Employee retention simulation: keep six key people for a year
Last year two senior people left without warning. This year the CEO wants these six kept, and has given you a fixed budget and whatever time you can find. Ask before you spend.
- Six named people, four quarters, eight hours of your time a quarter
- Six levers, from stay conversations to pay rises, plus doing nothing
- A competitor offer and an engineering pay jump arrive mid-year
- Scored on talent kept, budget efficiency and fairness across the team
Not sure yet? Try the free 3-round Price War first: no sign-up, about five minutes.
Is there a simulation that teaches managers how to stop key people from leaving?
Flight Risk is a Bodhih Arena micro-simulation in which you try to keep six hard-to-replace people for a year with a fixed retention budget and eight hours a quarter. Stay conversations reveal why each person might leave, and the scored debrief shows whether your levers matched their real reasons.
What is Flight Risk?
Flight Risk is a single-player online simulation of a year of talent retention. As head of engineering and operations at an invented software company, you have six key people, a fixed retention budget and eight hours a quarter. Each quarter you choose one action per person: a stay conversation, a pay rise, a promotion path, a project move, flexible hours, public recognition or nothing. Each person's real reasons for leaving stay hidden unless you ask.
Flight Risk at a glance
| Format | Micro-sim, single player |
|---|---|
| Length | About 15 minutes per play |
| Players | One person; every play is a new seeded scenario |
| Devices | Any modern browser on a laptop, tablet or phone |
| Scoring | Scored on the server out of 100, with sub-scores and a debrief |
| Credential | Open Badges 3.0 micro-sim credential at a score of 80 or more, with a public verification page |
| Competencies | Motivating and Engaging (SPN.3.4), Commercial Acumen (SPN.4.5), Performance Management (SPN.3.3), Difficult Conversations (SPN.1.5) |
| LMS | LTI 1.3 launch from Canvas, Moodle, Blackboard or D2L, with grade passback; usable as a Bodhih pathway stage |
| Price for one person | $12 |
| Price per seat | $12 per seat, volume pricing by seat count |
The resignation you did not see coming
You find out why people left in the exit interview
By then the reason is obvious and useless. The manager relationship, the stalled promotion or the workload was visible to anyone who asked, and nobody asked in time.
Money is the lever everyone reaches for
A counter-offer is fast and easy to approve. It also tells the rest of the team that resigning is how you get a rise, and it does little for someone whose real problem is their manager or their growth.
The quiet person leaves while you chase the loud one
Attention flows to whoever is threatening to go. Meanwhile someone with a low pulse and no complaints is updating their profile, and when they leave, everyone left carries their work.
Here is the situation you walk into
You are Head of Engineering and Operations at Brightloom Software, a 120-person company that makes scheduling tools for clinics. Gareth leads your engineers; Yusra leads the product and business side. Six people on your teams would be very hard to replace: Maren, a senior data engineer; Kwame, a product designer; Lucia, a key account lead; Dev, the QA lead with seven years here; Hana, a site reliability engineer; and Pieter, a finance analyst.
It is January. You have a 40k retention budget for the year and about eight hours a quarter beyond the day job. You can see each person's pay against their band midpoint, their performance, tenure, manager, a rough cost to replace them and a noisy engagement pulse. You cannot see why any of them might leave.
Some time in the spring or summer, market data will push engineering pay bands up. A recruiter from a rival health-tech firm will start messaging your people. One of your strong performers will get an offer. If you have already sat down with them, you may hear about it first.
5 decisions, one debrief
- STEP 1
Quarter 1: read the table, choose one action per person
For each of the six: nothing, a stay conversation (two hours), a pay adjustment of 3%, 6% or 10% (one hour plus budget), a written promotion path (three hours plus a small cost), a move to a new project (two hours, two moves a year), flexible hours (one hour) or public recognition (one hour). You cannot exceed eight hours or the budget.
- STEP 2
See who stayed and what you heard
Stay conversations surface each person's top two reasons. Pulses update. Anyone whose reasons win resigns at the end of the quarter and mentions why in the exit interview.
- STEP 3
Mid-year: the market moves
In the second or third quarter, engineering pay rises about 7% in the market, so every engineer's pay falls further below band. Big rises also get talked about, and people below band start asking how pay works.
