Talent Retention through Strategic Employee Engagement!

As a CHRO with 25 years of HR leadership experience across different industries, I have always strongly believed and practiced increased human interaction with the employees. I believe in strengthening relationships through different ways. It increases employees' feeling based connection with the organization.

There is lot of hue and cry across corporate circles that unemployment is surging. At the same time, in US early this year, more than 300,000 new jobs have been reported.

Real challenge is talent retention. New trend of hybrid or remote work arrangement is gaining more momentum. In this situation, HR and managers have to work very hard to strategize how to ensure retention of valuable talent.

Strategic employee engagement through multidimensional human connection is very important. Companies invest in terms of varied compensation, bonuses, monetary rewards. It will help to a certain extent. Actual retention will take place when strong bondage with employees is actualized. Few steps need to be further refined and then taken so as to retain the best talent of the companies.

1. Personalized human interaction:

Organizations should think of ways to create personalized interactions. I introduced personalized birthday celebrations, arranging happy send offs for the leaving employees, informal lunches and coffees, playing different indoor sports with the teams. Taking the team for dinner followed by fun and jokes. These initiatives produced very good results. Employees liked this culture.

2. Good onboarding process:

Retention and talent management starts from the day one when an employee joins. Onboarding process should be very well structured supported by online tools, presentations and then taking the new joiners for meeting with key managers and senior management in the organization. This helps a lot.

3. Mentor-mentee arrangement:

Assign a mentor from the day one, it can be supervisor or any other senior manager within the same department as it will help in learning the team culture, on job training about the work and area where a new employee has joined. Mentor-mentee relationship is a great step to reinforce adjustment of the new employee into a new culture.

4. Foster Employee-Manager connection:

Regular communication between employees and managers is the key to build a strategic partnership. Plan, implement, review and revise any short or long term plan should be a simple equation. Seek and provide feedback, keep it two way feedback.

5. Tech-driven human connection:

HR and management should maximally utilize tech-based platforms to augment employee engagement. Online interactions, employees info dashboards, organizational intranets, online and instant feedbacks, live chats between managers and employees where HR should lead. Project management apps, talent management and process management should be ensured through technology.

6. Subsidized & personalized services:

HR should enter into arrangements with companies providing subsidized laundry services, grocery and food delivery services, plumbing and electrical services including aircon servicing etc. These seem to be common services but are neglected and ignored. Pick and drop services for employees at a certain route is also an idea that can be thought out and planned.

7. Multigenerational workplace:

Companies have to build and foster a work culture that accommodates people from different generations. Collective values and ideas should be nurtured. Regardless of age or seniority, employees should be seen equally as a potential talent, recognized, respected and rewarded. Difference of age and seniority should be merged with collective ideas, thoughts and working together.

Final words:

Talent retention and management is a continuous and ongoing strategy. It should be central to the company wide HR strategy. People are the heart of an organization. Their talent has to be recognized, polished and prepared for the future. It is not easier to retain talent in this era when people from baby boomers and Gen X are retiring. Talent retention should be given due importance to control cost on new hiring. CHROs should think of such strategies at all times seeing the real time issues, circumstances and situations. Retaining talent is very important through strategic employee engagement.