Inclusion Impacts Employee Retention: What the Data Shows

Still treating inclusion like a side initiative? You might be risking more than you think. 

Try calculating what it costs to lose your top-performing women or your only LGBTQ+ team lead.

In 2025, inclusion is no longer about optics or values. It’s a hard-core retention strategy and one you can’t afford to ignore.

The Real Risk Behind the Scores

Your engagement scores are solid. Maybe even climbing. But something’s off. Turnover is creeping up. Some departments feel brittle. And exit interviews? Vague at best.

Sound familiar? You’re not alone.

Here’s the problem: aggregate scores mask real risk.

Without segmenting your engagement data, you miss the warning signs hiding in plain sight.  By asking employees the right additional question in your engagement survey, you get the possibility to discover such signs from employees feeling they belong to a minority.  

And these gaps aren't rare; inclusion-related disengagement is more common than most organizations realize.

Here’s where it gets interesting: Our latest data shows a consistent pattern: while overall Satisfaction & Motivation scores may look strong, minority groups, especially those identifying with mental health challenges, often score up to 7 index points lower than their non-minority peers.

And when we turn to inclusion-related questions like:

• “I feel safe and able to share my views and opinions”
  
  

...the gaps are even larger.

Minority groups consistently score lower on Satisfaction & Motivation than their peers, especially those with mental health challenges. Based on Ennova 2025 data.

Even in high-scoring teams, minority subgroups report significantly lower scores on psychological safety. This often includes LGBTQ+ employees, neurodivergent staff, and women in male-dominated functions, a silent risk factor for turnover.

These gaps may not show up in your top-line scores. But they show up in behavior, disengagement, internal withdrawal, or quiet resignations. 

Bottom line? Inclusion gaps create fragile engagement. And fragile engagement breaks under pressure.

Inclusion as a Retention Lever

The Hidden Cost of Ignoring Inclusion

Let’s talk numbers.

Replacing a single employee can cost between 1.5 to 2 times their annual salary. And when those employees belong to minority groups, the cost often includes lost innovation, reduced team morale, and damage to your brand.

But here’s the kicker: Many of these employees don’t raise red flags in public before they leave. They don’t file complaints. They don’t make noise. They just disappear quietly.

That’s what makes exclusion so expensive. It hides in silence until the resignation lands on your desk, unless you proactively surface it through your survey data. That’s why inclusion metrics should be built into your engagement strategy, not as an add-on, but as a risk prevention tool.

Build an Inclusion-Driven Retention Strategy

You can talk about inclusion, or you can measure it.

With the right questions in your engagement survey, you gain insights into how different employee groups experience inclusion. At Ennova, we help clients create DE&I reports that uncover gender gaps, track sentiment among minority groups, and map demographic representation across teams.

Here’s how to make inclusion actionable:

• Segment your data by gender, tenure, role, and other relevant subgroups
• Track stay interviews and compare with inclusion sentiment
• Add inclusion metrics to leadership KPIs to drive accountability
• Create an ‘inclusion status’  report to highlight where gaps exist and where progress is being made
  
  

Want to go further? Ennova also supports exit pattern analysis to uncover whether lack of inclusion is quietly driving turnover.

Learn more about our DE&I Expertise and Employee Engagement Survey.

When you bake inclusion into your retention strategy, you’re not just building a fairer workplace; you’re securing your talent pipeline.

Before you go…

Still not sure if inclusion drives retention? Here’s the bottom line. 

If inclusion isn’t part of your retention strategy, your best people may already be halfway out the door.

Want to Keep Great People? Start with Real Inclusion

Inclusion doesn’t just make people feel good. It makes people stay.

And here’s why it matters: In a labor market where skilled employees have options, that’s your competitive advantage.

If you're serious about retaining top and often overlooked talent, it's time to make inclusion your strategy, not just your statement.