The game doesn’t end when you finally succeed in hiring your top talent. Due to the current scarcity of qualified employees and a dramatic increase in demand, you’re going to find that your best team members are constantly going to receive new opportunities from other recruiters, competitors, and even past employers. And you don’t want to be in a position where all your hard work upfront is lost because your top talent gets poached by other companies.
A current trend affecting employee retention involves more and more experienced employees voluntarily leaving established positions. Termed the “great resignation,” many employees are considering finding new, more fulfilling jobs. This trend is even more prevalent in technology-based industries like EdTech. Competing companies may try to take advantage as your talented team members could be contemplating switching roles.
As such, it’s essential that you’re able to retain your valuable employees and protect against them being poached. Here are three key principles to help you avoid this risk:
1. Encourage Open Communication
The first thing that you want to ensure is that you’re never blindsided by someone getting poached. You should have a good sense of how satisfied they are with their career progression and how happy they are in the organization. If you can assess this on a regular basis, you have a good chance to adjust things where needed to keep your top talent engaged and bought-in to the company mission.
This comes down to nurturing open communication channels where employees feel comfortable raising concerns and telling you if they have received other offers. Be proactive in this regard and ask your key personnel if there’s anything else that they need that would make their working experience better. One of our clients here at The Renaissance Network took this very seriously and integrated this question into the company culture. As a result, their managers are always abreast of the morale of their top talent and have lost very few key employees.
Get ahead of brewing discontent or apathy, and you’re much more likely to retain your great talent.
2. Craft the Best Working Environment
Retaining your top talent is not just about the salary. Instead, you should focus on crafting the best work environment that you can so that your team has no reason to look elsewhere.
Here are a few ways to improve the work experience:
- Allow employees to pursue personal projects. By creating space for your employees to express themselves beyond their job description, you help to break the inevitable mundanity of any one role, and you allow them a release valve that energizes and revitalizes them. This shows that you see them as human beings and not just cogs in a machine.
- Invest in technology that boosts engagement and productivity. You should always be looking to give your team the tools and equipment that they need to be the best they can be. Investing in technology that helps them supercharge their efforts will ensure that they never feel held back or constrained by the working environment that they’re in.
- Create flexible working arrangements. Allowing your top talent to craft a workday that fits into the rest of their life is a great way to retain them for the long term. Trust them to get the work done while giving them the flexibility that they need, and you won’t have to worry about them going anywhere else.
- Nurture a healthy culture as a company priority. Culture is crucial for retaining staff because you want your people to feel like they belong and that they’re contributing to something bigger than themselves. Nurturing this comradery is a continual process and one that requires strong leadership from the very top.
3. Take Ambition Seriously
One of the most common reasons that top talent leaves is that they feel like they’ve stopped growing. These people are naturally ambitious, and if you aren’t able to offer them the growth journey that they need, you’re going to lose them.
As an organization, you should always be helping your top people plot out their career development and giving them new challenges and opportunities along the way. It’s not necessarily all about titles; it’s about recognizing your employees’ ambition and giving them the space to transcend where they’ve come from and work towards realizing a larger vision for themselves and the company.
Often this requires us as leaders to leave our pride at the door and do what’s best for each individual employee. But, if you’re able to help talent realize their ambitions – you’ll find that your company and team will thrive.
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Here at The Renaissance Network, we believe in these practices because it’s just as important to us that you’re able to retain your talent as it is to find them in the first place.
To learn more about how The Renaissance Network can help you build your world-class team, contact us today.
