Estimate the true financial impact of losing and replacing an employee.
Recruitment & Hiring:$0
Onboarding & Training:$0
Lost Productivity (Vacancy):$0
Ramp-up Inefficiency:$0
Total Cost Per Departure:
$0
The Hidden Costs of Employee Turnover
Employee turnover is more than just a HR metric; it is a significant drain on a company's bottom line. While direct costs like recruitment fees and job advertisements are easy to track, the "soft costs" often account for the bulk of the financial damage. These include the lost knowledge of the departing employee, the time existing staff spends interviewing candidates, and the period of low productivity while a new hire learns the ropes.
How This Calculator Works
To provide a realistic estimate, our calculator uses several key variables:
Total Compensation: We calculate the base salary plus the percentage spent on benefits (insurance, 401k, taxes) to find the true cost of the role.
Recruitment Costs: This covers external agency fees, job board postings, and the internal time spent by hiring managers.
Vacancy Cost: When a role is empty, the company loses the value that employee would have produced. We calculate this based on weekly compensation.
Ramp-up Inefficiency: New hires typically operate at 25-50% productivity during their first few months. The calculator accounts for the "lost output" during this phase.
Example Calculation
Imagine a Marketing Manager earning $80,000 per year with 25% benefits. If it takes 8 weeks to find a replacement and 12 weeks for them to become fully productive, the total cost often exceeds $30,000. This is approximately 38% of their annual salary—a figure that aligns with industry benchmarks suggesting turnover costs range from 30% to 200% of an employee's annual pay depending on seniority.
Strategies to Reduce Turnover Costs
Focusing on retention is almost always cheaper than hiring. Implementing better onboarding processes, offering competitive professional development opportunities, and conducting "stay interviews" to understand employee needs can significantly lower your attrition rate and save your organization thousands of dollars annually.
function calculateTurnover() {
// Inputs
var salary = parseFloat(document.getElementById('tc_salary').value) || 0;
var benefitPct = parseFloat(document.getElementById('tc_benefits').value) || 0;
var hiring = parseFloat(document.getElementById('tc_hiring').value) || 0;
var training = parseFloat(document.getElementById('tc_training').value) || 0;
var vacancyWeeks = parseFloat(document.getElementById('tc_vacancy').value) || 0;
var rampUpWeeks = parseFloat(document.getElementById('tc_rampup').value) || 0;
// Calculation Logic
var totalAnnualComp = salary * (1 + (benefitPct / 100));
var weeklyComp = totalAnnualComp / 52;
// 1. Hiring costs (Fixed input)
var costHiring = hiring;
// 2. Training costs (Fixed input)
var costTraining = training;
// 3. Vacancy Cost (Assuming the value lost is equal to the compensation)
var costVacancy = weeklyComp * vacancyWeeks;
// 4. Ramp-up Cost (Assuming 50% productivity loss during the ramp-up period)
var costRampUp = (weeklyComp * rampUpWeeks) * 0.5;
// Total
var totalCost = costHiring + costTraining + costVacancy + costRampUp;
// Display Results
document.getElementById('res_hiring').innerText = '$' + costHiring.toLocaleString(undefined, {minimumFractionDigits: 2, maximumFractionDigits: 2});
document.getElementById('res_training').innerText = '$' + costTraining.toLocaleString(undefined, {minimumFractionDigits: 2, maximumFractionDigits: 2});
document.getElementById('res_vacancy').innerText = '$' + costVacancy.toLocaleString(undefined, {minimumFractionDigits: 2, maximumFractionDigits: 2});
document.getElementById('res_rampup').innerText = '$' + costRampUp.toLocaleString(undefined, {minimumFractionDigits: 2, maximumFractionDigits: 2});
document.getElementById('res_total').innerText = '$' + totalCost.toLocaleString(undefined, {minimumFractionDigits: 2, maximumFractionDigits: 2});
document.getElementById('turnover-result').style.display = 'block';
}