Turnover

Note: Screenshots in this article use data from our internal demo organisation. Any organisation IDs or user IDs visible in the screenshots reference our demo dataset, not your or any other customer's data.

🎯 Overview

Track how your workforce is changing over time — who's joining, who's leaving, and how that's affecting your headcount.

This report:

• Shows new starters, leavers, and overall turnover across your organisation
• Calculates turnover percentage, stability index, and average length of service
• Surfaces "bad hires" (employees terminated within a configurable number of days) and employees whose managers have left

Use this dashboard to:

• Monitor turnover rates by location, job, contract type, or other dimensions
• Spot leaver trends and identify common termination reasons
• Review new starter onboarding outcomes and early-leaver patterns
• Find employees whose direct manager has left, so you can reassign reporting lines

📣 What's New?

• 2026-07-10 — The Turnover Trend card's Time Grouping picker now includes an Every 28 days option alongside the existing 10/15/30-day options.
• 2026-07-01 — The Leavers details and New starters details tables now include an Earliest employment period start column, showing the earliest start date across all of the employee's employment periods in Sona.
• 2026-06-11
• The Leavers details and New starters details tables now include a Cost Code column.
• The Turnover by parameter card adds a Location & Cost Code option to the Summarise By picker.

➕ Benefits

• See headline turnover, headcount, and stability metrics at a glance
• Drill into starters and leavers by location, job, or any custom dimension
• Compare current turnover against the previous equivalent period to spot emerging trends
• Identify employees left without a manager after a leaver event

🗂️ Dashboard Tabs

Tab	What it shows	Best for
Overview	Headline headcount, starters, leavers, turnover %	A quick snapshot of workforce movement
New Starters	Starter counts, bad hire metrics, full starter details	Reviewing recent hires and onboarding outcomes
Leavers	Leaver counts, average length of service, leaver details	Understanding who's leaving and why
Turnover	Stability index, turnover by dimension, current vs previous trend	Deeper turnover analysis and period comparison
Employees With No Manager	Employees whose manager has left	Reassigning reporting lines after leaver events

Overview

A snapshot of your workforce movement across the selected period, with Latest Data Sync and Dates Showing indicators at the top.

• Headcount at start of period — total active employees on the first day of the window
• Headcount at end of period — total active employees on the last day of the window
• New Starters — count of employees whose continuous service began within the period
• Leavers — count of employees whose final date of employment falls within the period
• Turnover % — leavers as a percentage of average headcount during the selected period (shown as a gauge)
• New starters by location / Leavers by location — bar charts breaking down movement across your sites

The Overview tab also includes drill-down tables of Employees active at start of period and Employees active at end of period for full headcount detail.

New Starters

Focuses on who joined during the period and how well early hires are sticking, with Latest Data Sync and Dates Showing indicators at the top.

• New Starters — total starter count for the selected period
• Bad Hires (Starters) — starters who left within the Bad Hire Criteria threshold (default 60 days)
• % Bad Hires (Starters) — bad hires as a percentage of total starters
• New starters in last 12 months by date — area chart of starter trend grouped by your chosen Date Aggregation (weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc.). This chart always shows the rolling 12 months and is not affected by the Period Start/End Date filters.
• % New starters by parameter — pie chart breaking starters down by the selected Dynamic Parameter (e.g. job title, location)
• New starters details — full employee-level table including Location, Cost Code, job, contract type, contracted hours, pay rate, starter declaration, Continuous service start date, and Earliest employment period start (the earliest start date across all of the employee's employment periods in Sona)

Leavers

Shows who left during the period, why, and how long they were employed. Latest Data Sync and Dates Showing indicators appear at the top.

• Leavers — total leaver count for the period
• Bad Hires (Leavers) / % Bad Hires (Leavers) — leavers who exited within the Bad Hire Criteria threshold
• Average Length Of Service — mean tenure of employees who left during the period
• Leavers in the last 12 months by date — rolling 12-month area chart of leaver trend, grouped by Date Aggregation. Not affected by the Period Start/End Date filters.
• % Leavers by parameter — pie chart breaking leavers down by the selected Dynamic Parameter
• Leavers details — full employee-level table including Location, Cost Code, termination reason, would-rehire flag, length of service, pay information, Continuous service start date, and Earliest employment period start (the earliest start date across all of the employee's employment periods in Sona). This table now lists one row per genuine leaving event, so an employee who leaves twice in the window (for example a Perm-to-Bank change followed by a Bank exit) appears once per leave. Total leaver counts elsewhere on the dashboard are unaffected.

Turnover

The deeper analytical view: stability, turnover by chosen dimension, and a current vs previous period comparison. Latest Data Sync and Dates Showing indicators sit at the top.

• Stability Index — employees with 1+ year of service as a percentage of those with less than 12 months
• Employees With One Year's Service Or More / Employees With Less Than 12 Months' Service — the underlying counts behind the index
• Turnover by parameter — a breakdown table showing average headcount, new starters, leavers, % turnover, and headcount at start and end of period, summarised by your chosen dimension (Summarise By picker inside the card)
• Employee turnover over the last 12 months — rolling 12-month combo chart of average headcount, starters, leavers, and % turnover
• Turnover Trend — compares current-period turnover against the equivalent previous period (e.g. last 90 days vs the 90 days before). Period Length and Time Grouping pickers sit inside the card. Turnover Trend Comparison Dates displays the two windows being compared.

