Employees in every organization should sit at the centre. They are the ones that design, market and sell your business. They are the faces that your customers see, interact and communicate with daily. Your employees are your customers, and they too need to be engaged and motivated in what they do, for your business to succeed.

How do you keep your best talent?

In an ever growing and competitive market, the challenge is not only to attract the best talent – but keep it. Your organization could have fantastic recruitment campaigns, employee incentives and bonuses, but does it offer growth and progression, does it offer a way for employees to take ownership of their career destiny and aim for the top? If your employees aren’t challenged, and have no sight of where they can progress to, they will ultimately leave.

What are career pathways, and why are the important?

Career pathways offer employees a journey to success. They map out ways employees can progress within the organization, whether it be within their current department, or take a step into a completely new one. Your best talent are those who are driven and ambitious to grow. Employees need to know where their career will lead, and where their role within the business will take them in the future. This is why career pathways are essential to retaining your best people.

What options do you have?

There has been an ongoing debate regarding annual appraisals, and whether these are the best method to monitor the performance of your workforce. Not only this, but is this the best way for employees to manage their development too? Some organizations have started using constant, continual feedback instead of annual performance review, which offer employees the chance to find out how they can improve and progress.  This continual feedback not only helps employees understand their development, but can also flag to employers where their top performers are within the organization.

If employees are provided with the tools to map out where they can work towards within the organization, they will be able to choose their own career pathway. It’s not enough anymore to just offer a high salary, and hope they stay.

For organizations to retain top talent, have internal company loyalty and hardworking, ambitious employees requires presenting real evidence of internal growth opportunities.

How do you manage your talent, and what methods do you think work well?