Find Out Which Departures Cost the Firm Most, and Why
Not every exit hurts equally. The expensive ones in a professional firm are the newly qualified associate who has just become useful and the manager who holds the client relationship. We help you define attrition, measure it by level, practice and manager, separate the exits that mattered from those that did not, hold exit and stay conversations, and name the people the firm cannot afford to lose. You choose the actions; we give you the picture to choose from.
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Share your requirementsThe starting point
Do You Know Who Is Leaving, and When It Hurts?
A firm may feel it loses people, without being able to say which levels, which practices or which managers account for it. Exit conversations happen too late and are polite. Partners hear of a departure when the notice letter is on the desk, and the client hears at about the same time.
We help you see where exits come from and which of them were avoidable.
You may be experiencing:
- A pattern of exits soon after professional qualification, when the person is at last valuable to the firm.
- One practice or manager with repeated departures and no analysis to show it.
- Managers leaving with a portfolio of clients, with no early sign.
- An attrition figure quoted by partners that counts trainees completing their term in the same way as a senior manager leaving.
- Exit conversations that collect politeness and no information.
- Learning of a competing offer only on the day of resignation.
- In a staffing business, consultants leaving a client engagement mid-assignment and recruiters leaving with their candidate lists.
What we can help with
Our Retention and Attrition Services for Professional Services Firms
Attrition Definitions
Agree what is counted, over what period and in what groups, and treat the end of a trainee term, a planned departure and a resignation separately, so that the number means something.
Analysis by Level, Practice and Manager
Show exits by level, practice, manager, length of service and the point in the career at which they occur, such as soon after qualification or just before promotion.
Regretted and Non-Regretted Split
A simple, agreed way to classify each exit by whether the firm wished to keep the person, recorded at the time and reviewed with the partner.
Exit Conversations
A format for an exit conversation held by someone other than the reporting manager, with questions about the work, the supervision, the pay, growth and the reason for the new role.
Stay Conversations
A short, regular conversation with valued people to ask what keeps them, what might make them leave and what the firm could do differently, held before there is an offer in hand.
Critical-Person Register
A list of the people whose departure would put a client relationship, a specialist capability or a team at risk, with a note on the reason and a named partner responsible for the conversation.
Early-Warning Signals
Choose a few indicators that the firm can see, such as a long run of heavy weeks, a missed promotion or a change in a manager, and set who is told when they appear.
Retention Actions and Review
Turn the findings into a short list of actions on pay, progression, workload and supervision, with owners and dates, and review the picture each quarter.
The deliverables
What You Receive
Depending on the agreed scope, you receive:
- Attrition definitions and a measurement method.
- An analysis of recent exits by level, practice and manager.
- A regretted and non-regretted classification.
- Exit and stay conversation formats.
- A critical-person register.
- A short list of early-warning signals with owners.
- A retention plan with actions and review dates.
Step by step
How We Work
Gather the Exit Record
We collect the list of people who left in recent years, with level, practice, manager and tenure, and agree the definitions to be used.
Analyse the Pattern
We show the partners where exits cluster, how many were regretted and what the conversations recorded.
Design Conversations
We prepare the exit and stay formats and brief the people who will hold them.
Name the Critical People
The partners decide which roles and people are critical, and who speaks to each one.
Act and Review
We record a baseline, agree actions and review the numbers each quarter with the managing group.
The difference
See the Exits That Matter
A measured approach to attrition helps the firm to:
We do not promise outcomes. We record a baseline before work starts, covering exits by level and practice, the share of regretted exits and the tenure at which people leave, and report against it, so you can see what changed and what did not.
- Talk about attrition with a shared definition.
- See clusters by level, practice and manager.
- Separate costly exits from natural ones.
- Hear real reasons before and after resignation.
- Know who the firm cannot afford to lose and who is speaking to them.
- Choose retention actions on the basis of evidence.
Find your fit
Who This Service Is For
Firms Losing Newly Qualified Associates
Which invest in training and see the return leave.
Firms With Uneven Attrition
Where one practice or manager seems to lose people repeatedly.
Firms With Client-Holding Managers
Where a departure can take a relationship with it.
Engineering and Design Consultancies
Where experienced designers and discipline leads are hard to replace.
Staffing Companies
Where recruiter and consultant turnover affects both clients and candidates.
