Are you Retaining Top Talent?
Once you have the right people hired, you need to keep them happy so they stick around! We recently attended the Vancouver Education & Career Fair held on Feb. 19, 2008 at the Vancouver Convention & Exhibition Centre. We took this opportunity to survey some of the employers at the fair and when asked what they are doing to retain their top talent, the following 10 responses emerged as the most common.
1. Bonus: If you have seasonal staff, pay them an end of season bonus to stick around till the end of your peak season.
2. Training: Top employers are providing training and development for their staff to ensure they are helping people to further their careers and build their resumes – even if it means after 6 months or a year, they will take that experience somewhere else.
3. Career Path: Find out where your staff want to go with their careers, what are they aspiring to become? Find ways to help them get there. (If you help them, they are more likely to stick around and help you)
4. Promotions: When you have top talent, identify them early on and fast track them through the internal systems, promote from within.
5. Recognition: Do not underestimate the power of saying “thank you.” Put programs in place to make sure you look for and recognize desired behaviours.
6. Communication: Today’s employees want to be involved and empowered so communicate to them, often, explain the “what, where, why and how”. Ask them for feedback and suggestions – they have an opinion and they are not afraid to share it with you.
7. Fun! Don’t forget to have fun! Create a workplace that takes the time to celebrate successes, work hard and play hard together as a team.
8. Lead by Example: Ensure your leadership team walks the talk, creating the right workplace culture and empowering people to do their jobs right the first time.
9. Quality: Employees are looking to be part of a company that sells products, services they can believe in and relate to. Quality is #1.
10. Perks: Offer discount programs, work out reciprocal discounts with other employers allowing you to stretch you reward dollars. (…kind of sounds like more free stuff, are you seeing the trend?)
Even students coming out of school with little to no experience have very high expectations of their future employers and the type of workplace they want. We heard several stories from employers feeling they were being interviewed by the candidates at the fair. The question to think about the next time you are conducting an interview is to think, who is conducting the interview and how do you compare to other employers in the marketplace? What are you doing to attract and retain your top talent? Sell yourself as an employer, if you don’t, your top talent might start getting lured elsewhere…
