Two years ago, our IT department had a retention problem. Annual turnover was thirty-two percent. We were losing people constantly. Some left for better pay. Others left because they were burned out. Many left because they didn’t see career progression opportunities.

Recruiting replacements was expensive and disruptive. New hires needed months to become productive. We lost institutional knowledge with every departure. Team morale suffered as people watched colleagues leave.

We had to change something. Here’s what we did to reduce turnover to twelve percent and build a team that people actually want to stay on.

We Fixed Compensation First

We couldn’t address retention without addressing compensation. Market rates for IT talent had increased substantially. Our salary ranges hadn’t kept pace. People could leave and get twenty to thirty percent raises easily.

We did a comprehensive market analysis of IT compensation. We compared our salaries to market rates for comparable roles in our region. The results were uncomfortable. We were fifteen to twenty percent below market across most roles.

I went to the CFO with the data and a business case. Losing people and recruiting replacements cost far more than paying market rates. We were spending hundreds of thousands annually on recruitment, onboarding, and productivity loss from turnover. Investing in retention through competitive compensation was cheaper.

We got budget approved for salary adjustments. Not everyone got to market rates immediately, but we made substantial progress. People who were most underpaid got the largest adjustments. Within a year, we were competitive on compensation.

This didn’t solve retention entirely, but it removed a major source of dissatisfaction. People weren’t leaving purely for money anymore.

We Created Real Career Paths

Many IT staff felt stuck. They’d been in the same role for years with no clear path to advancement. Technical skills development was ad hoc. Promotions seemed arbitrary.

We implemented formal career ladders for IT roles. Junior, mid-level, senior, and lead positions with clear skill expectations for each level. Staff could see what was required to progress and how they measured against those expectations.

We also created dual career tracks. Individual contributor roles that could progress to senior technical positions without requiring people management. Not everyone wants to be a manager, but everyone wants career growth. The IC track provided that option.

Promotions became transparent. We defined criteria for each level and reviewed people against those criteria annually. Promotions weren’t perfect, but they were far more predictable and fair than before.

We also invested in training. Everyone gets a professional development budget annually. We encourage certification programs, conference attendance, and online courses. People can see that we’re invested in their growth, not just extracting value from current skills.

We Improved Work-Life Balance

IT work has historically meant long hours, on-call stress, and weekend work for deployments. We accepted this as industry standard. It’s not. It’s a choice that organisations make about how to staff and operate IT.

We made different choices. We hired enough staff to cover workload without requiring constant overtime. We fixed our on-call practices so nobody was burning out from constant interruptions. We moved deployments to business hours when possible and ensured weekend work was followed by compensatory time off.

We also embraced flexible work arrangements. Remote work several days per week became standard. Flexible hours let people handle personal commitments without requesting formal time off. We measured people on results, not hours in office.

These changes required some investment. Adequate staffing costs money. Supporting remote work requires tools and different management practices. But the retention benefit justified the cost.

People have lives outside work. Respecting that and enabling people to balance professional and personal commitments makes them want to stay.

We Fixed Toxic Management

We had a couple of managers who were driving turnover. Micromanagement, unclear expectations, failure to provide feedback, taking credit for team work. Classic toxic manager behavior.

This is difficult to address because these managers often had technical credibility and delivered results. But their people management was driving attrition. Every person who left cited their manager as a primary reason.

We tried coaching and feedback. When that didn’t work, we made hard decisions. One manager moved to an individual contributor role where their technical skills could contribute without people management responsibility. Another left the organisation.

We also invested in manager development. Many IT managers got promoted because they were good technically, not because they had management skills. We provided training in people management, feedback, performance management, and team development.

Good management became an explicit expectation. We added people management competencies to manager performance evaluations. Managers who developed their teams and retained people got recognised and rewarded. Managers who didn’t faced consequences.

