Attrition Meaning: Loss a Little at a Time

Attrition meaning across fields

1. Workplace. The loss of employees through resignations, retirements and other departures. In many offices, especially in India, attrition is the everyday word for people quitting. Some HR writers use it more narrowly for jobs that are left empty rather than refilled.
2. Customers. Customers who stop buying or cancel a subscription, also called churn.
3. Conflict and sport. Wearing an opponent down through steady losses rather than one big blow. A war of attrition is won by whoever can absorb losses longest.
4. Research. Participants dropping out of a study before it ends.
5. Dentistry and geology. Physical wear from rubbing, such as teeth grinding against teeth, or rocks smoothed by friction.
6. Theology. In Catholic teaching, sorrow for sin that springs from fear of punishment, sometimes called imperfect contrition, as distinct from perfect contrition, which comes from love of God.

Worked example: an attrition rate

To define attrition in numbers, companies track it as a percentage over a period, often a year. A common formula is:

Attrition rate = (employees who left during the period / average number of employees) x 100

Firms define the inputs differently, for instance whether interns or contract workers count, so compare rates only when the method is the same.

Sentences with the word

• The bank hopes to cut costs through natural attrition rather than layoffs.
• High attrition in the call centre meant constant training of new hires.
• The long season turned into a battle of attrition, with injuries piling up for both teams.
• Researchers noted heavy attrition, as nearly a third of participants missed the final survey.
• Years of attrition had smoothed the stone steps of the temple.

Attrition vs turnover vs layoff

No single definition of attrition settles this. In practice many companies use attrition and turnover as near twins. If the difference matters, ask how the speaker is counting. The opposite goal for HR teams is retention, keeping good people.

Where the word came from

Attrition comes from Latin attritio, a rubbing against, from atterere, to wear or rub away, built on terere, to rub. Its earliest English use, in the late 1300s, was the theological sense of imperfect sorrow for sin. The physical sense of abrasion followed in the 1500s. The phrase war of attrition took hold during the First World War, around 1914, when armies tried to exhaust each other along fixed front lines. The business sense of losing staff developed from this notion of steady depletion.

Using it well at work

In reports, pair the word with a type or a number: voluntary attrition, first-year attrition, attrition of 12 percent. Phrases like reduce headcount through attrition or natural attrition signal a gentle approach where the company simply does not replace leavers. For related terms, see compensation, redundant and the business and money hub, which covers pay, contracts and workplace terms.