Most teams hold exit interviews, nod at the feedback, and then lose it — one goodbye at a time. The Exit-Interview & Turnover-Analytics Workbook keeps every departure in one structured place and turns it into the turnover metrics your leadership actually asks for: rate by team and manager, the regrettable split, the reasons people leave, and what it all costs.
Log each departure once — with a structured reason, whether it was voluntary or involuntary, and whether it was regrettable — and every dashboard updates itself. It’s a workbook you own, not a per-seat HR platform you rent.
New to exit interviews? Try the free single-departure exit-interview form — capture one exit with the same structured reasons, then upgrade here for the full turnover analytics.
What is turnover analytics?
Turnover analytics is the practice of turning individual departures into a picture you can act on: your turnover rate (separations ÷ average headcount), how much of it was voluntary versus involuntary, and — the number that matters most — how much was regrettable (people you’d have preferred to keep). Layer in where people leave (by tenure) and why (by reason), and a scary-looking headline number becomes a clear, honest signal about what to fix.
Log a departure once — the rest computes
On the Exit Log tab, you add one row per departure and pick the team, manager, role level, type, and primary reason from dropdowns. From the hire and exit dates, the workbook computes tenure and sorts it into a tenure band; from the reason, it fills in the reason category; from the role level, it pulls an estimated replacement cost. You fill the light-orange cells; the pale-teal cells calculate.
The regrettable split — the one number to watch
A 20% turnover rate that’s mostly retirements and planned moves is a very different story from a 12% rate that’s mostly your best people walking out the door. The Turnover Dashboard separates regrettable from non-regrettable turnover, alongside the voluntary/involuntary split — for the whole organization, and broken out by team and by manager so you can see exactly where attrition is concentrated.
Structured reasons, not free text — the layer free templates skip
Free-text reasons can’t be counted. The Exit Reasons tab is a structured taxonomy — thirty specific reasons, each mapped to one of nine categories (compensation, career growth, management, work-life, culture, and more) — that the Exit Log’s dropdown reads from. Pick one primary reason and every breakdown rolls up the same way, so “why people left” finally becomes a chart. The Tenure & Reasons tab then shows where people leave (with early attrition flagged) and why.
Put a number on it
The Cost of Turnover tab estimates what the turnover cost — total, average per departure, and the cost of your regrettable and voluntary losses — broken out by team and by tenure, on a replacement-cost model you set on the Setup tab. It’s the budget your retention fix competes against.
What’s inside
- Exit Log — the working tab: one row per departure, with tenure, band, reason category, and cost auto-calculated.
- Turnover Dashboard — rate, voluntary/involuntary, and the regrettable split, for the org and by team and manager.
- Exit Reasons — the structured taxonomy of 30 reasons in 9 categories (the log’s dropdown).
- Tenure & Reasons — where people leave (by tenure band) and why (by reason category).
- Cost of Turnover — an estimated dollar cost, total and by team and tenure.
- Setup — your headcount, teams, managers, and replacement-cost model in one place.
- Review Log — a dated record of each retention review, to turn the numbers into action.
- Read Me — how the tabs fit together and where to start.
- Four PDF guides — Start Here, Running Great Exit Interviews (with a question set), Reading Your Turnover Analytics, and a printable exit-interview script & review sheet.
Works in Excel, Google Sheets, and LibreOffice
One .xlsx that opens in Microsoft Excel and LibreOffice Calc — or, for Google Sheets, open the included one-click link and click Make a copy to drop a ready-made native version straight into your Drive, no importing and nothing to set up. It ships pre-loaded with a worked example — a fictional 120-person company with eighteen departures — so every dashboard is populated on open. Clear it and enter your own data, and every number recomputes. It’s an instant digital download: nothing ships, and the workbook and all four PDF guides are yours the moment you check out.
Own it, don’t rent it
This sits between a blank spreadsheet (free, but you build and maintain everything) and a per-seat HR analytics platform (overkill for most teams, and a recurring bill). It’s the structure you keep: a connected, owned workbook, with no seats and no monthly fee. Map the capability and succession risk of the people who stay with its partner, the 9-Box Talent Grid, and find more people-ops tools in the full Ardent Workshop catalog.
What this is — and what it isn’t
The Exit-Interview & Turnover-Analytics Workbook is a management-analytics template — not HR, legal, or financial advice, and not an assessment of any real person. The cost figures are illustrative estimates you set, not a benchmark. The example company, departures, reasons, and costs are fictional. Exit and turnover data is sensitive: keep it confidential to those who need it, anonymize where you can, and handle it the way your own privacy policy and local employment law require.
