Turnover Doesn’t Measure Engagement. Here’s What HR Should Track Instead

Let’s start with something a little uncomfortable but very honest. Turnover is not the problem most organizations think it is. It’s the result of something that’s been building for a while.

Turnover is like divorce. By the time it happens, no one is truly surprised. The paperwork might be new, but the issues are not. There were conversations that didn’t happen, moments that were brushed off, and signals that were easier to ignore than address. In the same way, when an employee resigns, the decision was rarely made suddenly. It was forming quietly, often long before HR ever got involved.

That’s why relying on turnover as a primary engagement metric is misleading. It tells you the relationship ended, but nothing about what went wrong while it was still intact. If we really want to understand engagement, we have to look earlier, when people are still showing up every day but starting to drift emotionally.

One of the clearest things to pay attention to is energy, not effort. Most employees will continue to do their jobs long after they’ve stopped feeling connected to the work. They meet deadlines, attend meetings, and respond to emails, but the curiosity fades. They stop asking questions. They stop offering ideas. They do exactly what’s required and nothing more, not out of laziness, but out of emotional exhaustion.

I worked at a company once where turnover was impressively low, and leadership pointed to that number as proof that everything was fine. But if you sat in on meetings, you felt it immediately. People weren’t disengaged on paper, but they were checked out in practice. Ideas were rare, discussions were thin, and no one challenged anything anymore. The relationship hadn’t ended, but it had gone quiet, and that silence said more than any exit interview ever could.

Another overlooked signal is how often employees raise small concerns. This sounds backward at first, but teams that speak up regularly are usually healthier than teams that stay silent. When people believe their input matters, they will mention the little things, a confusing process, an inefficient system, a policy that creates friction. When they stop speaking up, it’s often because they’ve learned it’s safer or easier not to.

By the time an employee leaves, they are rarely angry. More often, they are resolved. The absence of complaints is not peace; sometimes it’s surrender. Measuring how frequently people raise concerns, and how leadership responds to them, tells you far more about engagement than tracking who eventually walks out the door.

Internal movement is another area that deserves more attention. Engagement is closely tied to whether employees can picture a future for themselves in the organization. Who is applying for internal roles? Who is being encouraged to stretch into new responsibilities? Who feels stuck in place?

I’ve seen strong performers disengage not because they disliked their work, but because they couldn’t see where it was leading. They weren’t trying to leave the company; they were trying to escape stagnation. When growth opportunities dry up, engagement often follows, quietly at first, then all at once.

Manager behavior is another critical piece that doesn’t show up in turnover data. Not performance ratings or annual reviews, but day-to-day consistency. Do managers hold regular one-on-ones or only check in when something goes wrong? Do employees understand what success looks like, or are expectations constantly shifting?

Most disengagement doesn’t come from one bad moment. It comes from patterns. From unpredictability. From feeling unseen. By the time someone resigns, the damage has usually been done over months, sometimes years.

Finally, pay attention to how people talk about work when they don’t have to. Listen to the language they use in meetings, in chat messages, or in passing conversations. Do they say “we” or “they”? Do they talk about their work with pride or with emotional distance? Language is often the first place disengagement shows up because it reveals how connected someone still feels.

Here’s the reality many organizations avoid. If turnover is the only engagement metric you’re watching, you’re already behind. Just like divorce, the decision was made long before the formal exit.

Real engagement lives in the in-between moments. In energy levels, not output alone. In whether people still feel safe telling the truth. In whether they believe growth is possible and their voice matters. HR’s real work isn’t counting who leaves; it’s noticing who is quietly pulling away while they’re still sitting right in front of us.

If we get that part right, turnover becomes less of a mystery and more of a rare, thoughtful decision rather than an inevitable ending.