How Can You Retain Key Talent as Economy Recovers?

Organizations have been adding to their payroll since January 2010. While it hasn’t been a dramatic rebound the talent pool on the sidelines has been reduced (unemployment is at its lowest point in over five years). You may notice that more applicants are dropping out of the process because they are getting an offer before you make them an offer.

In addition, there are more job openings than at any point since January 2008. So, more jobs and fewer unemployed people make the hiring manager’s job more difficult.

These changes can be frustrating to human resources leaders who are trying to grow their team. In turn many are failing to retain top talent. What can help?

Ask yourself:

• Do your key employees have a clear path to progress?
• Have your leaders defined company goals well and are they supporting these goals?
• Are you applying old retention techniques to a changed workforce?

Jack Welch is a business guru extraordinaire who made an (in)famous statement about nurturing your top 20 percent while weeding out the bottom 10 percent. Do your key employees know where they fit on this sort of ranking? Even if you don’t use such a stark ranking system, your key employees should be nurtured in such a way that they sense their value and worth to the organization.

Leaders in the organization need to convey the strategy that the organization is implementing and show how they are supporting this strategy. It is easy for anyone in the organization to see how strategy is not being supported, so the support needs to be shown in obvious ways. If your senior team isn’t sharing the organization’s strategy, then expect to lose key employees. As employees cycle through learning-implementing-leading phases of their employment, unclear strategy causes them to disengage quickly in the implementing phase.

The recession started in 2008; it’s 2014, so nearly seven years have passed. Seven years of retirements, seven years of graduating college students. That means that the workforce of today is a different generation than just a few years ago. The demographic shift from boomers to millennials is in full effect. Read up on what makes this younger generation tick. While many motivators are the same from generation to generation, each group also has subtle differences that—if mastered—will make your job much easier!

Want to learn more about retaining and hiring top talent? Contact us today!

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