worldwide rarely meets local needs. Benefits design should reflect local requirements and cultural nuances. Doing so not only helps attract talent but is crucial for retaining it.
Joana Viana, Senior Global Benefits Design & Strategy Expert
To tailor benefits packages and remain competitive with local employers who understand the workforce, you need deep local insight.
Let’s consider an example:
In the UK
Providing a medical plan with maternity cover in the UK is unlikely to stand out because employees already have access to free healthcare, including maternity services, via the National Health Service (NHS).
In Singapore
Offering a medical plan that includes maternity cover in Singapore, by contrast, is much more likely to influence an employee’s perception of the employer. In Singapore, maternity care can cost thousands of dollars, so prospective parents appreciate having this protection as part of their benefits.
Local insight is invaluable for benefits design, but collecting it yourself can be time-consuming. That’s why we created the Global Benefits Report. This resource helps businesses compare preferred benefits across countries and regions quickly and easily.
Need extra support with your global benefits approach?
At Remote, we provide companies with access to local benefits specialists, so you know which benefits are legally required and which are optional. We also supply curated benefits plans for every country, saving organisations the time and expense of researching everything themselves.
"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 rapidly expand our presence in Mexico without handling incorporation, payroll, and benefits administration ourselves. Remote enabled us to do just that."
Greg Kefer, CMO @ Lifelink Systems
Create a remote-first culture to manage global teams well
Remote-first companies aren’t only for remote workers. It may seem counterintuitive, but adopting remote-first practices fosters a fairer work experience for everyone, wherever they are based. Emphasising documentation, asynchronous work practices, and a results-oriented culture benefits all employees. Here’s how to establish 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. Employees at headquarters and those who have never visited the office should have an equivalent working experience with your company.
Remote-first culture | In a genuine remote-first culture, every part of the employee experience — from managerial support to team bonding, progression opportunities, and the tools used — is accessible to all team members regardless of location. |
Building culture is not only about social activities; it’s also about how work is organised. We’ve assembled a guide to help you build a robust and caring remote culture. What needs to change to go remote-first?
Many leaders find shifting from office-based operations to a remote-first model challenging. Attempting to recreate the office experience remotely will only yield partial success.
Not everyone can drop by a colleague’s desk for updates or chat on the way out to the car park. Missing those everyday interactions can leave remote staff feeling isolated, overburdened, and ineffective. New remote managers can compound the issue through common — and avoidable — mistakes:
Common remote leadership mistakes to avoid
If you fail to communicate frequently and in public, employees may feel detached from broader goals.
If you disregard employees’ downtime and ask things of people who are off the clock, team members risk burnout.
If you don’t model a healthy life-work balance, employees may feel pressured to work excessive hours and suffer as a result.
If you micromanage through frequent check-ins or time trackers to reassure yourself, you will push away high performers.
If you misuse communication tools — for example, sending DMs instead of posting in public channels — messages will become fragmented and people will feel excluded.
Making these errors undermines the employee experience and can weaken your retention initiatives.
Regular employee surveys and exit interviews help leadership assess — and where needed, improve — overall job satisfaction. This, in turn, reduces turnover.
The problem with micromanagement
Micromanagement is common in remote settings. Many employers feel uneasy granting autonomy over the workday.
As a result, some organisations install monitoring tools on staff devices to track productivity. The consequence is that experienced employees feel mistrusted.
This can foster resentment and erode mutual respect. It may also lead key employees to do just the minimum required.
So, what should remote-first managers do differently?
Assess employees by their productivity and outcomes, not by hours logged.
Essential elements of a remote-first culture
Having established what a remote-first culture should not be, what core elements must leaders introduce to make remote working succeed?
Communication
Deliberate communication about progress, performance, and recognition is indispensable
Asynchronous work
A way of working that enables team members to be productive and connected across time zones and at varying times of day.
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: a practice that does not require team members to be online simultaneously. Async working is vital for high-performing remote teams. It allows staff to be productive — with access to all necessary resources — regardless of when they sign in. This supports work-life balance and the advantages of flexible schedules. Async work is also a strong retention lever: employees value flexibility, trust, and understanding. A culture built on asynchronous principles signals your organisation’s commitment to these values and can help improve retention. Unsure whether async is right for your business? Learn more in this guide to async work from Remote COO and CTO Marcelo Lebre.
