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- how to keep your top performers loyal
how to keep your top performers loyal
when your best people are getting poached 😬
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Howdy HR friends!👋
Hope you’re all having a great start to the week!
Today we’re pondering talent poaching. We’ve all seen it, and yet every time it happens again it always takes us by surprise! So what can we do to get ahead of it and give our best talent a really tough decision to make when those recruiters come knocking?
Or perhaps more accurately, InMailing….
🚦Coming up
In today’s edition
🔍 The Silent Crisis: Why Your Top Talent Is Slipping Away
🛋️ The Break Room: What's your go-to strategy for keeping your best people from jumping ship?
📚 Human Readsources: Job market cooling signs, 2024's flat salary forecasts, and LinkedIn's new recruiter verification system.
💭Opening thoughts
Making employees stick around (without constant pay rises)
Your competitor! Agh?!
Did you know that organizations losing a top performer can expect to spend 150-200% of that employee's salary to replace them, with productivity disruptions lasting up to a year?
Those are some scary numbers this close to Halloween?!
Retaining said high-performers requires a strategic approach beyond reactive compensation adjustments.
We need to focus instead on creating an environment where talent feels valued, challenged, and aligned with organizational purpose.
At the same time we need to identify flight risks early, customize retention plans for key individuals, and build systematic career development pathways that competitors cannot easily replicate.
Simple right?!
For easy reading
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🧠Let’s unpick
🔍 Why Your Top Talent Is Slipping Away
In today's job market, where even though hiring is slowing down@ employee poaching has become a critical HR challenge.
Because whether we’re in a boom or bust market: the best talent is always in the crosshairs of competitors (and extrenal recruiters)
And they’re willing to pay a premium to acquire those precious skills and knowledge.
The problem isn't just losing individual contributors but also the often overlooked ripple effects.
i.e. Lost institutional knowledge, team disruption, and the significant costs of replacement.
Research shows that proactive retention strategies are far more effective than reactive responses once an employee has received a competing offer.
According to Harvard Business Review, the best defense against poaching is a good offense: create an environment where employees don't want to leave in the first place, by understanding individual motivations and creating personalized retention approaches.
This requires looking beyond compensation to address the full employee experience.
Remember that exit interviews, while valuable, come too late.
Regular stay interviews help identify issues before employees start looking elsewhere.
Your best talent is worth fighting for before someone else makes them an offer (in your best Marlon Brando voice now), they can’t refuse.
You can read more at...
👀Too long didn’t read
TLDR
Your best defense isn't reacting to competitor offers, it's creating an environment where your stars never want to leave in the first place.
Today’s edition is also presented by
The best HR advice comes from those in the trenches. That’s what this is: real-world HR insights delivered in a newsletter from Hebba Youssef, a Chief People Officer who’s been there. Practical, real strategies with a dash of humor. Because HR shouldn’t be thankless—and you shouldn’t be alone in it.
🎬Lights, camera, action!
Takeaway and try
🗓️ Implement quarterly "stay interviews" with top performers to identify what keeps them engaged and what might push them away, giving you time to address concerns before they become exit reasons.
🌱 Create personalized development plans that align with each high performer's career aspirations and learning style, showing them they can grow without leaving.
🏆 Design a recognition program that matches how each top performer prefers to be appreciated. Some want public praise, others prefer private acknowledgment or tangible rewards.
💰 Review compensation packages of your key talent against current market rates every six months, not just during annual reviews when it might be too late.
☕The break room
What’s your take?
📚Additional reading
Human Readsources
📉 US Jobs Report Disappoints as Unemployment Rises (HR Brew) - Jobs report shows weak gains, rising unemployment amid recession fears.
💰 Flat Raises Risk Top Performer Retention (HR Brew) - Flat raises may impact retention of top performers.
🔒 LinkedIn Fights Hiring Scams with Recruiter Verification (The HR Digest) - LinkedIn adds recruiter verification to combat hiring scams.
That’s it for today.
Thanks for reading to the end and we hope today’s edition sparked some new ideas for your workplace! 🧠
We know you’re super busy and really appreciate you saving some room for us in your inbox 😀
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