Employees With No Manager

A table of employees whose direct manager has left the organisation, with Dates Showing and Latest Data Sync indicators at the top.

• Employees whose managers have left — lists each employee with their location, plus the departed manager's name, location, final date of employment, and termination reason. Use this view to identify reporting lines that need to be reassigned.

🎛️ Filters

Standard Filters

• Location / Parent Location / Grandparent Location — filter by organisational hierarchy
• Contract Type — filter by employment contract
• Full Name / Employee ID — find a specific employee
• Status — employee status (Active, Leaver, Left, Starting Soon, Deactivated). Defaults to Active and Leaver.

Report-Specific Filters

Filter	Default	What it does
Period: Start Date	First day of last month	Sets the start of the analysis window
Period: End Date	Last day of last month	Sets the end of the analysis window
All Locations Downstream From	--	Includes the named location and every location below it in the hierarchy
Job	--	Narrows results to one or more job titles
Pay Type	--	Narrows results by pay type (hourly, salaried)
Termination Reason	--	Filters leavers by the recorded termination reason
Would Rehire?	--	Filters leavers by the would-rehire flag
Bad Hire Criteria (Days)	60	Sets the day threshold under which a leaver counts as a "bad hire"
Bad Hires	Include	Whether to Include, Exclude, or Show only bad hires
Managers Name	--	Narrows results by reporting manager
Status (Stability Index)	Leaver, Active	Controls which employee statuses feed the Stability Index calculation on the Turnover tab

Dynamic Parameters

The Turnover dashboard has several structural switchers that change how data is summarised or compared. Each one reshapes the cards rather than just narrowing rows.

The Dynamic Parameter filter changes the breakdown dimension used by the % New starters by parameter and % Leavers by parameter pie charts. Options include Job title, Location, Parent location, Grandparent location, Contract type, and more. Default: Job title.

The Summarise By filter (inside the Turnover by parameter card on the Turnover tab) controls which dimension drives the turnover summary table — Location, Parent location, Grandparent location, Job title, Contract type, or Location & Cost Code. Default: Location.

The Date Aggregation filter changes the grouping grain on the rolling 12-month trend charts (New starters in last 12 months by date, Leavers in the last 12 months by date, Employee turnover over the last 12 months). Options: Weekly, 4 weekly, Monthly, Monthly Rolling, Quarterly. Default: Monthly.

The Period Length (days) and Time Grouping pickers (inside the Turnover Trend card on the Turnover tab) control the comparison window and the spacing of points on the trend line. Time Grouping options include Every 10 days, Every 15 days, Every 28 days, and Every 30 days. Defaults: 90 days / Every 15 days. The Starting From picker in the same card sets the anchor date for the comparison.

📅 Date Filtering

The Period: Start Date and Period: End Date filters drive almost every card on the dashboard. If you leave them blank, the dashboard defaults to last calendar month. The Dates Showing indicator at the top of each tab confirms the window currently in use.

The rolling 12-month charts (New starters in last 12 months by date, Leavers in the last 12 months by date, Employee turnover over the last 12 months) and the Turnover Trend card use their own internal date logic and are not affected by Period Start/End Date.

❗️ Important Definitions

• Turnover % — leavers during the period divided by average headcount across the same period. Average headcount is calculated from headcount at the start and end of the window, so very short windows can produce volatile percentages.
• Bad Hire — an employee whose total length of employment is at or below the Bad Hire Criteria (Days) threshold (default 60 days). The Bad Hires filter then controls whether these employees are Included, Excluded, or shown exclusively across the dashboard.
• Earliest employment period start vs Continuous service start date — the earliest start date is the minimum "From" date across all of the employee's employment periods in Sona. Continuous service start date may be earlier because it can include pre-employer or TUPE service and is what's used for tenure and holiday calculations.

❓ Common Questions

Why is my Turnover % different from a simple leavers ÷ headcount calculation?

Turnover % uses average headcount across the selected window (headcount at start and end), not headcount at a single point in time. For shorter or more volatile periods this gives a more representative rate than dividing by end-of-period headcount alone.

Why don't the rolling 12-month charts respect my date filter?

The trend charts (New starters in last 12 months by date, Leavers in the last 12 months by date, Employee turnover over the last 12 months) always show the rolling 12 months so you can see longer-term patterns regardless of the analysis window you've chosen. The Period Start/End Date filters only affect the scalar tiles, tables, and pie charts.

Why does the Stability Index use a different Status default?

Stability Index measures how many of your current and recently-departed employees have reached 1+ year of service, so it needs both Active and Leaver employees in scope. That's why the Status (Stability Index) filter defaults to both — changing it narrows the population the index is calculated from.

🗓️ Data Coverage

• Data freshness: Refreshes every 30 minutes via the automated data pipeline. Check the Latest Data Sync indicator on the dashboard for the exact timestamp.

⬇️ Downloading Data

• To download the current view as a PDF, click the download button in the top-right corner of the dashboard.
• To download an individual chart or table as CSV or Excel, click the download button in the top-right corner of that chart.