retaining talent 33


Attracting and retaining your top talent


’It’s Monday morning, I’m sat at my desk and my star employee Sarah sheepishly enters my office, clutching an envelope, undoubtedly containing her resignation. Damn it. I had secretly feared this moment, Sarah is one of my top performers, not only that, my clients love working with her and she’s a team leader. Someone I had big plans for in the future of my business.’


’Does this sound familiar? How would you cope if it happened to you?’ asks Bill Burton of Dale Carnegie


Many companies have great talent, and employers often recognise individuals, earmarking them for key roles in the future of their businesses. But then an expectation evolves that this talent will inevitably be looking to move on, motivated only by a higher salary or extra fringe benefits. When in fact the power to retain your top talent is at your fingertips.


Most business owners are aware that ‘people’ are an organisation’s greatest asset, but managing talent can take a range of different meanings. It can mean succession planning, or seamlessly integrating efforts to attract, develop and retain the best people. Either way, attracting or retaining top talent requires a plan or programme that has commitment from everyone involved.


The objectives of such a plan or programme should centre upon preparing employees for promotion to higher levels of responsibility, preparing them for future challenges, identifying, capturing and passing on institutional wisdom, finally pinpointing key social relationships and mentoring future successors to have access to important people.


Retaining top talent


Once talented people are recruited, selected and developed, they must also be the focus of retention efforts. In essence, key decision makers in any business will want to keep staff that have worked hard and had much time and money invested in them. In which case, as much time and effort should be devoted to retention, as was spent recruiting.


Often, we can be misjudged to assume that employees


• Developing challenges and an interesting slate of diverse tasks for team members


• Building an environment in which there are friendly interactions among team members


• Providing training and development.


You can see that these are often the responsibility of a direct manager or supervisor, in which case their own development and understanding of the effects of employee engagement is key to retaining top talent.


predominantly leave our companies because they have been offered higher salaries elsewhere, when in fact it’s the direct manager or management team that holds the key retaining talent. How a manager interacts, leads and motivates their direct reports is fundamental to how that employee is engaged with the company. Therefore a management or leadership course can play a massive role in the retention of your top talent. Investment in managers, team leaders or supervisors, increases their leadership and communication skills and improves their own employee engagement techniques.


Below is a list of important approaches and initiatives that a company can undertake to keep employees engaged:


• Establishing an environment characterised by effective employer-employee communication


• Building a system of incentives, employee perks, awards and recognition


• Ensuring value in employee compensation and benefits packages


THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – DECEMBER 15/JANUARY 16


Understanding the next generation of top talent


Understanding the differences between millennials and non- millennials in the workplace and how to engage employees who are part of the millennial generation can lead to increased effectiveness in supervising and mentoring, which in turn can lead to workplace satisfaction, retention, motivation, and ultimately greater productivity.


Millennials


• Born between 1980 and 1996


• Over 75 million strong • Racially diverse


• Often politically, religiously and conjugally unattached


• Linked by social media • Affected by debt • Optimistic


Often as senior managers or business owners, we dream of unearthing that great talent from either an eager graduate or an enthusiastic apprentice. Dale Carnegie Training defines the


www.businessmag.co.uk


generation born between 1980 and 1996 as millennials, and it’s this group of young men and women that will shape the future of companies across the world.


Research conducted by Dale Carnegie has indicated that training makes a fundamental difference to the employee engagement of millennials. Inevitably with a lack of experience, a millennial may need to overcome feelings of inferiority and incompetence; our research indicated that training substantially increased positive trends among participants.


Such training courses as leadership, public speaking, self- confidence building and team management help plug the gaps that inexperienced or younger employees will not have benefited from in the past.


Whether your top talent is from the millennial generation or older, effectively engaging employees has always been fundamental to retaining top talent. If you are looking for ways to build employee engagement across multigenerational teams, Dale Carnegie Training can help build positive workplace environments typified by effective communication, value recognition, and motivation.


Each company is different; we meet with you to discuss your exact requirements and present courses that will meet your objectives, to ensure you get the most value from Dale Carnegie. Our modules can be completed either onsite or at suitable locations, spread over days or weeks most convenient for your employees and your business.


If attracting and retaining top talent interests you, then come along to one of our free seminars, offering you a taste of what we offer on our full courses.


For more information visit the website or call us.


Details: 020-8166-5845 www.southeastengland. dalecarnegie.co.uk


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