Retention starts before day one

Most businesses treat retention as something that happens after the hire: induction plans, probation reviews, engagement surveys. Those things matter. But by the time someone walks through the door, most of what determines whether they will still be with you in a year has already been decided.

It starts with honesty in the search. A role oversold to attract a strong candidate unravels within months — the gap between the promise and the reality becomes the reason they leave, and the cost of replacing them lands right back on your desk. Every candidate we put forward knows what the role genuinely involves: the challenges as well as the opportunity.

It continues with fit in both directions. A good search does not just ask whether the candidate is right for the business — it asks whether the business is right for the candidate. Their motivations, the way they like to work, what they want the next five years to look like. When those align, twelve months is a floor, not a ceiling.

And it finishes with what happens around the offer and the first weeks. Counter-offers are won or lost on how well the candidate was prepared for them. Notice periods are when doubt creeps in. A structured onboarding plan — agreed before the start date, not improvised on the first morning — turns a signed offer into a settled, productive hire.

95%+ of the people we place are still in role beyond twelve months. That figure is not the result of luck or of an unusually easy market. It is the result of treating retention as part of the search itself — from the first honest conversation about the role to the check-ins after they start.

If you have hired well on paper and watched people leave within the year, the problem probably was not the person. It was the process. We would be glad to talk through how we run it differently.