How supportive remote-first management increases retention
Cultural shift requires progressive managers ready to embrace a new normal. For remote teams to excel, remote-first culture needs managers who practise supportive remote-first leadership. What does such management look like? Effective remote-first managers treat their teams with respect and trust while upholding accountability. They do not focus on when staff are online, provided people attend required meetings and serve customers’ needs. They are indifferent to specific working hours but insist on up-to-date documentation and routine public updates within the right groups. They use 1:1s to connect, gather feedback, and nurture culture rather than merely run through task lists.
Remote-first organisations are not about removing accountability. If anything, remote workers must often take greater responsibility than office-based colleagues. Hire excellent people and trust them from day one; they will repay that trust through outstanding work delivered quickly.
Job van der Voort, CEO of Remote
Being an outstanding remote-first manager is less about fixed rules and more about saying, “I trust you,” and having that trust validated when team members meet goals and post clear public updates.
Practical employee retention strategies for every organisation
The modern workplace is evolving, so prioritising robust retention strategies is essential. Whether your workforce is remote, office-based, or hybrid, retaining talent is key to a healthy culture and high engagement.
The following retention recommendations can help you achieve that.
1. Foster career development
Providing employees with clear career paths and opportunities for growth is crucial to retaining them. Mentorship programmes and regular performance reviews significantly increase job satisfaction. Highlight these aspects during hiring to attract top talent more easily.
Opportunities for advancement, coupled with recognition programmes, strengthen loyalty by demonstrating that employees are valued and have real prospects within the company.
2. Create meaningful work
Employee satisfaction grows from meaningful assignments. Involving staff in projects aligned with their interests and the company’s goals increases the likelihood they will stay long-term. You can begin discovering those interests as early as onboarding.
When employees see their contributions matter, it not only enhances their experience but also helps create a more inclusive workplace where people feel integral to the company’s success.
3. Set realistic work expectations
Balancing workloads is essential to maintain morale and prevent burnout. Offer flexible working options, set achievable goals, and encourage use of leave. Providing appropriate resources supports a healthy work-life balance.
Respecting employees’ personal lives improves overall wellbeing and job satisfaction. Fair expectations lead to greater engagement and better retention, reducing unwanted turnover.
4. Cultivate a supportive team environment
By fostering a supportive atmosphere with team-building activities and open dialogue, you strengthen culture, morale, and engagement.
Such an environment not only reinforces company culture but also increases loyalty and satisfaction. Employees who feel included and valued are more likely to remain, lowering turnover and creating a united team.
5. Prioritise health and wellbeing
Supporting employees’ physical and mental health should be central to retention efforts. Wellness initiatives and remote working options demonstrate genuine care for staff wellbeing, helping them balance work and life, stay motivated, and reduce turnover.
In short, these retention strategies are vital for building a positive culture and keeping employees with you.
Why remote-first management is so effective
Today’s employees place the highest value on flexibility. In Remote’s Global Benefits Report, we found that workers worldwide rank flexibility above other perks, even above four-day workweeks and retirement plans.
What does this mean for managers of remote teams?
Employees now seek workplaces where their job fits into their life, not where life is subordinated to work. They want to do excellent work for great companies but are unwilling to pause their personal lives to do so.
Prioritise diversity, equity, and inclusion to keep employees engaged
Employees increasingly desire to work in diverse, equitable, and inclusive organisations. Remote-first models are well placed to accelerate improved DEI practices.
How a more diverse and inclusive culture supports retention
DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) is a powerful multiplier for retention. Integrating DEI into your culture yields:
How to build a diverse, equitable, and inclusive global workforce
Creating a diverse, equitable, and inclusive global workforce requires ongoing commitment and concrete action.
Set up a remote DEI committee to help identify your challenges and opportunities.
Gather candid feedback on your DEI performance from your team.
Draft a formal DEI policy and update it regularly with input from team members.
Embed DEI in your hiring process 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? Get up to speed with our webinar: Building a globally inclusive recruitment strategy.
