Retention

Keep your people

“The Great Resignation” or “The Great Reshuffle.”

We want to keep our top performers. We want to hire more excellent professionals. The problem: our competitors are also trying to do the same. What’s a leader to do?

Focus first on retention. Make sure you connect with your people. Talk to them about what THEY want their career to be. Don’t try to force a square peg in a round hole. Don’t force them to climb a corporate ladder that leads up the wrong building—let them tell you what they want from their careers, and you can show them how they can get there. Most of the people who chose your industry and your company chose you for a reason, so they won’t take it in a random direction. But the key to retention of top talent is that THEY KNOW that they can achieve the professional success and fulfillment THEY WANT with YOU.

If you build a place people want to stay, more people will come. You probably have a good sense of the corporate cultures at many of your regional competitors. Some are “a family.” Some are “a dysfunctional family.” Some are about the money. Some are about the quality. Some are about the community. Some are about building client relationships. Some are about growth and expansion. And so on. What’s your corporate culture? Who does it appeal to? Hire people who will thrive with you. Recruit smart, motivated people who are willing to learn and grow. It’s easy to train an untrained but capable person who fits in with the company culture. It’s hard to work with a person with an existing skillset, if that person does not work and play well with others and/or want to learn, grow, or change.

Hire the person, not the resume.

(Photo by Eric Prouzet on Unsplash)