Our engagement scores look fine. So why are good people leaving?
Our engagement scores look fine. So why are good people leaving?
Surveys are good at measuring what you already thought to ask about. If the scores look healthy and good people still go, the signal is somewhere else. Here is how to hear it this week.
WEDNESDAY, 3.00PM
The people team presents the annual engagement results. Seventy-eight per cent favourable, up two points. There is a round of quiet approval.
That same week, two of the most respected people in the business hand in their notice. In their exit conversations, both say roughly the same thing: “I didn’t think anyone would listen, so I stopped saying it.”
Nothing in the survey predicted it. We see this in organisations of every size. The further leadership sits from the day-to-day work, the more it relies on the numbers, and the more the numbers flatter.
A composite drawn from our work. Details changed to protect the people in the room.
Does this sound like your organisation?
Tick what feels true. There are no wrong answers here.
This is normal, and it is fixable
If you ticked three or more, your survey is not broken. It is doing what surveys do. People answer carefully. They are unsure who reads them and what happens next. The honest version of how things feel usually lives in conversation: in the kitchen, in the group chat, in the moment after a meeting ends.
Progression and fairness issues are especially hard to see this way. They rarely show up as low scores. They show up as good people deciding their future is somewhere else.
The other half of listening is what happens next. People stop speaking up when nothing changes. Reporting back plainly, including the uncomfortable parts, and then acting on two or three gaps is what earns the next honest conversation.
People stop telling you the truth the moment they believe nothing will change.
What you can do this week
You do not need a new survey to start. You need one honest week.
- Monday
Look at who left and why
Pull the list of people who left in the last year. Read the exit notes side by side. Look for reasons that repeat across teams, not just the ones written on the form.
You leave with: the pattern you have been missing - Wednesday
Run one listening session
Bring six to eight people together, with no managers in the room and someone neutral to run it. Ask what makes good people stay and what makes them think about leaving.
You leave with: the why behind the numbers - Friday
Report back and pick one gap
Share what you heard with leaders, plainly, including the uncomfortable parts. Choose one gap to act on and tell staff what you will do.
You leave with: one visible change people can point to
You already have the signal
The organisations that keep their best people are rarely the ones with the highest scores. They are the ones whose leaders go looking for the uncomfortable conversation, and then do something visible about it.
The signal is already in your organisation. Your people are saying it to each other every day. The step is to be in the room when they do.
If you want someone alongside you while you do it, that is what we are here for.
See where to start
A Body Check scores your organisation across all six practices, including Ears, and gives you a prioritised plan you can act on.
Book a Body CheckGo deeper
A deeper paper on listening beyond the survey, with the session formats and questions we use, launches at the Commonwealth Business Forum in November 2026.
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