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Are you cultivating the talent today that your business will need tomorrow? It can be difficult to find and secure high-quality employees these days, which is why talent mapping is so important for your organization's larger talent management initiatives. This process works to help determine future talent needs, assess the viability of your current staff to meet those needs, source high-potential players in your field for future recruitment, and develop a strategic plan to fill identified skills and talent gaps. Here's a closer look at how talent mapping in recruiting can help you meet your staffing goals.

What Is Talent Mapping in Recruitment?

Talent mapping is a strategic approach to help businesses anticipate and meet long-term hiring goals. While businesses may certainly have short-term or immediate hiring needs, talent maps focus on the organization's overall goals and the employees needed to help them get there. This not only involves recruiting the right talent, but it also focuses on talent development, refreshing existing job roles and descriptions as needed, forecasting future roles, retention, and career path planning.

Since talent mapping is a multi-pronged approach to talent management, this process can take shape in many ways. One basic talent mapping example is looking at HR data to identify sales leaders who may be nearing retirement age in the next three years. Part of the talent map process would include identifying potential successors, evaluating any ways in which these leadership roles need to evolve to meet the business's larger goals (e.g., future leaders who have a strong customer service background), and putting training plans in place for those individuals.

What Is Candidate Mapping? Is It Different From Talent Mapping?

Candidate mapping may be part of your larger talent mapping strategy, particularly if the talent map process identifies the need to hire outside the organization. This is the practice of visualizing each step of the candidate's experience and identifying and improving (if needed) each interaction a candidate will have during your recruiting, interview, and selection process. This practice is beneficial because it helps you put yourself in candidates' shoes and better understand their needs in different phases of the journey. It's also a great way to address any spots where there may be friction or an otherwise negative experience.

The key benchmarks to consider and questions to ask when evaluating your candidate map are:

• Awareness: The initial stage where candidates become aware of your brand. How and where does an individual find out about the company for the first time?
• Consideration: Candidates research your company and compare it with competitors. How would a candidate learn about your company's employee value proposition?
• Interest: Candidates express interest in your company. How would they find information to compare different companies to work for?
• Application: Candidates apply for an open position. What are the steps a candidate takes when they decide to apply for a position?
• Selection: Candidates go through the selection process. What does the candidate selection process look like?
• Hire: A candidate becomes a new hire. What does the job offer and hiring process look like?

What Are the Benefits of Talent Mapping?

The benefits of talent mapping are directly linked to a business' ability to help project future human resources needs. The process, while extensive, can result in higher employee retention rates, better overall employee satisfaction, and improved performance. Specifically, a few benefits may include:

• Reduced time-to-hire rates: The talent map process helps businesses plan and secure the necessary resources for a role before a vacancy comes up.
• Identifying stars and future leaders: It's more important than ever to keep great employees and eliminate as much as possible the possibility that they're lost to competitors. Developing star employees' skill sets and providing comprehensive career development plans are critical for your future business success.
• Conserved hiring resources: Talent mapping allows you to prioritize open positions that will have the biggest impact on company growth.
• Greater return on hiring investment: Much of the time, energy, and financial investment that goes into hiring and training new employees is unavoidable. But the longer an employee stays with a company and effectively contributes to it, the greater the return on investment in hiring that person. This has a positive impact on both new employees and current or tenured ones.

What Are the Challenges of Talent Mapping?

Talent management is a critical component of your broader workforce management strategy, since recruiting, training, retaining, and promoting the right people are essential steps in reaching larger business goals. Nevertheless, there's potential to run into challenges such as:

• Struggling to get companywide buy-in: The success of strategic talent management hinges on a companywide commitment. Your HR team may play a leading role in making this happen, from identifying talent management as a strategic priority to determining how and where that focus will be applied. But without total buy-in — from company leaders, employees, and supervisors — talent mapping initiatives may fall by the wayside.
• Addressing gaps in the process that led to turnover: Looking at data from past employees (particularly information gathered during exit interviews), you may realize that there were gaps in the process that led to star workers leaving. Plus, they took skills and knowledge that may be crucial for the business to get where it needs to go. This can be difficult to come to terms with, but you can leverage these findings to make concrete changes: implementing stay interviews, considering boomerang employees, and evaluating the company's process for gathering employee feedback.
• Gathering necessary HR data: Talent mapping requires a considerable amount of data, and this information could be housed in many disparate systems, hard to track down, or a combination of both. Consider how an integrated HR solution that houses recruiting, hiring, time and attendance, employee training and development, benefits, and other employee information can give you easier access to HR data that's critical for making larger business decisions.
• Helping employees find a balance between training and work responsibilities: Training, while great for further developing your workforce, takes time and effort that needs to be prioritized as part of employees' workloads. Consider streamlined training programs that can make it easy to offer a wide range of valuable learning opportunities for your employees and can help you keep track of their progress.

