Every organization loses employees. But not all departures are created equal. When an employee hands in their resignation letter, books a leaving lunch, and walks out the door on their own terms, that is a voluntary departure — and it tells HR something important about the health of the organization.
Voluntary departures are one of the most informative metrics in the people analytics toolkit. Unlike involuntary exits (layoffs, dismissals, redundancies), voluntary departures are initiated entirely by the employee. That shift in agency makes all the difference: it means the organization, to a significant degree, had the opportunity to retain that person and did not.
This guide covers everything HR professionals and people managers need to know about voluntary departures: what they are, how to calculate the voluntary departure rate, what data you need, what the numbers mean, how your rate compares to benchmarks, and why this metric deserves a permanent seat at the HR reporting table.
What Are Voluntary Departures?
A voluntary departure occurs when an employee chooses to end their employment relationship of their own free will. The decision originates with the individual, not the employer. Common examples include:
- Resigning to accept a new role at another organization
- Leaving to pursue further education or a career change
- Departing for personal reasons, such as relocation, caregiving responsibilities, or health
- Retiring (depending on how your organization categorizes this)
- Leaving to start a business
The defining characteristic is employee agency. In a voluntary departure, the employee has made a deliberate choice to leave. This distinguishes it sharply from an involuntary departure, where the employer drives the exit — through termination, redundancy, or performance-related dismissal.
Key distinction: Voluntary = employee-initiated. Involuntary = employer-initiated. This distinction shapes everything: the causes, the costs, the conversations, and the corrective actions.
Not all voluntary departures are bad. The departure of a persistently poor performer who resigns is often described as functional turnover — it creates space for fresh talent and is a net positive for the organization. Dysfunctional turnover, by contrast, describes the loss of high-performing, high-potential employees who are difficult to replace. Tracking voluntary departures without distinguishing between these two categories gives you an incomplete picture.
The Voluntary Departure Rate: Formula and Calculation
To make voluntary departures actionable as a metric, you need to express them as a rate — a percentage of your workforce — rather than a raw count. Raw counts do not account for organizational size and cannot be meaningfully compared across periods, departments, or external benchmarks.
The Formula
Voluntary Departure Rate = (Voluntary Departures in the Period ÷ Average Headcount) × 100Where: Average Headcount = (Headcount at Start of Period + Headcount at End of Period) ÷ 2
Using average headcount — rather than simply start or end headcount — is critical. It accounts for changes in workforce size throughout the measurement period, giving you a more accurate denominator. Using only your starting or ending headcount can skew results, particularly in fast-growing or fast-shrinking organizations.
Step-by-Step Worked Example
Suppose you are calculating your voluntary departure rate for Q1:
- Headcount at start of Q1: 480 employees
- Headcount at end of Q1: 510 employees
- Voluntary departures during Q1: 22 employees
Step 1 – Calculate average headcount: (480 + 510) ÷ 2 = 495
Step 2 – Divide departures by average headcount: 22 ÷ 495 = 0.0444
Step 3 – Multiply by 100: 0.0444 × 100 = 4.4%
Your voluntary departure rate for Q1 is 4.4%. Annualized, this equates to approximately 17.8% — a figure you can now compare against industry benchmarks.
Common Calculation Mistakes to Avoid
- Using total headcount instead of average headcount — this understates your rate during growth phases
- Including involuntary departures in your voluntary count — mixing the two masks what is really happening
- Counting internal transfers or promotions as departures — these employees have not left the organization
- Inconsistently including or excluding part-time and seasonal staff — pick one approach and apply it consistently across all periods
What Data Do You Need to Calculate Voluntary Departures?
Reliable voluntary departure tracking depends on clean, well-defined data. Before you can run the formula, you need three things working in your favor: accurate headcount data, trustworthy separation classification, and a clearly defined measurement period.
