Top Best Practices in Retaining Talented Employees In An Organization

“Stay in a job for at least two years.” “Never leave a job until you have your next one lined up.” Everyone from your mother to your mentor must have given you this advice. The job market is constantly changing. As an employee, you feel like changing your job after a certain period of time in order to become successful and have a good career graph. But what is the real reason for people changing the job, is it just because they want a salary hike or is it something else.

In order to get the insights, we spoke to David Sturt, Executive Vice President, O.C Tanner, a Global Recognition and Engagement Company, who creates a workplace culture to increase employee engagement.

According to him, people join an organization with good intentions and they work hard. But after 2 or 3 years, they start looking out for new opportunities. There is a reason why this happens and the reason is that they feel undervalued and unappreciated in their own organization.

“The people’s ability to grow and develop is the key to their full engagement and success. As their full potential is obtained, their ability to get paid more increases and satisfaction in job is assured.  I think smart companies are finding ways to give people exposure to different opportunities within their organization and not just confine them in one role. Nobody wants to feel stagnated in one role for a long time. They want to learn and grow. In this respect, Thomson Reuters Company has done a good job. They have created what they call a marketplace where whenever a new project comes, they search for the person who has high potential in that area and ask that person to drive the project and make it a success.  They create this exchange where these individuals get exposure to some of their projects that can give them visibility. These people get exposure to different verticals which in turn increases their productivity. The company is actively helping people find new opportunity that retains a talent better,” said David Sturt.

In an organization, people should feel that they are constantly growing and achieving. “In our research, we saw that if someone feels that they are going to do the same work for another 5 years, they just want to quit but if new avenues keep on challenging them and help them grow then they would stick with the company.  So organizations need to provide opportunity and help them grow to retain the best employees,” he added.

Innovation is the key for success for both employer and employee. The best innovation takes place when the regular people do regular jobs and find better ways to do that job.  People innovate by asking the right questions which provoke fresh thinking.” In our research, we saw that people go out and see things and create new perspective. Many a times, people see the problem from the same perspective and expect different results. In the data, we saw that people have started looking from a totally different perspective and this different shift allow them to see the problem from a variety of angles.

We have also observed that most people talk to a small group of people again and again. Our research proved that is not a good idea for innovation as these people are in your inner circle. They think like you and the fresh thinking comes from people who are not in your inner circle. They are people with whom you don’t talk much. A lot of people don’t talk because it is out of their comfort zone. But once they realize that there is a possibility of innovation outside their inner circle, employees can do wonders,” he added.

Today, everyone wants to be a part of the change. This gives them a big purpose in life and companies have started to show more interest in their employee’s growth. If an employee feels that he is working with a winning team, he tends to work even harder   and bring more success to the team.

Another important factor is the appreciation, if they don’t feel valued and appreciated they will leave the organization and go somewhere else where they feel valued and appreciated. So, organizations need to work towards these factors to retain good people.