Employee Engagement & Retention Strategy

PEOPLE & TALENT STRATEGY

Evidence-based engagement and retention strategy grounded in doctoral research on employee engagement. We help organizations move past assumptions and anecdotes to understand — with real data — why people stay, why they leave, and what to do about it.

You’re losing people and you’re not sure why

Your turnover is higher than it should be but nobody can pinpoint the cause. Exit interviews produce polite answers, not honest ones. Engagement survey scores are flat or declining and your leadership team argues about what they mean. Meanwhile, the people you can least afford to lose are quietly exploring other options — not because of money, but because of something you can’t see yet. The cost of each departure is 50–200% of that person’s salary in lost productivity, recruiting, onboarding, and institutional knowledge. You can’t afford to guess at this.

Who This Is For

Companies experiencing higher-than-expected turnover without understanding the real drivers
Organizations where engagement survey scores are declining or stagnant — and nobody knows what to do with the data
Leadership teams that suspect culture issues but lack evidence to act on or build a business case around
Companies that have never conducted a formal engagement assessment and are relying on instinct
HR leaders who need an evidence-based business case for retention investments — not just anecdotes
PE portfolio companies where retention is directly tied to value creation and exit multiples

Why This Approach Is Different

Most engagement work starts and ends with a survey. You get a score, maybe a benchmark, and a list of things employees are unhappy about. Then what?

Our approach is built on doctoral research in employee engagement — the actual science of what drives people to invest discretionary effort, stay with an organization, and perform at their best. We don’t just measure engagement. We diagnose the specific conditions driving it in your organization and build a strategy to change them.

That means going beyond survey scores to include stay interviews, focus groups, turnover pattern analysis, and culture assessment — so you get the full picture, not just a number.

Packages

Engagement Diagnostic — $12,000–$20,000

A focused assessment of your organization’s engagement landscape. Best for companies that know something is off but need data to understand what’s driving it — and where to invest first.

What you get: Engagement survey strategy and custom question design tailored to your organization (not a generic template), survey vendor recommendation and platform guidance so your team can deploy through your own survey tool, results analysis with segmentation and benchmarking, focus groups or stay interviews to add qualitative depth to the quantitative data, findings report with prioritized action plan, and a 90-minute executive presentation of findings and recommendations. Base pricing is for organizations under 150 employees — adjusted for larger organizations based on complexity.

Timeline: 4–6 weeks from survey launch to final report.

Note: Survey deployment is administered through your organization’s own survey platform (such as Qualtrics, SurveyMonkey, or your HRIS survey module). We recommend the right platform for your needs, design the survey content and analysis framework, and analyze the results — your team handles distribution and collection through your own account, so you own the data and retain the platform for future pulse surveys.

Retention Strategy Project — $20,000–$35,000

A comprehensive engagement and retention strategy with a 12-month implementation roadmap. Best for organizations where turnover has reached a level that’s impacting operations, client delivery, or growth plans — and leadership is ready to invest in systemic solutions.

What you get: Everything in the Engagement Diagnostic, plus: full retention risk analysis identifying which roles and populations are most at risk and why, turnover cost modeling so leadership sees the financial impact in real numbers, exit interview process redesign (most exit interviews are ineffective — we fix that), culture assessment examining the gap between stated values and lived experience, strategic retention plan with a prioritized 12-month roadmap, and quarterly check-in calls during implementation to track progress and adjust. Base pricing is for organizations under 150 employees — adjusted for larger organizations based on scope and complexity.

Timeline: 6–8 weeks for the assessment and strategy development, then 12-month implementation support.

What We Assess

Engagement and retention are driven by multiple overlapping factors. We assess across all of them to find the real drivers — not just the loudest complaints:

Manager effectiveness: The single largest driver of engagement. Are managers developing people or driving them out?
Role clarity and workload: Do people know what’s expected of them? Is the workload sustainable?
Growth and development: Do people see a future here? Are they learning and progressing?

Recognition and feedback: Do people feel seen for their contributions? Is feedback regular and useful?
Culture and trust: What’s the gap between stated values and lived experience? Do people trust leadership?
Compensation and total rewards: Is pay competitive? Do benefits align with what people actually value?

How It Works

Discovery Call

A free 30-minute conversation to understand what you’re seeing — turnover patterns, engagement data you already have, culture concerns, and what’s prompted the urgency. We’ll recommend the right package and scope.

Survey Strategy & Design

We design a custom engagement survey for your organization — not a generic vendor template. We tailor questions to your industry, company stage, and the specific hypotheses we’re testing. We also recommend the right survey platform for your needs and help you set up the deployment so your team can administer it through your own account. You own the platform, the data, and the ability to run future pulse surveys independently.

Qualitative Deep Dive

Survey data tells you what. Focus groups and stay interviews tell you why. We conduct facilitated conversations with representative employee groups to add context, nuance, and the stories behind the numbers. These sessions are conducted by us — not your managers — to ensure candor.

Analysis, Findings & Roadmap

We analyze the combined quantitative and qualitative data, identify the primary engagement and retention drivers specific to your organization, and deliver a findings report with a prioritized action plan and 90-minute executive presentation. For Retention Strategy Projects, this includes a 12-month roadmap with quarterly milestones and ongoing implementation support.

Frequently Combined With

Engagement and retention work often surfaces needs in adjacent areas:

Team Development Programs — When the data reveals that manager effectiveness is the primary driver of disengagement. Developing your leadership team’s skills directly improves the engagement numbers.
Talent Management Consulting — When retention risk is concentrated in high-potential and high-performing populations and you need a targeted retention strategy tied to succession planning.
Compensation Philosophy & Benchmarking — When compensation emerges as a significant driver and you need market data and a structured approach to address it.
Fractional CPO & HR Advisory — When engagement and retention is one of several people-strategy priorities that require ongoing strategic leadership to implement.

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Common Questions

We already run an engagement survey through our HRIS. Why do we need this?

Most built-in HRIS surveys are generic, brief, and produce benchmark scores without actionable insight. They tell you engagement is 72% — but not why, or what to do about it. Our approach starts with custom survey design specific to your organization — we build the questions, analysis framework, and segmentation strategy, then your team deploys through your existing platform or one we recommend. The difference is what happens with the data: we combine it with qualitative methods (focus groups, stay interviews) that reveal the story behind the numbers. The deliverable isn’t a score — it’s a strategy.

Will employees actually be honest?

They will if you handle it right — and that’s part of what we design for. Using an external firm increases candor because employees trust that their individual responses won’t be identifiable. We structure confidentiality protocols, communicate them clearly, and design the process so people feel safe telling the truth. Focus groups and stay interviews are conducted by us, not your managers, for the same reason.

What if the data tells us things leadership doesn’t want to hear?

That’s usually the most valuable data. We present findings directly and constructively — not as an indictment, but as a diagnosis. If manager effectiveness is the primary driver, we’ll say so, and we’ll provide a development path to address it. The goal is to give leadership the clarity to act, not to make anyone comfortable.

How is this different from hiring a survey vendor?

Survey vendors sell a platform and generic benchmarks. We provide the strategy that makes survey data actionable. We design the right questions for your specific organization, recommend the best survey platform for your needs, and — once your team deploys and collects responses — we do the deep analytical work that a platform can’t: segmentation analysis, qualitative research through focus groups and stay interviews, root cause identification, and a prioritized action plan built around your organization’s specific drivers. The survey is one data source within a broader diagnostic. The deliverable isn’t a dashboard — it’s a prioritized strategy with clear next steps.