Determined to retain your most talented executives? Well, here’s some counterintuitive advice: The best way to keep them from leaving is to prepare them to do just that.
In tough economic times like these, retention becomes less of a priority for many companies as they focus on more-immediate business concerns. But companies that neglect this issue during a downturn may be in for a nasty surprise just as things start looking up: Historically, there is a significant increase in the number of executives leaving their companies as market conditions improve and more job opportunities open up.
Good to Stay
- The Goal: Retain your most talented executives.
- The Paradox: To keep them, you need to give them what they want most—the skills and experience that make them attractive on the job market.
- The Details: Executives crave opportunities to take on new responsibilities, learn new business skills and build more-extensive networks.
That’s why it’s crucial that companies get serious about retention now. And that means giving executives opportunities to take on greater responsibility, broaden their skills and cultivate a network of relationships with their peers. These are the things that executives we have surveyed consistently say they want most from their jobs.
Of course, executives want these opportunities largely because the skills, experience and relationships they acquire make them more valuable on the job market. So there is always the risk that a company may invest in building its executives’ talents only to see some of them take those talents elsewhere.
But our research shows that executives intend to stay longest with those companies that offer the greatest opportunities to enhance their employability. On balance, a company will keep more talent by helping its executives grow than it would by denying them these opportunities. And as a bonus, its executives will be more valuable to the company itself.
Executive Adviser
Innovations in management theory & business strategy – a collaboration with The Wall Street Journal
Too few companies understand this. We found wide discrepancies between what executives want in the way of professional development and what their companies are giving them. With that in mind, here’s a look at how companies can address that gap by providing the three types of opportunities executives want most.
New Responsibilities
The executives we surveyed ranked opportunities to work on
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This is a particularly timely article, as many organizations will fail to capitalize on economic recovery in 2010 precisely because they will lose many top performers – partially, but not solely, for the reasons given in the article.
Recent surveys and my own observational analysis confirms that many top performers who have ‘knuckled down’ to help pull their organizations through tough times in 2008 and 2009 will (counter-intuitively) begin actively looking for a career change as they see the economy showing signs of recovery. The reasons for this are not difficult to see: a need to regain a sense of control over their career; the need for a change after so long in the doldrums, and most impactful – a loss of enthusiasm and vision in their current position.
In addition to the solutions proffered by the authors – indeed, as prerequisites to their efficacy – if senior managers want to retain their top performers in 2010 they must also find a way to (1) re-ignite the top performers vision; (2) provide them with new challenges, and (3) rebuild a sense of trust.
Les McKeown, President & CEO, Predictable Success
This is a particularly timely article, as many organizations will fail to capitalize on economic recovery in 2010 precisely because they will lose many top performers – partially, but not solely, for the reasons given in the article.