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CHOOSING TO RETAIN TOP TALENT

Jul 09, 2023

•

Ying Liu

 

Organizations must proactively develop strategies to identify and retain top
talent.

Growth is a choice for organizations, and so is identifying and retaining top
talent. Without making an intentional choice to grow, organizations can still
survive (to a certain extent); similarly, without making an intentional choice
to identify and retain high performers, organizations can still operate. So, the
question is: why do organizations need to make such an intentional choice if the
basic survival and operations are unlikely to be at risk in the short-term even
without a genuine intent to grow and identify/retain top talent?

The simpler answer is that making intentional choices in both areas
simultaneously – growing the organization and identifying/retaining top talent –
leads to greater purposes, improves the bottom line, amplifies core values, and
builds a forward-looking mindset for organizations while leaving no room for
complacency and cliché.

The less simple answer is that the two are complementary – organizations must
retain their top talent to thrive, and top performers are genuinely passionate
about the growth of their organizations.

Not to mention that when business leaders have these two areas aligned, they
position themselves to attract and recruit like-minded top performers to drive
exponential growth and set them up for long-term success. If the two areas are
being perceived and implemented in a mutually exclusive or an unbalanced way, it
is highly likely that an organization will not reap the full potential benefits
of its exponential growth or, the worst case scenario, revert to its original
position with all good efforts going in vain.

How do you identify a top talent? While the idea that “an organization is only
as good as its people” is not new, not all business leaders understand that
building a successful organization does not start with people, but instead, with
roles. Before answering this question of how to identify top talent within the
organization, leaders must first clearly define all the critical roles that
drive the organization’s mission and strategies forward.

Once these critical roles are identified, each role must be accompanied by a
clear set of responsibilities, core skills, necessary attributes, and
non-negotiable characteristics deemed important to succeed. Only then can
leaders objectively assess and match their top talent to these high-value roles.
Do these high performers exist internally and can they be promoted within, or do
they need to be hired externally? What trainings, coaching and mentoring are
needed to bridge the gap between current state and desired level for employees
with high potentials to fulfill a critical role? What are the expected timeline
and available metrics to measure their performance to reach high-value
positions?

In addition, great leaders also use good common sense to strategize, strengthen,
or validate their thought process. For example, to identify whether someone is a
high performer, an organization can simply ask the question of whether this
talent would be hired again. If the answer is a powerful “yes” without any
hesitation, chances are this is surely a top talent, and not an average one.
Another question the organization should ask itself is what happens when an
employee quits. A high performer would be very hard to replace and often affects
the performance and engagement level of the remaining team; in contrast, if
someone’s departure results in a neutral or even grateful feeling, this talent
would not be viewed as a top performer by their colleagues, a sign for
organizations to focus their energies and time on finding new top talent to
fulfill the vacancy. Lastly, great leaders often proactively ask and objectively
assess how their own performance is affected by an employee. A top talent would
almost always meet or exceed expectations with minimum or no supervision,
especially on new or challenging tasks; hence this top talent would not only
relieve leaders’ stress level but also help the organization make a difference
by creating a thing out of nothing, elevating the quality of important work, and
driving unprecedented growth with positive changes.

Just like many things in business (and in life), the exercise of identifying top
talent is not an event but a journey. In today’s fast-paced and ever-changing
post-COVID world, organizations must reimagine their high-value roles and
reallocate high-performing resources often – at least annually, if not quarterly
– to remain relevant and competitive.

How to retain a top talent? While financial compensation plays a significant
role in retaining top talent, this article focuses on three key intangible
aspects, often less intuitive to or understood by many organizations, of how to
make the top talent feel uniquely appreciated, which in turn maximizes the
chance of retaining star players.

 1. Praise them, but be specific. Most top performers are known to be their own
    harshest critic. Highly driven by their tendency to be “perfect” to
    differentiate themselves, top performers are innately motivated to make a
    difference via their competitive advantage, something they have built over
    time but often must be relearned and/or unlearned to stay relevant and
    sustainable. The hidden truth is that top performers would not share this
    mentality with people around them. Why? Because this is their superpower and
    accomplishing hard things requires consistent effort. Great leaders do not
    take high performers for granted; instead, they make an intentional effort
    to avoid using generic compliments and tie the recognition with high
    performers’ specific accomplishments.
 2. Amplify their presence and contributions, both internally and externally.
    Being specific when praising high performers is a good starting point to
    make them feel valued and appreciated. This effort, however, will have a
    more lasting impact on winning their loyalty if they know their presence and
    contributions are being amplified through public recognition internally and
    externally. Great leaders never underestimate the power of elevating both
    the top talent themselves (the “presence”) and their impactful ideas or hard
    work (the “contributions”) to internal teams and external audiences.
 3. Invest in them with continuous growth and learning opportunities. Because
    extraordinary employees often spend much time and effort working on
    challenging things, they can easily feel lonely when performing at their
    peak. One of the most desired strategies for organizations to support their
    top talent is to continuously invest in them to encourage their development.
    While promotions and raises are great financial rewards, an organization can
    maximize the chance of retaining their high performers by allowing them to
    continue to learn and grow in their own individualized way. The right
    question for organizations to ask here is not about what happens if a top
    talent leaves the organization once they invest in them; instead, the right
    mindset to have is how organizations can help fulfill a top performer’s
    insatiable appetite for life-long learning so that this top talent does not
    want to leave the organization.

In short, organizations must proactively develop strategies to identify and
retain top talent. This may sound like a cliché, but it requires an intentional
choice to make talent mapping a leadership priority. The benefits of getting it
right are not only immeasurable but also contagious in attracting more
like-minded top talent, which will be icing on the cake for any growth mindset
organizations. 

Ying Liu, MBA, LEED AP BD+C, is a strategy advisor with Zweig Group. Contact her
at yliu@zweiggroup.com.

Click here to read this week's issue of The Zweig Letter!


ABOUT ZWEIG GROUP

Zweig Group, three times on the Inc. 500/5000 list, is the industry leader and
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has offices in Dallas and Fayetteville, Arkansas.

author-Ying-Liu recruiting retention ZG Team

ABOUT YING LIU

Prior to joining Zweig Group in 2022, Ying served as the Deputy Chief Strategy
and Growth Officer for the US Operations of a Paris-based multinational
architectural and engineering consulting firm specializing in public
transportation and mobility solutions. Recognized as an innovative strategist
who can integrate multiple perspectives into a shared vision, Ying was promoted
to this growth-focused strategic role at the onset of COVID to partner with
C-suite executives and cross-functional teams to develop a 2-3 year strategic
plan for organizational survival and return to growth. She was also responsible
for managing the implementation and execution effort of the strategic plan by
facilitating regular performance reviews against pre-established KPIs to drive
organizational growth and profitability.

Read More from Ying

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