Are You Losing Your Top Talent? How To Hold On.

There’s nothing more time-consuming or costly than losing talent. Extra work is pushed off to the remaining employees, and anxiety sets in of whether or not you’ll find a solid candidate to fill the position. What’s even more frustrating is when recent hires switch positions or leave the company altogether, within two years. And given that by 2015, the majority of the workforce will be in their 20s, it’s time you took a look at how to retain your top talent.

There’s nothing more time-consuming or costly than losing talent. Extra work is pushed off to the remaining employees, and anxiety sets in of whether or not you’ll find a solid candidate to fill the position. What’s even more frustrating is when recent hires switch positions or leave the company altogether, within two years. And given that by 2015, the majority of the workforce will be in their 20s, it’s time you took a look at how to retain your top talent.

Here are 5 ways to retain your top talent for the long haul:

1. Set goals and live up to them

In interviews, stop asking mundane questions about where the candidate sees him or herself in five years, unless you are actually willing to help them get there.  A few of the biggest reasons for employee turnover are not feeling challenged enough, not laying out a process to develop skills and ultimately not delivering on your promises/commitments.  Young professionals are concerned with obtaining relevant job experience, but staying in a dead-end job, even in this economy, for the sake of a paycheck isn’t something they are willing to do.

2. Ask your employees questions

If you think a quarterly review will help stop turnover, think again. Employees like to feel valued, but more importantly, they like to know their opinions matter.  This is especially true with Generation Xers & Yers. While they might be a more technologically savvy and accomplished multi-tasking group, they crave mentoring relationships with established professionals in your company. Setup bi-weekly or monthly status meetings and use this time as an opportunity to check-in on how they are progressing in achieving their goals. Ask what they are looking to learn or accomplish with their current position and how you can help them get there.

3. Listen to their needs

When interviewing a candidate or current employee, make note of what they are looking for in order to accomplish their career goals. Ask them to describe their perfect job (regardless of whether or not it’s with your company), and tell them how they can achieve it by working for you. Not only does this set the precedent for your candidate to articulate their objectives, but also gives you the chance to impress them with how you align with their goals.

4. Rethink your recruitment package

While knowing you can’t help your company’s benefit package, you do have the power to tailor a recruitment package to the individual needs of your candidate. With gas prices on the rise, most companies are offering telecommuting as an option for certain employees. Technology has made it more and more convenient to work on the go, and employers should allow this. Most smart phones have the capability to connect with company email, allowing for employees to stay on top of urgent messages while at a personal appointment or a conference event.

5. Connect where your talent lives

If you aren’t on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, or have a regularly updated blog, you are missing a significant link to your candidate pool; especially the 20-something crowd. Job seekers like to have an opportunity to peek inside the company culture, in order to see if they would fit in. Using social media also affords you the opportunity to evaluate a candidate before they apply. You can view job history, recommendations, view their connections, and monitor their online behavior. Most importantly, you will be seen as an interactive company to the majority of social media users, Gen X & Y.