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Learn how product principles and design thinking can transform your People function into a growth driver… all in the time it takes to drink your morning coffee☕

Whether you’re a PX newbie or already a pro, here you’ll find actionable tools and tactics to get full leadership buy-in and make an impact from day 1 🚀

P.S …mine’s a Cortado with oat if you’re buying 😉

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Hey Reader 👋🏻

A slight break in the People Product Performance Metrics mini-series, I will finish that off in next week's shipment with a useable performance tracker template - you can (re) read part 1 and part 2 as a refresher between now and then 🤘🏻

Today I want to talk about, Silent Churn.

There’s a moment every Head of People dreads: A high performer drops a resignation in your inbox, seemingly out of nowhere 😱

There have been no warning signs, no feedback, just… gone.

If you’ve been there, like I have, you know the feeling. To be honest, I would be massively surprised if any of my readers haven’t experienced this at one stage or another.

We can post-rationalise and say things like:

“well, there was no way of knowing”

“if they were going to leave, there was nothing we could do anyway”

“if they don’t tell us they aren’t happy, we can’t help”

But the truth is, it didn’t happen overnight. It’s highly likely they were quietly checking out weeks or even months ago. We just didn’t see it.

In product, this is called this silent churn.

It’s when a user stops engaging long before they cancel their subscription. The signs are there if you are looking out for them. They might be subtle, but they are there:

Their usage drops.

They don’t explore new features.

They disengage from the community.

They lapse… then they leave.

The best product teams track for these "silent" signs of disengagement relentlessly because it’s the clearest early signal that value isn’t being realised and the customer is a churn risk. Ultimately, if you’re not delivering value and you take no action to address that, it’s only a matter of time before the customer churns.

If a product team isn't tracking these early indicators of churn, there is absolutely nothing they can do to prevent the customer from cancelling their subscription. Nothing at all.

Sometimes there is a last gasp attempt to retain a customer with some sort of special promotion or discount if they stay... This may work temporarily, but if the fundamental value issues aren't addressed, this just delays the inevitable.

That may sound familiar 😆

You: "X high performer has handed in their notice"

CEO / Exec: "offer them a salary increase if they stay. We can't lose them"

You: "why didn't we give them a pay rise in the last review if we can afford to now?"

CEO / Exec: "because we didn't need to then, they weren't leaving. Get them to stay, we need them here"

You: 🤦🏻

Yup, I know you will have had a version of that conversation. We all have 😅

So… why don’t People teams (and execs!) view employee engagement the same way as product teams treat silent churn indicators?

What generally happens in a typical HR function is we use lagging indicators like periodic engagement surveys, exit interviews, and post-mortem retrospectives to try and understand why someone left. But that is all too late.

If we want to retain great people, we need to stop focusing purely on the retrospective why they left, and start focusing on when they started to leave 💡

How to spot Silent Churn in your org:

An effective retention strategy is proactive, not reactive.

If you are going to stand a chance of retaining great talent who are silently slipping into churn risk, you need to rethink how you track engagement. Particularly in relation to high performers and business critical employees (i.e if they leave we are f*cked, employees 🙃). Instead of the lagging indicators, start using product thinking to ask:

✅ Are they engaging less?

Not just in meetings, but in the community, async tools, or social spaces?

✅ Are they using fewer of the ‘features’?

Skipping L&D opportunities, rituals, feedback cycles, socials, or even manager 1:1s?

✅ Are they less visible during moments of growth or recognition?

Are they not putting themselves forward - or worse, being overlooked?

✅ Has their internal ‘NPS’ dropped?

Fewer cross-functional connections, missed opportunities to share wins, low team sentiment?

✅ Are they still expanding… or just coasting?

In product, expansion = value. It’s the same in PX. If the employee is no longer actively expanding their "use" of PX product features and has stopped growing in their role and internal career trajectory, they have likely reached a "value cap" and plateued.

All of these are the moments that signal misalignment and disengagement which are so easily missed if they aren't being proactively tracked.

It is in these moments where retention strategy should start. But that is only possible if you can see the signs.

What to do about silent churn

The good news as it doesn't need to be complicated and like any product challenge, you start with discovery 🔎

1️⃣Look at behaviour, not just feedback. Surveys won’t always tell you what’s happening. Observable behaviour does. We have all gotten far too reliant on general engagement surveying and tick-box employee feedback data, but the real evidence of disengagement is not in what people say, but what they do. The questions above a good places to start for behaviour tracking☝🏻

2️⃣Build an "early signals" dashboard. Don't go crazy with this, when I say dashboard I don't mean spin up a project team and get devops involved to build a shiny "dashboard" of datapoints. What I am really saying is have a system in place for tracking and visualising silent churn signals. Track PX programme opt-ins, drop-offs, and no-shows across your People product ecosystem. Even anecdotal data and captured employee stories, with some light tagging to categorise can be a huge help. The key is to be tracking and regularly reviewing silent churn indicators to make proactive intervention possible.

3️⃣Close the loop fast! Once you spot a pattern or indicator of silent churn, go direct. It can be as simple as “Hey, noticed you haven’t joined [X] lately, anything on your mind?”. Make it safe. Make it human. What is important is engaging directly and opening up a conversation that could lead to opportunity to intervene before the disengagement deepens.

4️⃣Create "re-engagement" moments. Don't wait till the resignation lands and then launch into retention and win-back campaigns. Instead, once early churn indicators are identified, proactively look for ways to re-spark curiosity, rebuild trust and reconnect meaning. A lot of times, all it needs is some well timed recognition which is honest and authentic.

Retention isn’t a single moment. It’s a continuous experience.

So if you want to keep your best people, don’t just ask “why did they leave?” - start asking: When did they start to drift? And what could we have done differently, sooner?

Use the when question to remap the employee lifecycle to identify critical moments for re-engagement. Proactively monitor silent churn markers. Take swift action to intervene as soon as those indicators start to appear. This is the basis of a solid retention strategy that will actually work to keep employees engaged, productive and satisfied.

If you are still relying on reactive "win-back" activity triggered by lagging indicators... Implement this approach instead, and thank me later.

At the very least you will reduce the number of times you have to have the awkward "their leaving and we didn't see it coming" conversation with your CEO. At best you will be able to clearly evidence the impact and value created by the People team through proactive intervention and retention programmes 🚀

OK, that’s a wrap for this week.

Grab your coffee and open up your inbox same time next week for more insights, tips, and resource flags on how to use product-led practices to smash HR silos, add strategic value and turn your People function into a growth driver 🚀

With love,

Luke ✌🏻

PS, when you are ready you might like...

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