Keeping and losing your best people – a message from the ‘front line’.

I recently published a paper “10 Ways to Lose Your Top People” and received a response from a friend and long time colleague of mine, Scott Halsall.

Scott is the CEO of Agile Recruitment [http://www.agilerecruitment.com.au ] a specialist Melbourne based recruitment company that focuses on professional services placement and contracting primarily in the IT&T industry.

Scott provided a complementary perspective on how to lose and retain best people based on his extensive experience.  As a professional services recruitment specialist, Scott gets to see both sides of the employee exit, namely the disgruntled employee/contractor looking for a new role and the employer wanting to attract the appropriate candidate.

Whilst Scott’s day to day activity is primarily with professional services people, his points apply across the full range of disciplines that constitute a healthy organization.  They are complimentary to the 11 points outlined in 10 Ways to Lose Your Top People”.

Here are Scott’s Top 5 ways to lose your best people:

(1)    Lack of professional growth opportunity to develop new skills.  Professionals want different projects/roles/challenges, not the ‘same old grind’.

(2)    Salary below what they can achieve elsewhere.  Money is not necessarily the prime motivator, but why accept less than you can get elsewhere?

(3)    Uncertainty created by change: mergers, peer redundancies etc.  The top people will not wait to become a victim and often won’t even wait for a payout.

(4)    Recognising contribution including visibility at more senior levels.  Areas that they want recognized include results, effort, ideas and any other contribution they make.

(5)    Lack of empowerment and the opportunity to influence direction.

And Scott’s perspective on what attracts the best people:

(1)    Market perception of the organisation / brand

(2)    Scope of responsibility, budget and appetite for project spend.  People want interesting work and achievements to hang their hat on

(3)     Salary

(4)    Growth potential including transitions sideways; not always upward.

(5)    The calibre of people they will be working with.  Top people do not want to be ‘a big fish in a small pond’; they want to be ‘at the top of the food chain in the open ocean’.

Scott poses some interesting points about the healthy length of tenure for employees.  His question “Would you prefer someone who pushed hard for 12mths or paced themselves for 3 yrs?” is highly relevant.  In the rapidly evolving corporate environment timing is everything.  There is no time for ‘being comfortable’ but such high output requirements mean that a particular type of person is required who may not fit into the ‘business as usual’ mould.

Scott suggests that a relationship based on mutual benefit for an agreed duration should be put in place and renewed periodically.  This relationship would include open discussion about how the employee and the organization can facilitate the needs of each other which may even mean facilitating skills development for ultimate exit.  This develops a mutually beneficial relationship whereby at the end of the employer / employee relationship there will be an enduring respect.  Where such mature relationships have developed it is Scott’s experience that employees have often become clients of the organization they previously worked for.

These suggestions raise the need for the appropriate balance of core employees, specialist contract staff and external firms that provided necessary skills to address requirements that arise as the organizations develops.  As Scott rightly points out “…I wonder if we need to consider:  Should organisations plan to retain forever?  It’s often not realistic and not in the best interests of the organization or the individual”.

Hiring of permanent staff to address an immediate problem can ultimately prove counterproductive.  An example is hiring a full time person to address the need to collect “cash outstanding”.  As the person fulfils their role and the outstanding debtors are reduced to proper limits, along with resolving the issues that caused them in the first place, their role has effectively evaporated.  This is due in large part to their successful performance of the job.  As it becomes apparent that their role is no longer required, they can become disillusioned and negative, potentially causing a morale issue with other staff.  In such a situation, a fixed term contract or ‘outsourced’ position would be more effective in that the result would be the same without the problems of dealing with a disgruntled staff member who is left with “nowhere to go” as a reward for doing a good job.

Maintaining a static staff with little turnover is not necessarily in the best interests of the organization.  As Scott points out: “….sometimes introducing new blood can create hybrid vigour… innovation often comes from lessons learned elsewhere and applied.”  Provided the employment process has been effective, a new staff member will bring experience of different methods and a new perspective to the organization.  Given the appropriate leadership, these new ideas and methods can stimulate creativity and energy in the current employees with positive outcomes.

Scott suggests that managers should “put more effort on attracting talented people rather than buying experience from competitors who may come with their own institutionalised baggage and fixed ideas. People enjoy fresh changes and often excel in new markets / industries where there are some strong parallels.”

All too often when a key employee leaves, the immediate reaction is “find another one as good or better and start by ‘head-hunting’ an equivalent person from the competition!”  This approach has mixed success.  Many of the best performers have developed out of being very talented individuals in a different role but who have applied their considerable capabilities to the new role with energy and determination.  Adding talent from parallel industries or different markets can bring a fresh approach that leads to innovation which provides a unique advantage for the organization.

Many managers have found that hiring staff that have been successful with their competitors is not necessarily a recipe for success.  Often these people are a product of the success of the overall competitor organization.  In many instances, they also still carry a negative perception of the organization based out of their experience in competing against it.  Certainly there are many successful examples of hiring “stars” from competitors, but strong consideration of allowing a talented individual to apply a new perspective to the role should be given.

Providing stimulating, challenging, evolving and developmental roles whilst providing appropriate salary is a clear path to retaining and attracting talent; especially in the professional services.  What your organization represents in the market is also a key contributor: “the best attracts the best”.

But it is important to recognize that there is a healthy level of staff turn-over.  Introducing new talent and enabling people to move on for their personal development is an important part of keeping the organization fresh, innovative and evolving.  Provided this evolutionary staff turn-over is recognized with appropriate strategies to pro-actively manage it, there are benefits for the individuals and the organization…but most importantly for the customers that it exists to serve.

Many thanks for your insight and input Scott!