Three Strategies To Retain Star Employees In A Competitive Environment

As a leader, you must already know that retention of star employees is very essential to maintain your advantage in today’s competitive market. Well, while everyone knows that this is the right thing to do, the question I often get asked is: “How do companies retain their best employees over time?” In other words, “how do you stop company brain drain?”

Here are 3 ways you can stem the brain drain from your company:

Create a positive organizational culture

There is a saying that “culture gives the right soil to your plants, but compensation does provide the sunshine.” Thus creating a positive organizational culture within which top employees work helps them to adequately explore and utilize their creativity in the workplace. Ensure that their passion is in line with the mission. Key elements that colour your organization from a culture perspective include practices of acknowledging and rewarding innovation and hardwork. But money isn’t everything for employees when they are satisfied with their job. They often need much more than monetary compensation!

Offer Opportunity for career advancement

Usually, employees stay in a workplace where they are encouraged to learn, grow, and excel and therefore be able to move up the career ladder. This is the Carrot approach. Structure some positions for them to grow without leaving your company. Also offer job rotation to give them the chance to acquire new skills and experience in another field. Talk to them about what more could enhance their job satisfaction. Always be prepared to listen to employees’ concerns and when appropriate grant genuine requests reasonably.

Promote work-life balance or integration

Top performers often need time to recharge their batteries if they should maintain high level performance. As a leader, be sensitive to this need. If a top performer prefers a slightly different timing than others, be open to discuss such requests. This flexibility will go a long way to keep the morale of your AAA performers high and this will correspond with their productivity. Herding employees is particularly a practice that will likely drive top performers away from your company. Always remember employees are not your property and they have life outside your organisation. Top performers want to feel trusted.

Aware that it is hard to replace star employees on short notice, it is therefore a huge cost cutting measure for you to continuously boost your retention strategies. These measures will prevent AAA stars from walking away from you and never returning to your company.

Reflection:

Have you recently lost a AAA employee or contractor? If your answer is yes, why do you think they walked away from you? What could you have done to retain them?

If you need help drop us a line and maybe we might be of help!

Till then, work hard to retain your top performing employees and contractors.