- STEP 4
Mid-year: the offer
In the second or third quarter a recruiter starts messaging your teams, and one strong performer receives a competitor's offer. Whether you answer the right reason, in the right quarter, makes a large difference to whether they stay.
- STEP 5
Quarter 4 and the year in review
Your last round of actions, then the score, three sub-scores and a reveal of every person's real reasons and their quarterly risk of leaving.
Who Flight Risk is for
- People managers with key talent to keep. If losing one person would hurt your team for months, this is a safe place to practise the sequence: ask, diagnose, then act.
- HR business partners and people teams. You advise managers on counter-offers, pay adjustments and retention budgets. The simulation gives you a shared, scored case to coach them through.
- L&D teams building manager programmes. Retention is usually one slide. Here each participant runs a year, faces the same kinds of pressure with a different seeded cast of reasons, and comes to the session with evidence.
- HR and MBA students. A compact, numerical feel for how pay, growth, manager relationships and workload interact, and why fairness is part of retention rather than a separate topic.
Who should skip it
It does not teach employment law or how to design a pay structure; it is about the manager's judgement on who to talk to and which lever to pull.
What you will do differently after a year at Brightloom
The debrief usually points at one of two habits: spending before asking, or giving all the attention to the person making the most noise.
Hold stay conversations before you need them
You will book them early with the people who matter most, and use what you hear to decide where time and money go.
Match the lever to the reason
You will reach for a promotion path where growth is the issue, a project move where the manager relationship is the problem, and a rise where pay really is the gap.
Spend a retention budget where it changes something
You will judge each rise by whether it answers a reason the person actually has, and you will know what share of your spend did.
Keep pay and attention fair
You will think about who else hears about a 10% counter-offer, and whether an underpaid strong performer is being overlooked because they are not complaining.
Decide under uncertainty with limited resources
Eight hours, a fixed budget, noisy signals and events you cannot predict: allocating them is a compact exercise in strategic prioritisation, not only in HR.
Learning goals
- Use stay conversations to find what really drives each person
- Match the lever to the driver instead of reaching for money first
- Keep pay and attention fair across the team, not just for the loudest risk
Skills practised: Diagnosing before acting, Allocating a fixed budget and fixed time, Decision making under uncertainty, Fairness and pay equity judgement, Retention and engagement conversations.
Competencies scored
Sub-scores map to the open Bodhih Competency Spine, so results sit beside your other learning records.
What the debrief shows
- Your score out of 100 and three sub-scores: talent kept, budget efficiency and fairness across the team, each mapped to a Competency Spine skill.
- What happened: who stayed and who left, the replacement cost you lost, what you spent, how many stay conversations you held and what share of the money went to a real reason.
- Behind the curtain: each person's main and second reason for leaving, their risk of leaving each quarter, and who had the competitor's offer.
- What strong players do, and the key concept, the stay interview.
Stay interview
A planned conversation with someone you want to keep, asking what keeps them, what frustrates them and what might tempt them away. It turns guessing about retention into evidence, and it is far cheaper than an exit interview.
Use Flight Risk with a team
Seats are $12 each. Buy up to 25 seats online and assign them from your company admin; above that, or for a facilitated programme or an institution licence, request a quote and we activate your seats after payment.
Retention module in a manager programme
Play it as pre-work, then open the session with the debrief: who spent most of the budget on the first quarter, who asked first, who lost the quiet one.
A pathway stage for people managers
Put it after a module on 1:1s or engagement in a Bodhih learning pathway, so the stay conversation becomes something people have practised, not only read about.
An exercise for HRBP or talent assessment
Because each run is newly seeded, it works as a structured judgement exercise: fairness and budget sub-scores show how a candidate weighs the individual against the team.
LMS launch and team leaderboards
Launch from Canvas, Moodle, Blackboard or D2L through LTI 1.3 with grade passback, and use company leaderboards in Arena points to compare cohorts.
