5 Things Every Employer Should Be Doing to Retain the Best Talent

Every employer wants to hire smart, productive and resilient individuals who have high integrity, emotional intelligence, and strong communication skills. They also value team players who can collaborate effectively and work well with clients. But what should employers themselves be doing to attract and retain such talents?

Some of the answers are straightforward, even obvious—but worth repeating. The best employers focus more on inspiring and coaching than micromanaging. They cultivate an inclusive workplace culture and provide a psychologically safe environment with zero tolerance for bullying and sexual harassment, counteracts all manner of conscious and unconscious biases, respect work-life boundaries, and offers fair compensation. Above all, they treat every employee with courtesy, care, and respect.

Read: When Your High-Performers Hit a Slump: How to Support Without Micromanaging

5 Things Every Employer Should Be Doing to Retain the Best Talent 

Here are five more things that wise employers should be doing to retain their best talents: 

1. Provide ongoing feedback

Recent research found that except for ‘ongoing feedback’, no practice—traditional or new—was rated as being particularly effective in improving employee performance. What does ‘ongoing’ mean? In separate research, the Gallup organisation said that feedback should be a common occurrence, for most jobs, a few times per week. Employees best remember their most recent experiences, so feedback is considered most valuable when it occurs immediately after an action. That is, feedback should be ‘in the moment’ and not saved up for annual or semi-annual formal review meetings. Feedback comes in different forms, including praise and not just suggestions for how things can be done differently.

2. Leaders and managers as coaches 

Smart organisations are increasingly expecting their leaders and managers to adopt a coach-like approach when interacting with team members. This is far more effective and inspiring than old-style ‘command and control’ leadership. However, it is not enough for an organisation to tell its leaders and managers to operate as coaches. Rather, an organisation will need to invest in a training program so that senior team members actually understand what is meant by ‘coaching’. Foundational skills include the ability to listen closely to other people without interrupting them, asking good and probing questions, and helping staff members to work out their goals and actions without simply telling them what to do. Good coaches are also adept at providing feedback in the most effective manner.

3. The AI test for employers

Here are two key questions every professional should ask when searching for a job in the age of AI. First, has the prospective employer embraced investing in AI to make client service as efficient as possible? Second, is the organisation training professionals in the use of appropriate AI tools?

Professionals should be wary of joining an organisation that cannot offer compelling and positive answers to these questions. If you are the prospective employer trying to recruit the best and brightest young professionals into your organisation, how will you answer these two questions?

4. Purpose and meaning

Young professionals increasingly want to work in an organisation whose purpose and values are aligned with those of the individual. If you are an employer, can you, right now and without resorting to a website, state the purpose and values of your organisation? Okay, if you must turn to a website, can you find those characteristics easily? The unfortunate reality is that many organisations say that they are ‘purpose and values’ driven, but when you scratch the surface, there is not much substance, little conviction and plenty of confusion. 

Make sure that your organisation has a strong, clear and consistent statement of purpose and values.

5. Learning and development 

One of the key ways to attract and retain the best and brightest staff is for the employer to offer a high quality, ongoing program of training and development. Best practice in this regard is for senior staff to lead by example and consistently turn up and contribute to training events. Better still, they will actually lead training sessions on a regular basis and not always delegate the role to more junior staff.

There is no doubt that the post-COVID world of remote work has made it more challenging for employers to keep implementing the five strategies listed above. However, there are organisations which are doing so. They are the ones who are getting the cream of the professional crop and are they are the organisations best placed to thrive in the new age of artificial intelligence.

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