Keys to Successful Organizations: How to Retain Talent

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“The  complexity  of  the  environments  in  which  businesses  operate  demand  that  HR  takes  a strategic approach.” – Vivian T. Supangco, Philippine Management Review

Any given company is composed of talented individuals who can either make or break business. Ideally, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, but there are some sad cases where companies suffer due to a lack of talent, or a workforce drain. Have you noticed your best employees jumping ship lately? These are a few tips everyone in management can follow to retain their most talented employees.

Build your teams wisely. Different people interact and perform in various ways. Building harmonious teams requires matching personalities and skills to assemble a cohesive group of individuals who can work together as efficiently as possible. In the best teams, each member has a clearly defined role that he or she excels in, and managers need to understand how each employee performs best to create diverse and effective teams.

Choose candidates for their potential. Don’t limit any of your employees to what they have done. Instead, be on the lookout for other areas of interest that they can excel in. Give your employees a chance to gain experience in different fields, and expose them to different parts of the company to explore their potential. If needed, offer constructive criticism to poor-performers and promote development with employee training.

Equip your HR department. The average HR manager is overloaded with payroll concerns, employees’ personal issues, regulations, and many other obligations. Give your HR managers a means to attain and retain the best talent for each position and for the company itself. Talent recruitment and retention requires testing, screening and continuous check-ins to keep the best people in their ideal positions.

Encourage growth. Support your employees’ ambition for improvement and increased responsibility. Recognize exceptional employees and train them to move up (and sometimes across departments) in the company, showing that growth and achievement is rewarded. Hiring from within also shows other employees the potential career benefits within your company.

Focus on the vision. Remind employees why they come to work every day. Make sure employees understand how their job fits into the company as a whole, and how their work contributes to the success of your organization. Articulate each role into the bigger picture, and show how each job improves the surrounding communities.

Losing employees causes additional hiring costs, lower productivity and lost knowledge. This doesn’t mean poor employees shouldn’t be fired, but every company should avoid losing their good employees by managing their top talent strategically.