Top Talent Retention – 5 strategies to help you keep your top talent in 2021

Retaining your top talent can be incredibly challenging. Simply put, most companies don't give talent away freely. They tend to recruit from a limited pool of applicants and often use testing by hiring panels made up of current employees or experts in the company’s industry.

According to 47% of HR managers, employee retention is one of the top talent management challenges.

So, how do you attract and retain talented employees? It’s not as easy as you might think. To attract and retain top talent, your company needs to create an atmosphere where they feel motivated and engaged. This means allowing them to pursue their career goals without worrying that you are less committed to success and growth.

Employee turnover is a key problem because it can cost companies as high as $15,000 per employee. Besides the financial aspect of the issue, it usually results in low morale among workers left in the company.

So, it is obvious that if you are an HR specialist or a CEO, your priority should be keeping your best employees. But how to accomplish that?

The solution: You need an employee retention strategy.

`If your company has undergone a recent change in leadership or culture, you’ve likely struggled to retain key employees. It may seem daunting at first, but there are several steps you can take to improve your chances of retaining talented employees. Here is a list of five ways to improve your HR retention efforts:

1. Give employees opportunities to grow

Did you know 94% of employees surveyed by LinkedIn for its annual Workplace Learning Report stated they would stay at a company longer if it invested in their professional development?

If you have ever worked for someone who was hired for not much more than their basic technical skills, then you understand the difficulties of finding motivation in a job where there are virtually no rewards and little prospect of advancement.

One of the biggest differences between the generations is in how much emphasis is placed on acquiring knowledge and skills. Older generations of learners are focused more on developing soft skills (communication, leadership, etc.).
Gen Z employees are all about productivity and learning business and technology basics – from understanding online marketing foundations to learning how to code Phyton. So if you really want to motivate a younger employee, then focus on career growth.

2. Choose the right management

It is easy to see why people leave their managers. Each employee has his or her own personality, values, and problems that need solving. At any given time, the workplace is only as productive as the weakest link. Managers need to recognize the potential in each employee, motivate them, and give them support so they can fulfill their potential. If an employee is bored, frustrated, or harmed by his or her job, it should not take an extreme set of circumstances to make them leave.

A lot of what you think about your job is determined by your relationship with your superior. Asking questions, challenging assumptions, and thinking critically are among the natural human behaviors that damage relationships with authority figures.

Innovative policies allow employees to speak up and ask questions without worrying about negative consequences from their managers.

3. Show employees that their work is recognized, and they are appreciated

Imagine talking to two employees with the purpose of letting them know how much you appreciate their hard work. One of them gets a $1,000 bonus and the other gets a five-minute talk on how much you appreciate their arduous work and what they mean to the company. Which employee do you think would walk away feeling more motivated?

Researcher Marcial Losada has found that among high-performing teams, the expression of positive feedback outweighs that of negative feedback by a ratio of 5.6 to 1. By contrast, low-performing teams have a ratio of .36 to 1.

“Feeling genuinely appreciated lifts people up,” says Tony Schwartz, president, and CEO of The Energy Project. “At the most basic level, it makes us feel safe, which is what frees us to do our best work. It’s also energizing. When our value feels at risk, as it so often does, that worry becomes preoccupying, which drains and diverts our energy from creating value.”

4. Offer plenty of career development opportunities

The best employee retention strategy is one that provides clear incentives for promotions and career growth. This means hiring and promoting the best people possible. It also means giving them opportunities to learn from each other and from their superiors.

Improving employee retention must be a two-way street. Good employers must also provide good opportunities for their employees, not just rules or pressure to work harder. It is a matter of creating an environment where people can learn and grow and feel challenged and inspired by reaching new milestones in their careers – and feel like there’s room to get even better.

5. Provide flexible working arrangements

Since 1973 when Hewlett-Packard became the first U.S. company to introduce flex time, flexible work arrangements have grown in popularity and use.

There are so many benefits to flexible working arrangements, and one of the main is being able to find the best talent. Just because your company has global operational priorities does not mean your leadership team should be spread thin all over the place.

If you want to be competitive you need to look at who is available to you from remote locations. It is not just about cost — hiring a specialist from Boston costs more than hiring one from New York. It is also about the quality of work and the efficiency with which it is delivered.

If your employees work in terms of deliverables, not face time, let them decide where they work best – whether that is in the office at 9am or at a cafe sending emails at 3 pm.