Retaining Top Talent

Company loyalty is on life support these days.  Downsizing, mergers and workforce redistributions have allowed Generations X and Y to become very comfortable with notion of frequent job changes.  This new culture can be a huge obstacle to retention efforts if a comprehensive plan is not put into place.

An organization can no longer trust loyalty to keep their team intact.  This can be only achieved through a great retention program.  Creating a culture of continuously re-recruiting existing staff is essential.  The first step in a great program is to creating clearly defined goals for retention.  This goal should include a percentage of top-performing employees to be retained each year.

The employer/employee relationship needs to be consistently nurtured. The second step in creating a retention program is to determine which relationships are most critical.  Top talent is not always actively seeking new opportunities, but they are on the competitor’s radar.  This list should include top talent that consistently meet or exceed expectations.  Periodically revisit this list for new additions.

The next step in the process is conducting “stay interviews”.  This is not the same as a performance evaluation.  The goal of this process is to identify and minimize triggers that might cause someone to consider leaving.  It is also a great way to test the temperature of the team.  A stay interview may also be conducted when there is a new opportunity within the organization that this team member is being considered for.  This interview should be no more than an hour and should feel like a conversation.  While this may feel awkward for both the manager and employee, over time it will become second nature.  For a great outline and possible questions check out this article from ERE.net .

The final step is to create a personalized retention plan.  Use the information gathered in the stay interview to craft a retention plan for each person on the list of top talent to retain.  This plan should include goals, measures for success and should assign people who are responsible for each aspect of the plan.  It should also include any compelling offers presented to the employee during the stay interview.  These offers could be more opportunities for professional development, flexible work hours or telecommuting options.

These four steps to retention will help identify, re-recruit and retain talent.  It is important to view an organization’s retention plan as a living document.  Stay interviews should be conducted periodically.  Offers will need to be refreshed with each re-recruiting effort.  Revisiting the individual retention plans and the retention program as a whole will keep it fresh and up to date with the latest changes in talent attraction in the organization’s specific industry.

Have you lost a great candidate recently to a counter-offer?  Maybe you lost them to a competing offer?  The competition for exceptional talent is at a fever pitch right now.  If your interview funnel has been less than satisfactory and your pool of qualified talent is drying up, I invite you to a complimentary consultation on how to attract great talent on a consistent basis AND how to procure them so you don’t lose them to competing offers.  Reply to this email to set up your complimentary consultation.  I promise that in our call together you will leave with 2 or 3 ideas that will greatly impact your ability to find, attract, and procure the top 10-15% of the candidate pool on a consistent basis.

Gary Vice is sought out by leaders in Software and Services who recognize the need to attract the industry’s best talent.  Through Strategic Recruiting Partners’ extensive network of relationships and their “deep dive” qualification process, they are able to identify and secure individuals who represent the top tier of Sales, Sales Management, Pre Sales Engineering, Marketing and Professional Services.  To discover how this process can benefit your organization, simply reply to this email or call Gary at 469.402.4008.