Five pillars to motivate and retain a high-performing remote team
When a team feels motivated and productive, they are happier to sign in each day. Leaders must nurture the employee experience from recruitment through onboarding and beyond to maintain motivation and performance across global teams.
Intelligent recruitment
Start well by using values-driven, remote-first recruitment practices.
Communicate clearly and transparently
Adapt interviews to accommodate candidate time zones
Provide insights into what a remote-first culture is like for new hires
These practices help you attract talented candidates who share your values, fit with the team, and understand what to expect as a member of your workplace.
Seamless communication
Strong communication and employee experience go together. To enhance communication, follow our communication guidelines for remote teams:
Prevent notification burnout. Encourage employees to mute notifications when they need focused time.
Make updates transparent and searchable. Document important meetings and progress reports, then store them publicly so all employees can access them.
Establish communication norms. Ensure employees understand best practices for every communication tool your company uses.
Never sacrifice 1-1s. Get to know employees and provide a forum for issues by scheduling regular one-on-one meetings.
Comprehensive onboarding
Onboarding is a key lever for retaining remote workers.
Employee turnover can be as high as 50% in the first 18 months of employment. To avoid this, the ideal remote onboarding program includes:
Engaging, self-serve resources
Assigned onboarding buddies
Introduction to company values and culture
Information on company communication norms
Clear expectations and targets for the first weeks of work
Regular manager check-ins
Opportunities for progression and clearly communicated career paths are the most effective way to improve retention (63%) — even more so than salary increases!
Smart meetings
Meetings can be disruptive. Excessive meetings reduce productivity and often add little value. Poorly run meetings leave employees frustrated and disengaged.
What can you do? Consider rethinking meetings for a remote-first organisation. Our recommendations:
Prepare an agenda, then cancel the meeting if the issue can be handled async
Set shorter time limits to keep sessions focused and efficient
Rotate essential calls to accommodate different time zones
Allow non-contributors to leave meetings when appropriate
Schedule bonding and social time so work meetings can be shorter and less frequent
Run remote meetings with these tips, and meetings will become effective communication forums rather than drains on employees’ time.
Supportive management
When you lack face-to-face interaction, spotting signs of stress and burnout is harder. Managers of remote teams must be vigilant about burnout and proactive in preventing it.
That might include:
Monitoring employee workloads
Setting realistic deadlines
Allocating time for non-work team activities
Encouraging staff to take breaks and schedule vacations
Model good life-work balance so employees feel comfortable taking breaks
Support employees to prevent burnout; they will be more productive and more likely to stay longer with your company.
How flexible work practices help retain top global talent
Employees value flexibility, remote options, asynchronous hours, and autonomy. A remote-first approach lets you offer these benefits while improving productivity, customer 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 key consideration for many employees.
Remote’s Global Benefits Report found flexible working important for all employees, and especially for women and younger workers. Women often carry more domestic responsibilities, making flexibility invaluable. Young people are more mobile, and flexibility helps them shape the lives they want while growing with your organisation.
Our Global Benefits Report highlights the importance of flexible conditions for those in remote and distributed teams.
This data should inform both your recruitment and compensation strategies.
Be proactive to stop top performers from looking elsewhere. Discover what your high performers value most and make internal changes to boost retention and show care and commitment to your team.
Offering clearer promotion pathways, performance-based pay increases, and greater flexibility is usually less costly and time-consuming than losing key people and hiring replacements.
Flexible work is a top priority for 29% of employees
But flexibility isn’t only for a minority: it benefits everyone.
Companies that offer flexibility adapt better to crises and seize new opportunities. How can you provide the flexibility employees require? For many, the chance to work flexibly can determine where they choose to work and whether they stay. Overall, flexible work is a top consideration for 29% of employees, with higher importance among specific groups: Contractors 38% (their #1 consideration); Gen Z 35% (their #3); Women 32% (their #4).
Offer the working conditions top talent seeks
69% of employers believe they provide flexible working, yet only 47% of employees say they receive it.
There is a disconnect between the flexibility employers think they offer and what employees actually experience. This may stem from differences in definitions of flexibility or from leaders having a different day-to-day experience than typical employees. Employers who don’t meet employees’ expectations risk higher turnover and disillusionment among staff whose flexible arrangements go unrecognised.
