The Turnover Matrix
See your turnover rate by performance rating and position in pay range — in your own data. Then put your merit budget where it keeps the people you most want to keep.
Does your pay explain who is leaving?
The Turnover Matrix helps you connect pay increases to employee behavior — highlighting where your current approach may be under-rewarding top talent or over-investing in low-impact areas, causing unwanted turnover.
- Turnover rate for every performance rating and pay range position
- Headcount behind each rate, so you can see which numbers to trust
- Works with your own ratings — up to 95 of them
- Runs in your browser. Your employee data never leaves your computer
Paste your employee data
Copy the cells from your spreadsheet, header row included, and paste them below. Include everyone who left during the period you are studying, plus your current employees.
- Current Pay or Pay at time of Term
- Range Minimum
- Range Maximum
- Performance Rating
- Termination Date
Those five columns are all the tool reads. Leave the termination date blank for current employees. Names and IDs are not needed — leave them out if you prefer.
Your employee data stays in your browser. The matrix is calculated on your own computer and nothing you paste here is sent to HyperEquity.
How To Read It
Same grid as a merit matrix. Different question.
Performance down the side, position in pay range across the top. Each cell holds the turnover rate for the people in it.
| Range penetration (low in range → high in range) | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| <0% | 0–20% | 21–40% | 41–60% | 61–80% | 81–100% | >100% | |
| Top rating | |||||||
| Middle rating | |||||||
| Low rating | |||||||
A merit matrix puts a recommended percentage increase in each cell. A high performer who is low in their range gets the largest increase. A solid performer already above the midpoint gets a moderate one, because the midpoint usually represents the market average.
The Turnover Matrix keeps the same two axes and swaps what is in the middle. Instead of the increase you plan to give, each cell shows the turnover rate you actually had. What is the turnover rate of your high performers paid low in the range? What is it for high performers paid high in the range?
That is the point of the tool. It turns “we should look after our top people” into a strategy with a measurable return: go after your high performers who are low in their range more aggressively, and spend less where pay is already doing its job.
How It Works
Two steps
Paste in your data
Paste in the employees who left during the period you are studying, plus your current employees as of a date that represents average headcount for that period. One row each:
- Current pay, or pay at the time they left
- Pay range minimum and maximum
- Performance rating
- Termination date (blank for current employees)
Review the results
The tool builds two tables for you. The first shows the turnover rate for each performance rating at each position in range. The second shows the count behind every rate — employees who left over average headcount — so you can tell a real pattern from a cell with three people in it.
Range penetration is calculated automatically from the pay and range columns.
Questions
The Turnover Matrix, answered
A turnover matrix is a grid with performance ratings down one side and position in pay range across the top. Each cell shows the turnover rate for the employees who fall into it. It answers a specific question: how often do high performers who are paid low in their range leave, compared with high performers who are paid high in their range?
They share the same two axes — performance rating and position in range. A merit matrix fills each cell with a recommended percentage increase. A turnover matrix fills each cell with the turnover rate you actually experienced. The second tells you whether the first is working.
Range penetration is where an employee's pay sits inside their pay range, as a percentage. It is calculated as pay minus range minimum, divided by range maximum minus range minimum. 0% is the bottom of the range, 100% is the top, and the midpoint usually represents the market average. The tool calculates it for you.
A list of employees who left during the period you want to study, plus a list of current employees as of a date that represents your average headcount for that period. For each person you need pay, the minimum and maximum of their pay range, a performance rating, and a termination date if they left. Names and employee IDs are not needed.
That is your call. Many teams include only the exits they care about — voluntary or regrettable turnover — so the rates reflect the people they wanted to keep.
No. The matrix is calculated in your browser, on your own computer. The employee data you paste in is never uploaded to us. The only thing we receive is the contact form you fill in to unlock the full results.
Yes. You see your overall turnover and the shape of your matrix straight away. Tell us who you are and the full matrix, the headcount behind it, and the Excel version of the tool are yours, free.
Want a second set of eyes on what yours shows? See our compensation consulting.