Destin Africa 38 Management
Retaining Talent: A Key to a Healthy and Successful Organization
T
he benefit of retaining top talent in organizations is an issue that every effective manager should be concerned with. In most cases, organizations experience high turnover rates resulting in additional expenses for hiring new employees. The productivity and growth of such organizations are also affected profoundly. The question here is why have some organizations become more favorable to work at while others are not? Why do employees leave a certain organization for another? By understanding this, managers can be able to turn their organizations to be among the best places of work.
A critical concern faced by organizations in the current time is how to retain their staff. Retaining talent is deemed significant especially in the present knowledge economy. While most executives are aware that retaining talent is a key priority, a number of organizations are still struggling with the issue. It is important for management to know the most effective ways of retaining talent as by doing so they are able to create healthy and successful organizations. The most effective way is creating an environment in which talented staff can develop. Talented individuals look for opportunities to grow and improve their skills; therefore they will seek for organizations offering abundant opportunities to do so. Organizations which develop their staff more rapidly experience low turnover rates as employees have a low likelihood of leaving. Besides, organizations which are
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serious about developing and retaining high-quality talent perceive themselves as growth platforms whereby individuals can develop themselves more rapidly. This, in turn, generates a self-reinforcing cycle considering that talent produces more growth opportunities.
Research has indicated that retaining talent is linked with various benefits including consistent sales growth, high customer satisfaction rates, positive morale, as well as institutional knowledge. In fact, talent retention is a key analytical gauge of the general health of the organization. It is worth noting that better benefits, higher salaries or bonuses are not the major factors which make employees leave their jobs. The majority leave in search for
a better manager or a conducive working environment. With regard to this, creating a better and positive work environment, seeking employee opinion, and developing management skills for the managers are amongst the major factors to retaining the top talent in organizations. In short, understanding staff who have many gifts could save companies unnecessary loss of talents. Why Employees Leave Most of the research that has been carried out on talent retention has focused on understanding the various reasons why employees make decisions to leave organizations. Having a clear understanding of why people leave is important as organizations are able to obtain a better idea of why people stay