1. Separation Classification (Voluntary vs. Involuntary)
Your HRIS (Human Resources Information System) should record a reason code for every exit. The most important step is ensuring that 'voluntary' and 'involuntary' are defined clearly and applied consistently across HR, legal, and payroll teams. Inconsistent classification is the single biggest source of error in voluntary departure reporting.
Be cautious of edge cases. An employee who is 'encouraged to resign' rather than formally dismissed may be coded as voluntary — which understates your involuntary rate and inflates your voluntary figure. Organizations should have clear protocols for how to classify these ambiguous exits.
2. Headcount Data (Start and End of Period)
You need a reliable snapshot of active employee headcount on the first and last day of your measurement period. Most HRIS platforms can generate this automatically. Decide in advance whether you are measuring:
- All employees (full-time and part-time)
- Full-time equivalents (FTEs) only
- Permanent employees only, excluding contractors and seasonal staff
Consistency is paramount. Whichever scope you choose, apply it in every period so your data remains comparable.
3. The Measurement Period
Voluntary departure rate can be calculated monthly, quarterly, or annually depending on organizational need. Most organizations report annually for strategic planning and quarterly for performance monitoring. In high-change environments — rapid growth, restructuring, or significant cultural change — monthly tracking provides faster signal.
For benchmarking against external data (industry surveys, BLS figures), annual rates are typically the most comparable.
Voluntary Departure Rate Benchmarks: How Does Your Organization Compare?
Context transforms a number into insight. A voluntary departure rate of 15% means very different things depending on your industry, organization size, and workforce composition. Use the table below as a starting reference point — but always prioritize industry-specific and role-specific comparisons over broad averages.
As a general rule of thumb, a voluntary departure rate below 10% annually is considered healthy across most industries. However, context matters enormously. Retail and hospitality organizations, for example, have historically operated with rates two to three times that level as a structural feature of their workforce model.
Important benchmark: According to Mercer's 2025 Workforce Turnover Survey, the average voluntary turnover rate in the U.S. has declined to approximately 13.5%, down from 17.3% in 2023 and a peak of 24.7% during the Great Resignation in 2022. This multi-year decline signals a stabilizing labour market — but it does not mean organizations can afford to be complacent.
Why Do Employees Leave Voluntarily? The Root Causes
Understanding the rate is only useful if you understand the drivers behind it. Exit data consistently points to a handful of recurring themes — and the picture is more nuanced than most people expect.
According to iHire's 2025 Talent Retention Report, the top reasons employees voluntarily resigned were:
- Toxic or negative work environment (26.8%)
- Poor company leadership (24.2%)
- Dissatisfaction with their manager or supervisor (22.8%)
- Lack of growth opportunities (18.8%)
- Poor work-life balance (15.5%)
- Unsatisfactory pay (15.1%)
Notice where compensation sits: sixth on the list. Despite the widespread assumption that pay is the primary driver of voluntary departures, culture, leadership, and management quality consistently outrank it. This is significant for HR strategy: throwing money at a retention problem will not solve it if the underlying drivers are cultural.
Broader thematic analysis from Mercer and SHRM categorizes voluntary departure drivers into four buckets:
- Engagement and culture — 37% of departures
- Well-being and work-life balance — 31% of departures
- Pay and benefits — 11% of departures
- Leadership and management quality — 9% of departures
Perhaps the most important data point for people managers: research consistently shows that approximately 75% of voluntary turnover is preventable. That means three out of four departures represent an opportunity that organizations failed to act on. The levers — better management, clearer career pathways, stronger culture, flexible working — are largely within HR and leadership control.
Why Voluntary Departures Matter: The Business Case for Tracking This Metric
Some HR metrics are diagnostic; others are strategic. Voluntary departure rate is both. Here is why every HR team should treat it as a core metric — not an afterthought.
1. It Directly Signals Employee Satisfaction and Engagement
Unlike engagement survey scores, which capture stated intentions, voluntary departure data captures revealed preferences. When employees choose to leave, they are voting with their feet. A rising voluntary departure rate is often a lagging indicator of declining engagement — meaning something went wrong weeks or months before the resignation letter arrived.
