Holding on to your talent
What good is hiring the best people, if they are tempted away by your competitors before they have even had a chance to make a real impact? The answer is that it’s absolutely no good at all!
In 2012 retaining and developing talent within a business will form a major part of the strategic role HR has to play in the overall success of the company. Minimising employee turnover will rank up there with attracting new talent as one of the toughest challenges in the next 12 months.
Why? Because businesses are still plagued by an uncertain economic climate, and the days of simply throwing money at employees you value most, in the hopes of keeping them on, are gone for good. And while developing and retaining talent have been ‘buzzwords’ in the HR world for many years, at Futurestep we are starting to see clients really focus on bringing these intentions to life. In fact, we are seeing these ‘buzzwords’ uttered at board level and expect that retention and development of talent will increasingly become a boardroom priority.
There are many reasons for this. Employees are demanding more from their employers – both in terms of tailored personal development and rewards and incentives to retain them. Personalised packages that encourage and reward loyalty will certainly go some way towards keeping hold of your best people – but it may impact on the bottom line, which is where the board is focusing their attentions. But before your organisation’s HR department even considers developing personalised payment or development packages it needs to take a giant step back and take a look at improving its overall understanding of employees and the impact they make – on an organisational and individual level.
After all, knowledge is power and in HR it is the ticket to keeping the employees that are gems in your organisation’s crown. Once armed with the knowledge of which employees are making the most impact, and how to keep them engaged, you create a working environment and package that is aligned to what motivates and encourages their individual ambitions.
The bottom line is that you need to invest time and energy in the people that matter so that they won’t be tempted by bigger bucks elsewhere. Simultaneously you need to keep an eye on the talent you may want to recruit and retain in the future!
Jeremy Paynter
Director Client Solutions
jeremy.paynter@futurestep.com