What’s the Real Cost of Attrition in Pharma — and What Can You Do About It?

Employee turnover has always been expensive. In the pharmaceutical and biomanufacturing industries, though, the cost goes far beyond replacing a name on a roster. When someone leaves, they take time, productivity, and stability with them. And they leave behind a gap that’s hard to fill.

While “attrition” typically refers to voluntary departures that aren’t immediately backfilled, we’re using the term more broadly here to reflect what many in the industry experience: the steady loss of employees — whether by choice or circumstance — that impacts operations and morale.

Why the cost adds up quickly

Replacing an entry-level employee typically costs 30 to 50 percent of their annual salary. For more specialized roles, that number can rise to 200 percent or more, depending on how long it takes to recruit, hire, and train a replacement.

But these figures don’t include everything. They don’t account for the pressure placed on the rest of the team while the role is vacant, the productivity lost during the search, or the risks that come when someone less experienced steps into a critical environment too soon.

In pharmaceutical manufacturing, where quality and precision matter at every step, even small disruptions can affect operations and budgets in a big way.

What contributes to attrition?

Turnover can come from many places: lack of training, slow onboarding, unclear expectations, burnout, or a general feeling of being unprepared.

It’s one thing to read through procedures in a training room. It’s something else to walk into a cleanroom and feel confident in what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and what could happen if you get it wrong.

When employees feel overwhelmed or underprepared, they often leave. Or they stay, but mistakes follow.

How Virtuosi is helping

We’ve worked with top pharmaceutical manufacturers facing high turnover and long training curves. After implementing Virtuosi, they saw:

• A 25% reduction in turnover
• A 50% reduction in time to competency
• A 25% decrease in human error
• In one instance, avoiding a single batch failure resulted in $500,000 in savings

These results were tied to measurable improvements like faster onboarding, fewer errors, and teams who felt better prepared from the start.

Virtuosi combines on-demand education with virtual reality practice to help employees understand not just what to do, but why it matters. That level of understanding leads to better decisions and stronger performance on the floor.

Practical next steps

If your team is constantly training replacements, struggling with errors, or feeling the strain of doing more with less, it may be time to reexamine how you’re training and retaining employees.

When people feel capable and supported, and when they’re equipped to do their jobs well, they tend to stay longer and contribute more.

Want to see how Virtuosi can help?

Visit www.virtuosivr.com to learn more

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