5 Ways to Keep & 10 Ways to Lose your Best People
11th of December, 2024
5 Ways to Keep & 10 Ways to Lose Your Best People
5 Ways to Keep Your Key Personnel
1. Do you know who they are?
Workforce planning & talent mapping can be an effective tool to help you identify the skills your business needs, the skills within your existing team and who is really making a difference. It is more than just who gets on well with everyone in the office. Key personnel are often those who not just do their jobs well, they demonstrate ‘discretionary effort’ e.g. doing ‘over & above’.
2. Have you told them you consider them to be key?
When was the last time was you told one of your key personnel how much you appreciate and value what they do? A key driver for employees looking elsewhere can be feeling underappreciated or being ‘taken for granted’. Consider having a coffee with your key people and let them know how much you value them!
3. Do they have a Development Plan?
Employees that possess drive, ambition and initiative (traits found in key personnel) want to progress, learn & get better. Discussing what they want their future to look like in your business and how you can support them is a key part of retaining them. It is essential that you make sure you deliver on your promises. Furthermore, implementing meaningful performance appraisals (two-way conversations) can also lead to increased employee engagement.
4. Do they have opportunities to ‘step up’ & get exposure to new things?
When a senior employee goes on leave, provide your employee with an opportunity to ‘fill in’ for a week or two so they can gain experience in a more senior role. This would come with your support of course. This could include having them attend customer, supplier and other key stakeholder meetings which can increase their business knowledge. Have a conversation with them about what would like to develop and arrange training, followed by the opportunity to put what they have learned into practice.
5. Have you asked them for their ideas or given them a key project?
Retaining key personnel is critical to achieving operational efficiency and utilising their knowledge and experience not only makes them feel valued, but they may also have visibility on areas and methods to improve efficiency and eliminate waste that you don’t have day to day exposure to. Having them lead a project in this area can have a huge impact on them & your business. However, it is important to make sure you give them time to complete it.
10 Things That Will Push Your Key Personnel to Leave
Whilst being proactive to retain key personnel is critical, it is equally important to ensure that reasons that might have them leave are not presently within your business as well.
The following can lead to key people looking elsewhere…
1. Not delivering on promises
2. Tolerating poor performance/misconduct
3. Not giving feedback or recognition
4. Constant changes/making it up as we go along
5. Playing favourites
6. Poor communication
7. Opportunities to develop not clear to them
8. Not paying them fairly
9. Changing the rules (not having, or adhering to policy & procedures)
10. Taking them for granted…
Reach Out Today for More Information and a No Obligation Discussion with Justin Today.
With over 25 years' experience in Human Resources & Employee Relations, Justin has worked with SME’s & global organisations to make HR an enabler of business success. With an intimate understanding of challenges leaders face, he has been directly involved in several successful turnarounds and taken organisations from good to great by identifying how HR can support business objectives and deliver sustainable growth. With expertise across the entire employee lifecycle, including recruitment, talent management, employee relations, workforce planning, cultural change and remuneration Justin is able to align HR strategy with business objectives in a manner that engages and builds capability.