2. It Has a Measurable Financial Impact
The cost of replacing a departing employee is substantial. Research from the Work Institute estimates the conservative replacement cost at 33% of the employee's annual salary. For roles with greater complexity or seniority, costs escalate quickly: up to 200% of annual salary for senior leaders and managers, 80% for technical professionals, and around 40% for frontline workers. For an organization of 500 people with a 15% voluntary departure rate, the annual cost impact can run into millions of dollars.
Voluntary departure is also estimated to cost U.S. businesses close to a trillion dollars annually in aggregate — making it one of the most significant and yet undertracked financial risks in workforce management.
3. It Helps Identify Organizational and Management Problems
Voluntary departure data becomes even more powerful when segmented. Aggregate rates mask important patterns. Analyze your voluntary departure rate by:
- Department or team — a spike in one team often points to a specific manager or leadership issue
- Tenure band — high departure rates in the 0–12 month window often indicate onboarding or role-fit problems
- Role level — high departure among senior individual contributors may suggest career progression bottlenecks
- Location or region — geographic patterns can surface facility-specific or management-specific issues
- Performance tier — losing high performers at a disproportionate rate is a critical early warning sign
4. It Supports Workforce Planning
Voluntary departure rate feeds directly into headcount planning, recruitment forecasting, and succession planning. If your organization knows it loses 15% of its workforce voluntarily every year, it can plan recruitment pipelines, backfill timelines, and knowledge transfer processes accordingly. Without this data, workforce gaps tend to appear as surprises rather than managed transitions.
5. It Complements Other HR Metrics
Voluntary departure rate should not sit in isolation. It is most powerful when analyzed alongside:
- Retention rate — the mirror metric, showing who stayed
- Involuntary departure rate — helps distinguish people-driven exits from employer-driven ones
- Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) — a leading indicator that can predict voluntary departure trends
- Time-to-fill — a rising voluntary departure rate puts pressure on recruitment capacity
- Internal mobility rate — organizations with high internal movement tend to have lower voluntary departure rates
Voluntary Departures vs. Related Concepts: Clearing Up the Terminology
The language around employee exits can be confusing. Here is how voluntary departures relate to similar terms you will encounter in HR practice:
Voluntary turnover rate — Another name for the voluntary departure rate. The terms are interchangeable; 'turnover rate' is more common in North America, while 'departure rate' is widely used in people analytics and international HR contexts.
Attrition — Often used interchangeably with voluntary departure, but strictly speaking, attrition refers to natural workforce reduction (retirements, non-replacements) rather than active resignations. Some organizations exclude retirements from voluntary departure counts.
Total turnover rate — Includes both voluntary and involuntary departures. Useful for workforce planning but less diagnostic than voluntary rate alone.
Regrettable vs. non-regrettable departures — A further segmentation within voluntary departures. Regrettable departures are those the organization would have preferred to retain; non-regrettable departures (functional turnover) are those where the exit is acceptable or beneficial.
How to Reduce Voluntary Departure Rates: Proven Strategies
Tracking voluntary departure rate without acting on the insights is a missed opportunity. Given that research suggests three-quarters of voluntary departures are preventable, organizations that invest in targeted retention strategies see measurable returns. The most effective approaches address the root causes identified in exit data:
- Invest in management quality. The manager-employee relationship is the single strongest predictor of voluntary departure. Great managers reduce departure likelihood by up to 40%. Equip people managers with the skills, time, and support they need to have effective one-to-ones, provide meaningful feedback, and spot early signs of disengagement.
- Build clear career pathways. Limited career growth is consistently a top-three reason for voluntary departures. Employees who can see a credible path forward inside the organization are significantly less likely to look outside it.
- Audit your culture — not just your perks. Toxic work environments and poor leadership drive more voluntary departures than compensation. Regular engagement surveys, stay interviews, and psychologically safe feedback channels help surface cultural issues before they escalate into exits.
