Organisations must steel themselves for the looming talent drain as their employees grow secure enough to look outside of their current job role – bear in mind all the organisations that will soon be in a position to begin poaching talent again from their competitors.
 

Our global engagement research found that employees are 1.5 times more likely to stay for at least five years when they perceive there to be career opportunities at their organisation. This outlook will have been cemented in the short term with the majority of employees simply grateful to have a job.

But this feeling is set to change when we emerge from recession. It is, therefore, essential for organisations to identify the key drivers for retaining their staff. Many of who will now be thinking once again about developing their careers.

To start, organisations need to make any opportunities for progression, even if they are smaller than usual, feel obtainable and positive. Our research has found that the top driver for engaging your workforce with career opportunities is the perception that people are made ready to fill available roles. Preparing and supporting staff in their development will be key to holding on to talent through the economic upturn.

Addressing your employees’ need for visible and attainable career opportunities will also engage them on an organisational level. Room for career progression or development internally means that individuals will be almost three times more likely to regard their organisations as one of the best performing in its sector.

But what about if there simply aren’t any opportunities to be transparent about? This is a problem many organisations are facing after the cost-cutting initiatives that helped many survive the recession. Equally, in recent years, and post recession, there seems to be a new employer – employee deal evolving. One where the employer will need to think more creatively than providing vertical career progression opportunities to keep staff engaged.

This resonates particularly with more senior employees who may view any attempts at career development with caution and cynicism. A culture that encourages and facilitates conversations about career development needs to emerge. This will mean both parties feeling secure in having confidential and constructive conversations about career development and the future world of work, both internally and externally to the organisation.

Organisations shouldn’t however be too keen to start having career discussions with their staff if they haven’t already established this practice in the current climate. Some recent diagnostic work with an organisation keen to introduce career discussion following a significant restructure, identified employees were still feeling too battered and bruised to view career development as anything more than a way of facilitating more people leaving the organisation. It was critical to recognise the impact of the change and despite the organisation wanting to refocus on the future, to invest time in recognising where people were on the transition curve and supporting them on their journey of re-engagement.

This example illustrates how differently organisations and individuals can perceive and interpret career development and how critical the timing of introducing new initiatives is for success. Another critical element is the need for transparency and honesty when having these discussions. This will manage expectations and ensure that the culture of the organisation supports career development. For example, if there is no room for role progression there are many different options that could be made available such as enriching an individual’s current role which can help cement engagement. This may be through inclusion on project work or offering a secondment option.

As leaders begin to pre-empt the war for talent it would be useful to remember that many employees will not be emotionally available for engagement techniques. Our recent analysis* has discovered that many managers in both the UK and Ireland are emotionally out of touch with their employees. They support this impression through key business decisions. Only 18% of organisations are using employee engagement strategies to a great extent despite 44% asserting that employees have become less engaged during the recession and 60% believing that an engaged workforce significantly affects an organisation’s performance.

So it is key to remember that any offer for progression or more responsibility is likely to be met with an environment of cynicism. Starting now to rebuild your employees’ career confidence gradually will strengthen your business and encourage your best talent to stay for longer.

* Right Management’s Engagement and Wellness Survey conducted by Illuma Research involved the responses of 300 middle managers within large national and international organisations in the UK and Ireland. The sampled comprised a cross-section of industry types and job functions. The research was conducted between November – December 2009.