Attracting talent in today’s workforce is challenging, but that’s just the first step in building a successful team. Beyond that, the work of retaining your top talent begins.
Keeping your top performers engaged and happy can feel like an uphill battle, especially in today’s job market. Retention is not only crucial for your firm and your employees’ well-being but also for overall productivity and profitability. Employees that feel nurtured and satisfied with their jobs are more effective overall and provide more value to their organizations.
Five ways to nurture your top performers
If you want to hold onto your top performers, you need to develop a plan to nurture and develop them effectively.
Provide top performers with projects that will stretch their professional skills
Your top talent appreciates being challenged, having complex problems to solve and getting opportunities to flex their muscles. Challenging these team members is vital to keeping them engaged with their work.
These “stretch projects” should make your team members think creatively and apply new skills and strategies. This will help them expand their professional skills and show them how valuable they are to you and your organization.
Provide additional training and mentorship
Strong mentorships can transform your top performers. Mentor-mentee relationships are strong bonds that can allow blossoming leaders to develop while fostering a sense of inter-company collaboration that helps your employees feel like they’re genuinely a part of the whole. It allows them to be a part of the vision for the firm’s future while fostering their professional specializations.
Training in a way that provides your top performers with opportunities to upskill can also help to show them how valuable they are to your organization. As you look towards moving top performers into leadership positions, offering upskilling opportunities keeps your employees ahead of the curve. When offering training and mentorship opportunities, be sure your team members have enough time in their day to participate. Leveraging technology and efficient processes can help create the necessary capacity.
Provide thoughtful, ongoing feedback
What do highly skilled employees all have in common? They desire to know how they’re doing, how they could improve and what the roadmap to their ultimate career goal looks like. Set up regular check-ins with the team members and provide them with data-driven information on the success of their projects. Identify room for improvement and use that to enroll them in the appropriate upskilling programs.
As you do this, listen to the career goals of your employees. Work with them to create a clear, understandable road map to achieve that goal. These regular check-ins will allow you to go over the plan and see if any adjustments need to be made so your team stays engaged and happy.
Remember, employees are people first
While keeping your team engaged at work is a top priority, it’s also important to remember that they have lives outside of work. Nurturing your top talent professionally also means providing them with an environment where they can effectively take care of their personal responsibilities.
Offering remote, hybrid, and flexible working options can help you retain your top talent. Work-life balance has become increasingly important in today’s working environment and offering these incentives to your top talent (or all your talent) can help retain them.
Encourage peer networking
Talking to other top performers in the profession benefits your team members by giving them an outlet to discuss career goals, challenges and ongoing projects with others who truly understand where they are coming from.
Offering or promoting peer networking helps your people know they are on the road to success and keep them engaged in their work.
Retaining your top performers can feel like a challenge, but you won’t have to worry with the right programs in place. As you implement retention programs, listen to employee feedback and make changes when necessary. While some turnover is inevitable, you’ll be much more likely to hold onto your top talent if you implement programs with these five ideas in mind.
Could your firm’s HR and talent leaders benefit from a peer network?
The Boomer Talent Circle is a community of talent leaders from forward-thinking firms who are committed to aligning human resources and firm strategy at the highest levels. Apply now to start shaping your firm for the future.
As a Project Manager for Boomer Consulting, Inc., Jacqueline plans, executes and manages the people, resources and scope of many of our firm’s projects, programs and events. Her primary focus is on managing projects for IT Consulting, Strategic Planning and Talent Consulting. In addition, Jacqueline works closely with leadership to oversee the company’s human resources by managing hiring, onboarding, training and development and overseeing our Human Resources Information Systems (HRIS). She also supports our Allyship for Diversity commitment at BCI, which seeks to strengthen diversity, equity and inclusion within Boomer Consulting and the accounting profession. Jacqueline also works on the strategy and development of our eLearning initiatives.
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