Dive Brief:
- Writing for Fortune, John Ambrose, senior vice president of strategy and corporate development at Skillsoft, has some ideas on how to keep your best employees.
- One hint: Letting them go.
- He says it’s no surprise that every manager wants to keep their best employees. But a good manager doesn’t hoard talent. Instead, they develop their employees by investing in them, building on their strengths, and providing opportunities to innovate.
Dive Insight:
To get there, Ambrose says it's critical to know what motivates your employees. Long gone are the days when we thought of employees as a homogenous group with similar interests and motivations, he writes.
He then outlines four generations in today's workforce, and how HR and leaders must adapt to balance all their different needs and concerns.
The best retention strategy, he says, is one that focuses on the individual, and encourages employees to drive their own development. Formalizing a mentorship program will encourage knowledge sharing between veteran employees and rising stars, develop rich co-worker relationships and build loyalty throughout the organization. Ambrose writes that when employees know you’re investing in them — testing their limits and rewarding them — they are happy and more likely to want to stay and grow with your organization.
