The Art of Holding on to Top Talent

In a competitive business environment, often the difference between winning and losing is defined by the ability of your company to firstly attract and then more importantly retain top talent. Successful businesses have done some of these things right and it has been proven over time that these simple strategies have made all the difference in building a steady pipeline of leadership across levels.

Think top talent and what comes to mind are companies such as GE of the past, ICICI Bank, Hindustan Unilever, Aditya Birla. What’s common to all these companies is that they made their top talent stick and ensured the longevity of their people.

Here are some of the ways marquee companies got talent retention right.

1. Make them grow with the business

First and foremost is to provide a hyper-growth business environment. We have seen that growth is often a great catalyst for retention. Growth opens opportunities and offers the twin challenges of scale and complexity to people who can thrive in such an environment. This keeps people motivated, engaged and inculcates a winning mindset for they see a visible progress in whatever they do. In the past couple of decades in India, we have seen outstanding talent retention across key players in banking, telecom and a few diversified conglomerates that have grown rapidly, and their people now manage global scale processes and businesses.

2. New Challenge = New Opportunity

People often get jaded in their jobs after a period. It is critical to infuse a sense of freshness in what they do. Companies which are successful in retaining talent have often provided newer challenges to their people in the form of either higher level of responsibilities, newer geographies, or business divisions or in many cases different functional opportunities. This helps people learn new skills, keeps them on their toes and adds novelty value to what they do. Such companies also provide continuous learning opportunities to their people and keep them challenged. Globally, GE was a trendsetter and many successful diversified Indian businesses have adopted this strategy and have managed to retain their key talent.

Connected to this are entrepreneurial opportunities within an organisation -- either in the form of a new business, international expansion or a new product line. All these amplify the sense of ownership in individuals and build stickiness in the organisation. In a high growth environment, such opportunities come in abundance and successful organisations have the foresight to offer such assignments to some of their young leaders. In the past we have seen a financial institution successfully deploy several of their young leaders to set up their international businesses and subsidiaries.

3. Leader is not the sole decision-maker

Irrespective of the level at which people operate in an organisation, it is important to give them the leeway in decision making. This creates an environment where hierarchy is blurred, and people are empowered to make decisions within their scope of responsibilities. This helps in fostering a deep sense of ownership and commitment to the organisation and bolsters agility in decision making. In the Indian context, there have been professional managers who have thrived on taking up ownership for the success of their business units and have built platforms and teams which have stayed on course for a long period of time.

When people are empowered to make decisions, they will end up making a few mistakes along the way. When that happens, the organisation must explicitly provide them with the license to make mistakes and banish the fear of failure.

4. Do you build the CV value for your people?

People like to be associated with a winning cause and want to serve in companies which have a great reputation and an employer brand. Building a pride of association is critical especially in the talent marketplace and helps build CV value for your people. When companies help build CV value for their people, they often have access to great opportunities outside. Afterall, you want to employ people who are valued outside yet choose not to leave you.

In recent times, we have seen that people value work environments and businesses that are at the cutting edge of innovation and technology. Companies which have adapted to change and have transformed their businesses have a better chance to attract and retain talent in the face of increased competition from digitally native and agile new age businesses.

5. How fair is your workplace?

In addition to all the above, people like to see their employers as fair in their decision making and provide equal opportunities to everyone. Companies with robust and transparent performance management systems offer a sense of comfort to their people and help them in trusting their careers with the company for the long term.

It is important that the company offers fair compensation in line or better than industry benchmarks and offers long-term wealth creation opportunities. Ring-fencing key performers and creating exit barriers will be an additional moat for your people. 

At the end of the day, if you don’t take care of your people, someone else will.

(K Sudarshan is Managing Director, EMA Partners India)