We Involved People in Decisions

IT staff felt like decisions were made to them rather than with them. Leadership would announce major initiatives or technology changes without consulting the people who’d actually do the work. This created resentment and resistance.

We changed how we made decisions. Major technology choices involved the engineers who’d work with the technology. We solicited input on process changes from the people affected by them. We were transparent about decision criteria and constraints.

We didn’t make decisions by committee or let consensus paralyse us. Leadership still made final decisions. But we involved people in the process and explained our reasoning. Even when people disagreed with decisions, they understood why we made them.

This created ownership and reduced the feeling that IT staff were just executing orders without input. People want to contribute to direction, not just implement someone else’s decisions. Involving them appropriately made them feel valued.

We Recognised Contributions

IT work is often invisible when it goes well. Systems running smoothly generate no attention. Projects delivered on time get minimal recognition. People felt that their work wasn’t valued because it wasn’t acknowledged.

We created deliberate recognition practices. Monthly team meetings included time to recognise significant contributions. We sent company-wide announcements about major IT accomplishments. We ensured that team members who did important work got visibility with senior leadership.

We also made sure individual contributions were recognised beyond just team leads taking credit. When presenting to executives about projects, we brought the engineers who did the work. We called out specific contributions in performance reviews.

Recognition costs nothing but means everything. People want to feel that their work matters and that others notice when they do good work. Making this explicit improved morale and engagement.

We Improved Team Culture

IT culture had become somewhat cynical and defensive. People focused on problems and what was going wrong rather than possibilities and what we could accomplish. The negativity was self-reinforcing.

We worked deliberately to shift culture toward more positive and collaborative. We focused team meetings on learning and problem-solving rather than blame. We celebrated experiments even when they didn’t work out. We encouraged people to support each other rather than competing.

This required leadership modeling the behaviors we wanted. Being positive but realistic about challenges. Giving credit generously. Supporting risk-taking and learning. Being transparent about problems while maintaining optimism about solutions.

Culture change is slow and requires consistency. But over time the team dynamic shifted. People became more supportive, more willing to collaborate, more positive about our work. This made the team a place people wanted to stay.

The Results

Turnover dropped from thirty-two percent to twelve percent over two years. We’re still losing some people, that’s inevitable. But the exodus stopped. We’re retaining the people we want to keep.

Recruiting became easier because our reputation as an employer improved. People started referring candidates. Our acceptance rate for offers increased because candidates heard positive things about working here.

Team productivity improved because we maintained continuity. Institutional knowledge stayed with the team. We spent less time onboarding new hires and more time delivering value.

Most importantly, morale improved. People are engaged and positive about their work. They feel valued and supported. The team culture is healthier.

The investment was substantial. Compensation adjustments, additional hiring for adequate staffing, training and development budgets, management changes. But the return justified it. Retention is far cheaper than constant turnover.

Advice for Other IT Leaders

If you’re struggling with retention, start with honest assessment of why people are leaving. Exit interviews provide some data, but people often aren’t fully honest when departing. Talk to current staff about their concerns and frustrations.

Address the biggest problems first. For us, it was compensation. For you it might be different. Don’t try to fix everything simultaneously. Focus on the factors driving the most attrition.

Involve your team in solutions. They know what’s wrong and often have ideas about how to fix it. Including them in problem-solving increases buy-in and identifies practical solutions.

Be patient. Retention improvements take time. You need to demonstrate sustained commitment to change, not just temporary initiatives. People won’t trust that things are different until they see consistent follow-through over months.

Measure and track retention data. Overall turnover rate but also who’s leaving and why. Voluntary versus involuntary turnover. Time in role before departure. This data helps you understand whether changes are working.

Finally, remember that people are your most important asset in IT. Technology, processes, and methodologies matter, but people deliver results. Investing in retention is investing in your organisation’s capability. It’s not optional, it’s fundamental.

We’ve built a team that doesn’t quit constantly. That stability is transformative for what we can accomplish and how we operate. It’s worth whatever it takes to achieve.