Monday, November 18, 2013

Retaining Your Seasoned Talent

Retaining Seasoned TalentHow are you retaining your seasoned talent?  If you have employees that have been around for more than a few years and they have deep institutional knowledge, you should have a plan in place to help keep that talent in place.  As always, please feel free to leave your opinions in the comments section at the end of this post.

RETAINING YOUR SEASONED TALENT

Many employees may remain in at one company for an extended period of time, sometimes within the same position.  With this experience comes the synergistic benefit of institutional knowledge.  These seasoned employees not only know about the current state of the company, job, and accounts; but they also retain an understanding for how things used to be done.  This can be valuable in decision making, knowing what has or has not worked well in the past.  This can be valuable in administration, remembering past sorting or filing procedures.  This can be valuable in sales, remembering people in your network that can be useful in the future.  They can be valuable mentors, saving you time and money in training newer employees.  There are so many ways that long-term, experienced workers can benefit a company, that it makes sense to structure incentives into your policies to retain these employees.

IDEAS ON RETAINING MORE EXPERIENCED TALENT

For employers, there certainly can be an attractive draw to bring in newer, younger talent versus retaining existing seasoned employees.  Among other things, the newer employees may be more open to new ideas and bring fresh systemic knowledge.  However, it would be a mistake to neglect those employees that are already working for you.  These are just a few incentives that you may want to put in place, if you have not already done so:

Updates to Vacation Days - A common way to incent long-term employees to stick around is to allow those that have been with your company longer to have more PTO based on seniority/tenure at the firm.  You may also want to increase the number of days that can be rolled over each year.

Years-of-Service Bonuses - You could consider a non-discriminatory bonus based on the numbers of years worked at the company.  The bonuses could be in cash, stock, options, etc.

More Flexible Schedules - Offering more flexible schedules to more highly tenured workers can offer two benefits.  First, it can encourage your workers to stay with you as they adjust through their life changes, should they need time off for medical or family reasons.  Second, it can help them feel more valued as you are accommodating them.

Promote From Within - Many of your employees are probably more skilled and have more potential than you give them credit for.  Be sure to promote and hire from within; employees will stay longer if they think they will have a future at your company.

Responsibility - Hopefully an employee that has been with your company for a long time has proven themselves as responsible individuals.  Consider giving them greater responsibility and not just more work.

These are just a few of the incentives.  What are you doing to retain your seasoned talent?

COMMUNICATION

A final thought:  Employees that feel valued are less likely to leave.  Remember to keep the lines of communication open.  When an employee is new, they are probably going to receive more attention and hand-holding until they have mastered their position.  However, seasoned employees still need interaction as well.  Perhaps it would let them know that they are still valued if their managers spoke with them in person occasionally.  Try doing that instead of firing off another email.  While speaking to you employee, remember to tell them “Thanks for all you do.”

And remember all of you Human Resources professionals:  Be Human... Be a Resource...  Be a Resource for Humans.


Interesting Links:





Disclaimer: The views expressed in this post are by the author Trevor Stasik, and do not necessarily reflect the views of any employer or any other organization. Please note, this information is based on my understanding and is only to be used for informational and educational purposes. Do not take what I am writing as advice. Seek your own legal counsel and/or see a tax accountant before making business or personal decisions. The author of this post makes no representations as to the accuracy or completeness of any information on this site or found by following any link on this site. The owner will not be liable for any errors or omissions in this information nor for the availability of this information. The owner will not be liable for any losses, injuries, or damages from the display or use of this information.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Retaining seasoned talent is very challenging task for anyone, you should have some strong reasons why they should have be retain. You had mentioned all that strong reason in this blog.

Thank you for sharing!