- Offer flexibility where feasible. Work-life balance remains a persistent driver of voluntary departures. Research shows fully remote workers have retention rates significantly higher than office-based employees. Even modest flexibility in working hours or location can materially reduce departure risk.
- Benchmark compensation regularly. Pay may not be the top reason employees leave, but it remains a threshold factor. Employees who feel underpaid relative to the market are more susceptible to outside offers. Regular compensation benchmarking prevents pay from becoming the reason an otherwise-engaged employee leaves.
- Use exit interviews and stay interviews strategically. Exit interviews tell you why people left. Stay interviews tell you why people are staying — and what might change that. Both are essential inputs to a robust voluntary departure reduction strategy.
Voluntary Departures as an HR Benchmark on HRBench
HRBench tracks voluntary departure rate as a standard people analytics metric, enabling HR teams to calculate, trend, and benchmark their voluntary departure data against industry peers. Whether you are reporting to a board, building a workforce plan, or diagnosing a retention challenge in a specific team, voluntary departure rate is one of the metrics that belongs in every HR dashboard.
To explore voluntary departure rate alongside your other core HR metrics — including involuntary departures, retention rate, and internal mobility — visit HRBench.com.
Frequently Asked Questions
What counts as a voluntary departure?
A voluntary departure is any separation from employment that is initiated by the employee. This includes resignations, retirements (depending on your organization's classification policy), and departures for personal reasons. It does not include layoffs, dismissals, or redundancies initiated by the employer.
What is a good voluntary departure rate?
As a general benchmark, a voluntary departure rate below 10% annually is considered healthy for most industries. The U.S. average across all industries was approximately 13.0–13.5% as of 2025 (Mercer). Rates vary significantly by sector: hospitality and retail routinely exceed 20–25%, while government and insurance sectors often sit below 12%. Always benchmark against your specific industry rather than a universal figure.
How is voluntary departure rate different from total turnover rate?
Total turnover rate includes all separations — both voluntary (employee-initiated) and involuntary (employer-initiated). Voluntary departure rate isolates only the employee-initiated exits, making it a more precise indicator of workforce satisfaction and engagement. The two metrics serve different analytical purposes and should both be tracked.
How often should HR calculate voluntary departure rate?
Most organizations calculate voluntary departure rate quarterly for performance monitoring and annually for strategic planning and external benchmarking. High-growth or high-churn organizations may benefit from monthly tracking to detect emerging trends earlier.
What is the cost of a voluntary departure?
The cost varies significantly by role level. Research from the Work Institute places the conservative replacement cost at roughly 33% of annual salary. For senior leaders, total replacement costs (including lost productivity, recruitment, and onboarding) can reach 200% of annual salary. For frontline roles, the figure is typically around 40%. For most organizations, even modest reductions in voluntary departure rate translate into significant cost savings.
Summary: What HR Needs to Know About Voluntary Departures
Voluntary departures are employee-initiated exits — resignations, retirements, and personal-reason departures — that tell organizations something meaningful about the health of their workplace. The voluntary departure rate, calculated as voluntary departures divided by average headcount and expressed as a percentage, is one of HR's most informative and actionable metrics.
The formula is straightforward:
Voluntary Departure Rate = (Voluntary Departures ÷ Average Headcount) × 100Average Headcount = (Opening Headcount + Closing Headcount) ÷ 2
What makes this metric powerful is not the calculation itself, but what you do with the result: benchmarking it against industry peers, segmenting it by team and tenure, and connecting it to the root causes surfaced by exit and stay interview data. With approximately 75% of voluntary departures preventable, every organization has an opportunity to reduce churn, protect institutional knowledge, and build the kind of workplace people choose to stay in.
For HR professionals and people managers, voluntary departure rate is not a compliance metric — it is a strategic signal. Track it consistently, report it transparently, and use it to drive conversations that matter.