Hidden retention benefits of granting autonomy
Autonomy and trust are major drivers of happiness at work. How do you embed a culture of autonomy and trust?
It relies on transparency, effective communication, and meaningful support. Such a culture builds psychological safety, so employees feel secure and able to perform their best.
How to enhance your flexible working benefits
Flexible work should not come at the expense of team cohesion or career progression. If remote workers enjoy flexibility while others receive raises and promotions, remote staff may feel penalised for choosing flexibility and seek other employers.
By contrast, 45% of on-site employees regard telecommuting as a top-tier benefit (nearly as important as core benefits like health insurance and paid holidays). The implication for global employers is clear: when top talent is satisfied with an employer’s flexible conditions, they tend to be content with the overall benefits package.
So, how can your company become a destination for both flexibility and productivity?
Remote, for example, publishes its entire company handbook publicly.
Lead by example
Leaders should openly take PTO and embrace “nonlinear workdays” so employees feel encouraged to do likewise.
Judge results, not hours
At review time, evaluate employees based on outcomes, not hours spent online.
Document publicly and use public channels
No one is above documenting work, meetings, and plans!
Set minimum paid time off rather than unlimited maximums
Unlimited PTO can create ambiguity; setting a minimum encourages people to take time off and avoid burnout.
The cost-saving value of offering flexible work
Beyond being a top perk, flexible working can also give you more levers for shaping global compensation.
Remote workers often rate telecommuting as a top-tier benefit — nearly as important as core benefits like health insurance and paid holidays. As long as their need for remote work is met, they usually feel satisfied with the rest of the package.
Rhiannon Payne, Remote Work Advocate
For many remote employees, the ability to work remotely is their top perk, making them less critical of other elements of the employer’s compensation package.
Only 36% of remote employees list benefits and perks among their most important considerations when evaluating a job. By comparison, 45% of on-site employees view telecommuting as a top-tier perk (almost as important as core benefits like health insurance and paid holidays). 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 implication for global employers is clear. When top talent is satisfied with flexible working, they are usually content with their overall benefits and perks package.
Hear experts discuss managing a global benefits plan by watching Remote’s on-demand global benefits webinar.
Hire with trust from day one. If you cannot trust new hires immediately, why hire them? Trust early and measure outcomes rather than hours to create an excellent environment for the vast majority of hires, while quickly identifying anyone who abuses that freedom.
Job van der Voort, CEO of Remote
How to build transparency and trust across remote and global teams
Remote teams perform best when everyone knows what’s happening. Transparency before, during, and after work is the best way to create that cohesion.
Provide clear project outlines and set expectations
Anyone seeking the latest on a project should be able to consult public documentation. If performance metrics exist, those should be accessible too.
Let employees design their workdays
Some people are night owls, others early risers. Some work in bursts throughout the day. As long as everyone documents and communicates, work will proceed smoothly.
Record, write, and keep people informed
Ensure all time zones stay updated by recording meetings and writing regular public updates in places like open Slack channels. Tag people often and cultivate a culture where staff read notifications when convenient rather than staying constantly online.
Communicate in public forums
Make communication transparent, searchable, and accessible. Instead of DMs, post in a public Slack channel or Notion page and tag the person you need. This lets anyone who wants to follow the project access the information easily.
Use face time to build connections
Reserve valuable together-time for bonding rather than tasks you can handle async. Use 1:1s and team sessions for sharing challenges, feedback, and social interaction. Save complex collaborative work for documentation so people can contribute without being online simultaneously.
Show respect
Respect time zones, preferred working hours, and remote feedback. Remain open to continuous improvement. Responsive leaders empower all team members to deliver their best while maintaining a healthy life-work balance.
Begin applying these retention tactics to keep top performers
Retaining remote talent today has challenges, but we hope this guide has given you plenty of actionable ideas.
With this guide in hand, you now understand:
Why retaining remote staff matters
How to calculate your staff retention rate
What makes a remote employee want to stay with your company
Actionable tactics to boost retention for your remote workforce
The tips in this guide will help, but there is always more to learn! If you’re hiring globally, you can always contact Remote to simplify onboarding, payroll, and management of your remote workforce. We can also assist in preparing competitive offers in new locations so your global compensation strategy remains effective and compliant.