Moments That Matter: Turning "likely to leave" employees into "likely to stay" employees

When an employee becomes disengaged and ready to leave your organization, it’s easy to feel like it’s too late to turn things around. Perhaps it’s better to part ways and move on to new opportunities, both for your organization and the employee in question. However, research from APQC shows that this commonly held belief does not hold true—at least not for the current workforce. 

In 2024, APQC carried out survey research with more than 600 workers to identify what motivates employees to perform their best work and whether they are currently receiving the things they find most important. Far from embodying stereotypes like quiet quitting, task masking, or fauxductivity, a large majority of our respondents—including those at higher risk of turnover—told us they are actually willing to go above and beyond in their job performance. 

What’s triggering these hard-working employees to want to leave, and what can employers do to keep them?

In this white paper, we compare the survey responses of employees who said it would take a lot for them to leave their current employer (likely to stay) to the survey responses of employees who said it would not take a lot for them to leave their current employer (likely to leave). Comparisons between these two groups point to six important “moments that matter” when it comes to employee retention. After giving an overview of each moment that matters, we provide guidance for how you can close the gaps and make employees more likely to stay.