Talent retention is an ongoing concern for many organizations and teams.
Despite the news stories about AI replacing people, the competition for talent in nearly every industry has never been hotter. The most talented team members receive an onslaught of interest and phone calls from competitors.
This siren call is often hard to resist.
The reasons they consider other opportunities usually come down to three main issues: increased compensation, an elevated role, or an unsatisfactory relationship with their current leader.
When team members receive an outside offer, the natural tendency is for the organization to negotiate to retain their talents.
But offering more compensation or a better title in reaction to an outside offer is a slippery slope. Team members across the enterprise quickly learn that an outside opportunity can be used to elevate their status.
Once the word gets out, and it always does, people start seeking outside offers to enhance their current situation.
Beyond negotiating with people to stay, leaders typically identify those team members at risk and try to be proactive in their retention strategies. They look for opportunities to promote people, raise their pay, and move them to work under the best leaders.
Focusing on why people may leave is a sensible strategy, but a defensive one. It is better to go on offense.
Going on offense means asking the inverse question: why do our best people stay? Double down on those reasons.
In addition to their relationship with their manager or leader, the most talented team members stay put for four reasons: they feel challenged by the work they do, they feel valued by the most senior leaders in the organization, they find the vision of the organization compelling, and they feel the organization is consistently investing in their skill development.
Leaders can get ahead of the retention challenge by purposely focusing on why people stay instead of why they leave.
Three moves matter most. Keep the vision in front of talented people and continually excite them about the future and their role in it. Make sure the most senior leaders know them and express confidence and belief in them. And design programs that allow them to enhance their personal mastery.
It is the investment in people’s skills that often creates the strongest glue. The most talented team members are obsessed with personal improvement and the skills required to create excellence.
Any organization that invests in making them more proficient and expert becomes a place they want to stay. When team members feel they are getting better thanks to the organization and its leadership, they feel a unique sense of reciprocal loyalty.
An organization that is devoted to improving talent is an enterprise that is stickier than others.