Volume pricing
| Seats | Per seat | How to buy |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | $12 | Online |
| 2 to 10 | $10.80 | Online |
| 11 to 50 | $9.60 | Online up to 25, then quote |
| 51+ | $8.40 | Quote |
Flight Risk compared with a case study or slide-based course
| Compared on | A case study or slide-based course | Flight Risk |
|---|---|---|
| Why people leave | Explained in the text, often as a single cause. | A hidden mix of pay, growth, manager and workload for each person, which you must ask to discover. |
| Constraints | Rarely costed. | Eight hours a quarter, a fixed budget and two project moves a year, enforced on every decision. |
| Knock-on effects | Mentioned in discussion, if at all. | Large rises raise pay pressure on others below band; each resignation adds workload to those who stay. |
| Luck versus judgement | Hard to separate. | Who leaves depends partly on luck, so half the talent-kept score comes from the risk your choices created. |
| Feedback | A discussion of what the author thinks was right. | A score out of 100, three sub-scores and every person's real reasons revealed. |
| Where it is weaker | Better for organisational context, culture and policy design. | Narrower: six people, one year, one manager's levers. |
What to pair with Flight Risk
The Exit, Offboarding and Knowledge Transfer Kit (Pro Kit)
Its cost of turnover calculator puts a real figure on what each departure costs your team, and its scripts help when someone does leave.
See the kit →Pro KitThe Performance Review Cycle Kit (Pro Kit)
If your fairness sub-score was low, the merit and pay simulator helps you plan rises across a team on purpose rather than in reaction to offers.
See the kit →Online courseAI for HR course
Sixteen hours on using generative AI for onboarding, performance and people analytics, with fairness and privacy guardrails in every module.
See the course →AssessAll assessmentManager Effectiveness Diagnostic, Advanced (AssessAll)
People often leave managers rather than companies; this diagnostic gives experienced managers a wider view of their own effectiveness.
Take the assessment →JobularyIndividual development plans on Jobulary
A credible growth plan kept several people in the simulation; Jobulary turns assessment results into an individual development plan for real staff.
Make a growth plan →Related simulations
How much does Flight Risk cost for an individual?
Flight Risk costs $12 for one person, bought online. That gives you the simulation with unlimited replays, the full debrief and the credential if you score 80 or more. It is sold on its own, not in a bundle.
How is it priced for a team, an HR function or a college?
Seats are $12 each, with volume tiers as seat numbers grow. Up to 25 seats can be bought online. For larger groups, facilitated sessions or an institution licence, request a quote; seats are activated once the order is confirmed.
How long is it?
About 15 minutes for four quarters and the debrief. If you stop part-way, your progress is saved.
What do I get?
The simulation, a score out of 100 with three sub-scores mapped to the Bodhih Competency Spine, a debrief (what happened, why, what strong players do, the key concept, and each person's real reasons), a place on your company leaderboard, and a credential at 80 or more.
Can I play again?
Yes. Each play is newly seeded: every person's reasons, how strongly they bite, who gets the offer and when the market moves are redrawn, so a second run tests your method, not your memory.
Is there a credential?
A score of 80 or more earns a Flight Risk micro-sim credential, issued as an Open Badges 3.0 badge with a public verification page and an Add to LinkedIn button.
What do I need to play?
A web browser on a laptop, tablet or phone. Nothing to install. The people table is wide, so a laptop or tablet is easier.
Can it be launched from our LMS?
Yes, through LTI 1.3 from Canvas, Moodle, Blackboard, D2L and similar systems, with the score passed back. It can also be a stage in a Bodhih learning pathway.
Who is it designed for?
Managers responsible for key people, HR business partners and people teams, L&D teams running manager programmes, and HR or MBA students.
How does it differ from an HR case study?
In a case you analyse someone else's retention problem after the fact. Here you act each quarter with hidden information and fixed resources, and see the consequences, including luck, separated out in the score.
Do I enter any real employee data?
No. All six people, the company and the numbers are invented. We store your decisions and scores to run the simulation and show your debrief, and results stay within your organisation's account. See bodhih.org/privacy.
Can I try first, and what is the refund policy?
Try the free three-round Price War at /taste-arena, with no sign-up, to see how Arena simulations play. Refund terms are at bodhih.org/refunds.
Ask first, then spend
In 15 minutes you will find out whether you diagnose before you act, or reach for money and hope. Hold your first stay conversation in the simulation, and book the real one when you are done.
Want a feel for Arena first? Play the free 3-round Price War.
- Play it as often as you like for 12 months: every play is a new scenario
- A debrief after each play: what happened, why, and what strong players do
- A verifiable credential when you score 80 or more
- Scored on the server, mapped to the Bodhih Competency Spine
Not sure yet? Try the free 3-round Price War first, no sign-up.
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