Growing & Keeping Your Best Talent
Posted on Mon, Nov 22, 2010 @ 05:46 PM
One way to reduce turnover and increase employee engagement in your team is to foster an environment where people can grow their interests and talents as well as their technical skills. Finding opportunities to do that is sometimes hard. How do you identify a person’s talents within the scope of job descriptions and the business realities of getting things done?
Pay attention. What special projects do they volunteer for? Is there a pattern? Steve always volunteers to interface with the customers; he loves to solve the customer service issues. Mike is always happiest when he has a complex problem to solve; it is like a puzzle to him, working quietly at his desk, he always comes up with the answer.
Offer challenges. Give employees a chance to try out new roles. Rotate representation at external meetings or leadership in team meetings to give everyone experience and see who likes which role. See who stands out and thrives.
Ask. There is a revolutionary thought! Ask employees what they are interested in and what they would like to work toward. Then arrange opportunities for interim assignments. I know a leader who invited employees to switch roles and locations for 3 month periods. It gave them an opportunity to work with new people. Most of them went on to be promoted.
Train yourself to watch for clues and offer employees a chance to try new duties if you want to improve your retention of talent. It will pay off; your most talented employees will appreciate the opportunities and begin to search for opportunities for others who are talented to come along with them.
What do you feel most successful doing?
What are you doing as a volunteer outside of work?