Treat the director’s claim as one hypothesis among several. Test them all.

Hypothesis 1 — Pay is the driver.

Pull the team’s compensation vs market benchmarks (Radford, Mercer, or internal comp band).
Pull exit-survey responses: is “compensation” mentioned by departing members? What are the other top reasons?
Compare against a peer team (same function, similar level, same pay practice) and measure whether their attrition differs.

Hypothesis 2 — Manager is the driver.

Pull 360 / engagement-survey scores for the manager specifically. Is manager-NPS low? Are open-ended comments pointed?
Compare this manager’s team attrition to other managers at the same level in the same function.
Look at who left — top performers disproportionately? Recent joiners who never scaled? The pattern tells a story.

Hypothesis 3 — Role / scope is the driver.

Is the work itself undifferentiated or misaligned with ladder expectations?
Are people being promoted off the team (internal mobility, often good), vs leaving the company (bad)?

Hypothesis 4 — Function-wide driver.

Is the entire function running hot on attrition? Then it’s not this manager at all — it’s a market or org-level problem.

How to deliver the finding:

Quantitative output: “35% of departures cited compensation as the primary driver in exit surveys; the median pay delta to market benchmark is 8% below, and the peer team with matched pay has 14% attrition vs your 22%.” Name how much of the gap pay actually explains.
Stakeholder-ready: do not frame as “you were wrong.” The director may be directionally right (pay is one factor); they just may not be only right. Frame as “here’s the composition.”

If pay is, say, 40% of the explanation:

Pay adjustment likely helps but won’t close the gap entirely.
Propose both levers — pay band review with Comp, and manager coaching + scope review.

Red flag in weaker answers:

A manager claims their team’s attrition is due to pay. How do you test it?

Stuck? Peek at a hint