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FrameWorks Studio · IP Library
Retention & Flight-Risk Intelligence

The Talent Stay-Ability Index

A board-level read on which critical people are most likely to leave, why, what it will cost, and which intervention has the highest probability of retaining them — built for African, inflation-sensitive, high-mobility talent markets where japa, diaspora pull and FX-eroded pay make retention a board issue.

3 layers: Stay-Ability · Flight-Pull · Priority 7 stay drivers 12-month risk window & intent check 1 = not at all true · 5 = fully true · rate one segment at a time
Sets the weighting profile for this read

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Criticality of this segment

1 = easily replaceable · 3 = notable knowledge loss · 5 = revenue owner / single point of failure

How damaging would this segment’s exit be to the business?
3
Stay intent — your honest read

1 = under half stay · 3 = roughly two-thirds stay · 5 = over 90% stay. Kept out of the score — used to test the model against your judgement.

If nothing changes, what share of this segment would you bet is still here in 12 months?
3

Why this score

Each driver’s weighted contribution — and your single biggest leak
Rate the drivers to see which one is doing the most to hold — or lose — your people.

Priority moves

Sequenced from your weakest drivers, tuned to this segment and urgency

Rate the items to generate your prioritised retention plan.

Retention economics

What avoidable attrition in this segment is costing you — and what a modest reduction recovers
Annual avoidable-attrition cost
Recoverable with the target reduction

Replacement cost defaults to 0.75× salary; the defensible range is 0.50–2.00× (SHRM: 50–200%, scaled by role level), before the cost of lost institutional memory. Preventable share defaults to 65% — deliberately conservative against Work Institute’s 2025 exit-interview base, which places roughly three-quarters of exits in employer-controllable categories. Adjust both to your reality.

Methodology & weighting How the Index is built ↓

The Index reads three layers. Stay-Ability is a weighted average of seven drivers (segment-specific weights). Flight-Pull is the mean of four external sub-factors. Criticality multiplies through to a Retention Priority Index that ranks where to act first.

Weighting

Weights are expert-judgement defaults, calibrated to African talent markets and flagged for empirical recalibration after pilot data. They are not derived from stated-reason frequency. The active profile is shown in the readout; full re-weighting is available in the enterprise engagement.

Flight-Pull · japa sub-model

Migration risk is real only when eligibility, motivation and mobility co-occur, so it uses a geometric mean — one missing precondition drags the score down:

Migration Pull = ( Eligibility × Motivation × Mobility ) ^ (1/3)

Retention Priority Index

s = (StayAbility − 1) / 4 f = (FlightPull − 1) / 4 c = 0.2 + 0.8 × (Criticality − 1) / 4 RPI = c × [ 0.6·f + 0.4·(1 − s) ] × 100

External pull is weighted above the internal stay-gap (0.6 / 0.4) because it is the harder lever to move; the 0.2 floor keeps low-impact roles from zeroing out. These are calibration parameters.

Bands

Stay-Ability tierFlight-Pull bandRPI band
Exposed < 2.50Low < 2.50Monitor 0–24
Fragile 2.50–3.24Moderate 2.50–3.49Plan 25–49
Resilient 3.25–3.99High ≥ 3.50Act 50–74
Magnetic ≥ 4.00Escalate 75–100

v2.0 additions

Stay-intent anchor. Turnover intention is the strongest single predictor of actual exits in the meta-analytic literature (ρ ≈ .50, explaining roughly a third of turnover behaviour). It is deliberately kept out of the composite — intent is an outcome, not a driver — and is used instead as a divergence check between your judgement and the model. Stated intentions fail to translate into action about half the time, so divergence in either direction is information, not error.

Indicative risk window. Behavioural exit signals typically surface 3–9 months before a resignation. The window shown maps your priority band onto that horizon; it is indicative, not a forecast.

Preventable share. Exit-interview evidence (Work Institute, 2025; 120,000+ interviews) places roughly three-quarters of departures in employer-controllable categories. The economics default of 65% is deliberately conservative and editable.

Self-serve mode is single-rater: results are a hypothesis to test, not a measurement. Statistics cited elsewhere (Gallup, SHRM, Work Institute) are directional and refreshed annually (last: Jul 2026). Calibrate weights and thresholds to your segment before client use.

Turn the diagnosis into a plan

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Retention Priority Index
Stay-Ability · Flight-Pull
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