10 minutes
A retention review you can run Review one team for the things that make people stay, and change one of them.
What you’ll be able to do Complete a retention review of one team and produce one change with a named owner and a review point. Compare the responses to this question and explain your choice: Where do you start? Draft Retention review for your work, including schedule and reachability, judgment and hard events, exits and path. Things a supervisor can change Retention strategies tend to be written at the organizational level and address pay, which is right and slow. The retention review is written at the team level and addresses what a supervisor can change this month. It is short, it is honest, and its measure is one thing changed.
The six questions Schedule: how often do shifts change with less than a week's notice? How often is someone called in on a day off?
Reachability: can a worker reach a supervisor when something goes wrong, including nights and weekends? How long does it take?
Judgment: when was a worker's view of a person they support last asked for in planning, and used?
Hard events: after an assault, an injury, a death or a serious incident, what happens for the worker, and how soon?
Exits: does anyone ask people why they leave, and has anything changed as a result in the last year?
Path: is there any way to grow in the role without leaving it?
Retention review One page that answers the six questions for one team and names one change.
Schedule and reachability Honest answers; frequency
Judgment and hard events Last time asked; what happens after
Exits and path Who asks; what changed; what growth exists
Most urgent; widest-reaching One of each
One change, one owner, one date This month
Run it on your team and change one thing.
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Download this published draft Change one thing and keep it What you can change You control whether the review becomes a strategy document or a change. A single item changed and sustained is the retention measure workers notice.
What to watch for Do not let the review produce a list of everything wrong that nobody acts on. Workers have seen those lists before.
Your next step Run the review this month and change the one item you can keep.
What workers say makes them stay "My supervisor answers."
Reachability, especially when something has gone wrong. The single most cited reason in the research on direct support retention.
"They asked what I thought."
Judgment valued. Workers whose knowledge of the person is used in planning stay longer.
"I know my schedule."
Predictability. A worker who can plan their life stays; one who cannot leaves for a job where they can.
"Someone talked to me after."
Support following a hard event. Its absence is among the most common reasons for leaving soon after an incident.
Carry this forward The review asks about schedule predictability, supervision reachability, whether judgment is asked for and used, support after hard events, whether exits are asked about, and whether there is any path forward.
Most teams fail on two or three of these, and any one of them changed affects whether the next person stays.
One change made and kept is worth more than a retention strategy nobody implements.
A list of the review's questions, an artifact, a scenario decision and a knowledge check.
Run the review on your team this month and change one thing.
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