The Hidden Cost of High Remote Employee Turnover (and How to Prevent It)

Remote work has transformed the way we hire, collaborate, and build teams. But it hasn’t eliminated one of the most expensive challenges every company faces: High Employee Turnover. In fact, it seems to be increasing it.

High Remote Employee Turnover does seem to be even higher than if it was in a more traditional “in-office” setup, especially among new hires who struggle to feel connected without the “natural culture” of an office.

So how much is turnover really costing your company, and what can you do to prevent it?

The True Cost of Losing a Remote Employee

Many leaders underestimate the real cost of turnover, focusing only on recruitment fees or job ads. But the impact goes far deeper:

• Lost productivity: It can take 3–6 months for a new hire to reach full productivity. Even for experienced hires, getting into the new systems and procedures of a company never has a quick fix.

• Training costs: Re-onboarding and levelling up the skills of new employees takes time and resources. Especially when your team works remotely, collaborations on this scale take up a lot of time and effort both for the new hires and the staff training them. Supervision is required, and in remote environments this too is not achieved easily so more mistakes tend to happen early on.

• Team disruption: When someone leaves, collaboration slows, workloads increase, and morale can drop.

• Client impact: High turnover can even affect relationships with customers, who notice the lack of consistency.

SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management) estimates that replacing an employee costs 6–9 months of their salary on average. For remote teams, where engagement can be harder to maintain, that cost multiplies fast.

Why Remote Teams Struggle More with Retention

Remote employees often leave not because of the work itself, but because of the lack of connection:

• Feeling isolated or invisible in a distributed team. It’s often not the teams fault, remote work naturally creates gaps and it’s not easy to see when someone is getting left behind.

• Struggling to build trust with colleagues. When you’re not spending 8 hours a day side by side with your team members, it’s hard to build functional working relationships that foster essential trust.

• Lack of belonging and culture compared to in-office peers. Particularly for more introverted team members who don’t actively reach out to others or engage in team events, this causes them to not feel a sense of loyalty or commitment to the company, and this in turn makes it easy for them to look for other opportunities.

• One-off team events that feel awkward or forced, rather than building real bonds. These don’t help anyone! People are already stressed with workloads and deadlines, so when they’re told they should be attending long events that aren’t directly related to their work, it can have the opposite effect when it comes to boosting morale and team culture.

Without this essential team culture, employees don’t see a long-term future at the company, so they move on.

How to Prevent High Remote Employee Turnover

So what can leaders do to protect their culture and their bottom line?

Here are three evidence-backed strategies:

1. Build Culture Continuously, Not Occasionally

One-off retreats or yearly events are fun, but they don’t solve day-to-day disconnection. Instead, think micro moments — short, consistent sessions that build connection over time. Simple team building events that fit into the workday, and don’t feel like they’re taking away from precious time, but instead feel like they are adding to it.

2. Make Team Building Inclusive

Introverts often disengage in “forced fun” settings. The best activities are ones that allow participation at each person’s comfort level, no pressure, just natural engagement. Most people don’t want to be put on the spot, and the dread of that event approaching can do a lot more bad than good.

3. Link Fun to Skills That Matter

The most effective team-building activities don’t just entertain. They improve communication, collaboration, and problem-solving while employees are having fun. It could be as simple as running a quiz based on fun industry relevant knowledge, or by using a platform like Teem Camp where you can track your team’s collaboration improvements! 

How Teem Camp Helps Reduce Churn

We built Teem Camp as a platform that gives remote teams quick, science-backed team games that not only energise people, but also provide valuable insights to leaders.

With Teem Camp you can:

• Run engaging 10–30 minute sessions without draining calendars. Our system is simple to use and removes the time it usually takes to find/craft a virtual activity for your teams. The platform will even recommend games based on the teams current collaboration growth areas.

• See how your team is improving across trust, communication, collaboration and more. Using our gamified avatar system, you will see which areas your team are gaining points in to track improvement over key areas.

• Build retention by creating a culture where people feel connected and valued. Our games are designed to be easy to use and inclusive for everyone, so no one gets left behind, and all employees feel better for it.

The result? Lower turnover, happier employees, and stronger teams.

Final Thoughts

Employee turnover is one of the most expensive problems for remote companies, but it doesn’t have to be. By investing in continuous, inclusive, skill-based culture building, leaders can reduce churn and keep their best talent.

👉 Ready to try it for your team? Start your free 30-day Teem Camp trial (no credit card required) and see how small moments of play can make a big impact on retention.