Why early attrition in tech is more about career momentum than culture

"When I surveyed 205 tech professionals globally and trained a machine learning model to predict early attrition, promotions came out as the single strongest signal in the dataset. But socialisation? It barely registered. And the factors that did matter alongside promotions pointed somewhere I hadn't fully anticipated. Early attrition in tech isn't primarily a culture problem. It's a career momentum problem."

"I was half right. When I went into this research, I believed two things were doing most of the damage: whether someone was getting promoted, and how often they were socialising with their immediate team outside of work. The first felt obvious. The second felt like the kind of human factor the industry consistently underweights. The results showed promotions mattered most, while socialisation barely registered."

"The technology industry has one of the highest attrition rates of any sector. Median tenure at many tech companies sits at around one year, regardless of company size. This isn't a post-pandemic hangover or a hot job market anomaly. It's been the structural baseline for as long as the industry has existed, and the industry has never really solved it."

"Replacing an employee can run up to 2.5 times their salary once you factor in recruiting, onboarding, lost productivity and the institutional knowledge that walks out the door with them. Research suggests that a single employee departure can create significant downstream costs for teams and organizations."

A People Analytics study of 205 tech professionals used a machine learning model to predict early attrition. Promotions were the strongest signal associated with retention. Socialization with immediate teams outside of work had little measurable impact on early attrition. Other factors that mattered alongside promotions pointed to career momentum rather than culture. The technology industry shows consistently high attrition rates, with median tenure often around one year across company sizes. The industry has not fully solved this structural baseline. Employee replacement can cost up to 2.5 times salary when including recruiting, onboarding, lost productivity, and lost institutional knowledge.

Read at TNW | Future-Of-Work