North Carolina Benchmarking Project Report 2026: Employee Retention

The North Carolina Benchmarking Project allows participating North Carolina municipalities to compare their service and performance trends. Its annual reports grow out of topical performance strategy sessions bringing together public service professionals from municipalities in fifteen counties across the state.

The 2026 Benchmarking report on employee retention provides insights from these sessions on the challenges of retaining employees in the long term, the effects of retention risk on service operations, and the strategies that local governments have used to improve retention and to mitigate those effects. The report is organized by service area, recognizing that retention challenges and strategies are rooted in the unique dynamics of each area. It also provides recommended metrics from the Benchmarking 2.0 dataset for measuring retention in each service area, which are accessible through Benchmarking 2.0’s online dashboard.

Current Partners: Apex, Asheville, Chapel Hill, Charlotte, Concord, Gastonia, Greensboro, Hickory, Harrisburg, Holly Springs, Raleigh, Rocky Mount, Salisbury, Wake Forest, and Winston-Salem.

Services: Asphalt Maintenance, Building Inspections, Human Resources, Emergency Communications, Fire Service, Fleet Maintenance, Parks and Recreation, Police Service, Solid Waste, Wastewater Service, and Water Service.

Interactive Dashboard: The dashboard, which is accessible through the Benchmarking 2.0 website, includes extensive features that make it possible to apply data normalization and calculate percentages, averages, and confidence intervals across comparison units.