Keeping Your Best Talent

As an employer, you know finding and retaining the best talent is an expensive, ongoing affair. This has become especially true over the last 10-15 years, as employees are far less likely to exhibit the same amount of loyalty to a company that was common in the past. A generation ago, it was the norm for a person to spend a significant portion, even their entire career, at one company. Now, some employees try to trade-up their job like you trade-up your iPhone. Given the evolving nature of employee behavior, what are some of the best methods of employee retention? Check out these four proven ways that you can use to keep your best people on for the long haul.

Open Communication

Establishing and maintaining open lines of communication throughout the organization is vital. This involves not only allowing team members to express their feedback to management, but also ensuring that employees get consistent, quality face time with higher-ranking members of the firm. Already stretched for time? Embrace digital. Use virtual meetings, email and company chat boards to get the message out. Modern employees are at home with technology (and a lot prefer it), just remember to keep it authentic and avoid the use of stock, robotic “company announcements.” When communicating face to face, keep in mind that the majority of communication is nonverbal, some peg the number as high as 90%. So make sure your body reflects the message you want your employees to receive.

Establish Goals and Ensure Accountability

Every employee needs to have clearly defined metrics for achievement and a time frame for attaining those goals. By establishing quantifiable goals and measuring progress with consistent employee evaluations, the valued employee is aware of their expected performance level and is accountable to the organization. After all, nothing is more satisfying than setting a goal, working toward it, and finally getting there.

Provide Opportunity for Growth

The vast majority of employees at any company have aspirations on moving up based on their job performance. Because of this, it is important to take your current employees into consideration when new positions open up. Try, if at all possible, to choose from someone already on board before considering an outside candidate. This will create an understanding in the organization that “hiring from within” is the accepted way of doing things.

Recognition and Appreciation

People need to feel appreciated and valued. It’s just human nature. Showing gratitude is valuable because of its proven track record, but also a simple “thank you” from a manager doesn’t cost the company anything. Incentive-based bonuses and profit-sharing are two monetary tactics that can certainly improve and maintain employee morale which results in the desired higher level of employee retention. If your company model doesn’t support that, don’t underestimate the value of an emphatic thumbs up or an enthusiastic high-five.

Finding and retaining the highest quality people is crucial to long-term success. By embracing open lines of communication, creating clear goals and accountability to attaining these metrics, providing opportunity for real growth, and encouraging appreciation and recognition, your organization will be well on its way to keeping the best talent on-deck and happy.

About NextGen

NextGen is the brainchild of longtime telecom professionals with nearly 50 years of experience and millions of dollars in Telecom Recruiting Services. We focus on establishing long term relationships with our clients and candidates so we can recruit the best and the brightest in the telecom industry. This ‘quality over quantity’ approach is at the heart of everything we do and has resulted in successful job placements at Fortune 1000 firms worldwide.

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