How it usually shows up in professional services
Attrition in professional firms is usually reported as a single figure and looked at once a year. The figure hides the pattern that matters: exits concentrate after qualification, at the point where people become productive, and in the practices where a particular partner leads. Trainees who leave soon after qualifying take the firm's investment in their training with them. Managers who leave to join a client or a competitor take relationships and working knowledge. Reasons given at exit are polite, and the true reasons, progression, workload, credit and the partner, come out in conversations after the person has left. Partners respond to a resignation with a counter-offer, which fixes pay and leaves the cause untouched. Stay conversations with people the firm wants to keep are rare, and there is seldom a list of the roles whose loss would hurt.
Common challenges
Where it goes wrong in professional services
Exits cluster after qualification
A rate for the whole firm does not show associates leaving soon after qualifying, or one partner's team losing people year after year.
Notice letters name pay or an offer
A senior associate cites a better offer. The partner's way of handing out work and the wait for the next level stay unspoken.
Counter-offers fix the wrong thing
Raising pay does not touch progression, workload or the partner relationship.
No list of critical people
The firm does not know whose departure would hurt until it happens.
A better process
What a working version looks like
- 01
Define and split the measure
One definition of attrition, reported by level, practice, partner and length of service. The attrition management approach describes the cuts.
- 02
Separate the exits that mattered
Classify exits as regretted or not, and look closely at post-qualification and manager-level departures.
- 03
Hold real exit conversations
Done by someone outside the reporting line, with a follow-up after a few months.
- 04
Run stay conversations
Regular talks with named valued people about progression, workload and what would make them leave.
- 05
List the critical people
Those whose loss would hurt clients or delivery, with a retention action and a backup for each.
What to check this week
- List the exits of the last two years by level and practice.
- Count how many left within a year of qualifying.
- Compare exit reasons recorded with what colleagues say they heard.
- Write down the people the firm could not afford to lose this year.
- Ask what happened after the last counter-offer.
Confirm with a qualified professional. What applies depends on your establishment, your state and your sector, and it changes. This page describes a practice; it does not state a legal position.
What this looks like in professional services
The parts of retention and attrition management that are specific to this sector, rather than general.
Knowledge Retention
What walks out with a manager.
What this coversHide
Knowledge Retention
What walks out with a manager.
What this coversHide- Client file documentation standards
- Working paper discipline
- Handover requirements
- Knowledge-transfer checklist at exit
- Mentoring and shadowing
- Internal knowledge sessions
- Templates and precedents library
Attrition and Retention
Post-qualification exits are the expensive ones.
What this coversHide
Attrition and Retention
Post-qualification exits are the expensive ones.
What this coversHide- Attrition by level and practice
- Post-qualification attrition
- Partner-wise turnover
- Exit reasons
- Stay interviews
- Workload-related retention issues
- Progression-related retention issues
- Critical-person backup
- Alumni relationships
Questions on this, in professional services
It means departures of people the firm wished to keep. The classification is made by the partner at the time of exit, using agreed guidance, so that the firm can concentrate on the exits that mattered and not treat all departures alike.
There are usually several reasons: unclear progression, a market that pays more for the new qualification, heavy workload and the wish to move to a different type of work. Exit and stay conversations help you find which apply in your firm.
Have it with someone outside the reporting line, ask open questions about work, supervision and growth, and promise that comments will be summarised without names. We prepare the format and brief the person who holds it.
Reports show patterns by group. Where a group is small, we combine or withhold the breakdown so individuals cannot be identified. The critical-person register is restricted to the partners who need it.
No, and we do not promise to. We help you find the causes you can address, so that the firm retains the people it most wants to keep, and understands the rest of the departures better.
Yes. Exit records, classifications, conversation notes and the attrition report can be configured on the GullyHR platform or in your own system, updated as each person leaves.
Usually for progression, a better role or a bigger name, once they are marketable. Telling them early what the next step is and when it will come is the best defence.
Use one stated definition and report it by level, practice, partner and length of service. The single firm-wide figure hides what is going wrong.
Seldom for long, as they treat pay when the cause is often progression, workload or the partner. Use them rarely and investigate the reason.
A planned talk with someone the firm values, asking what keeps them, what frustrates them and what might make them go. It lets you act before they resign.
Understand Who Leaves, and Keep the People You Cannot Lose
Tell us who has left lately, at which level and what you think the reasons were. We will discuss how to measure and understand the pattern.
Prefer to talk first? Call +91 80958 58589 or write to hello@gullyhr.com.
Discuss Your Attrition Picture
Share a few details about where you are losing people.
The general method — what retention and attrition management covers, the questions it answers and what an engagement produces — is the same whatever the sector, and is set out on the employee retention and attrition management page. What is above is the part that differs for professional services.
Other HR topics for professional services
Where to start
Most engagements begin with a review of how this runs in your business today, then a written process and the sequence to implement it.
See all HR topics for professional services, or another industry.