How To Talent Map

The specific components of your talent mapping process will be unique to your business, but in general it should take into account both existing and future hiring needs, as well as strategies that can help the business reach its long-term goals. The process for how to talent map may include the following:

Develop Ideal Candidate Descriptions

An ideal candidate profile helps guide HR or hiring manager teams to find and hire better candidates. This serves as a generic overview regarding what's required or desirable in relation to a specific position's skills, education, pay range, level of experience, etc. Part of your research should include speaking with managers who hire for each of these roles, as well as current team members who would interact with someone in this role. Ultimately, the more you know about the composite makeup of ideal candidates, the easier and faster you can hire the right candidate when the time comes.

Get a Pulse on Industry Competitors

Leading the company into becoming an employer of choice requires careful analysis of how your hiring approach and tactics stack up against competitors. Specifically, which positions, skills, certifications, or even departments do they have that you may not have? What does their hiring process look like? This type of information can help you better understand which organizational components and recruiting strategies are in place for your competitors to reach their own goals.

Competitive research may also be useful as part of your retention strategies. For example, after conducting some employee interviews, you discover that there is no development path for engineers past a certain level of seniority. At the same time, research reveals that one of your competitors has an engineering management track in place. This could entice your current engineers to leave for an organization with more opportunities for those in this role, which also could lead to reevaluating career pathing in the engineering department.

Assess Current Employee Performance

Talent mapping uses a specific formula to evaluate the readiness and performance of your current workforce against the changes ahead. The goal is to identify high-potential employees whose future development aligns with your strategic priorities. For example, if one of your biggest needs is developing mid-level sales managers for field offices, which employees have the fundamental skills and interest to pursue that career path? During a talent mapping exercise, you're looking for a mix of current performance and future growth potential that indicates a long-term match. Additionally, promoting from within is a great way to reemphasize the business' commitment to employee development and growth.

Create a Database of Passive Candidates

The competition for finding top talent is simply too steep these days to take a reactive approach to recruiting. You also have to be realistic about promoting from within: some current employees may be a natural fit for future opportunities, but there will certainly come a time when you have to look outside the business to fill a role. Building a passive-candidate pool can help you address both of these challenges.

This may look like proactively contacting ideal candidates, building relationships, and even gauging interest from past employees for future positions. Cultivating engagement with passive candidates can help set the business up for success when the time comes to fill open positions. Ideally, pulling from this pool can help you both reduce time-to-hire rates as well as bring on individuals who have the skills and interest to work for the business.

Understand Future Needs

The value of talent mapping is directly linked to its ability to help project future human resources needs. For example, an engineering firm might need to build its capacity to work with certain target technologies or a software firm might want to hire programmers who are familiar with specific languages. Where are your field and your company headed in the next five, 10, or 20 years? What skills will be needed — by level, department, and job function — to thrive in that changing business environment? Start the talent mapping process by determining your growth path and then working backward to the skills, expertise, and education your team needs to make that happen.

Set Your Business Up for Success by Creating a Hiring Strategy for the Future

Overall, talent mapping allows businesses to create a roadmap for succession planning, future recruiting, and employee development initiatives. By understanding what talent is needed to achieve future business growth, it's possible to invest in the right activities today to make that vision a reality tomorrow.

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While working from home may offer various opportunities to businesses and employees, it's important that employers think strategically about the best ways to develop and manage a remote workforce. It may also be top-of-mind as companies consider ways to fortify themselves against the Great Recession by implementing work-from-home (WFH) policies that may help retain workers and attract new ones who are prioritizing their personal and professional well-being. Additionally, having a strategy for managing remote teams can help keep your business operating in the event of another coronavirus variant outbreak.

Remote work may offer benefits for employees and employers alike. Working from home may offer staff significant work-life balance opportunities, such as an improved focus on projects and the elimination of commute times. Businesses can reduce costs (e.g., expenses related to utilities, janitorial services, or even mortgage and lease arrangements) and help maintain a healthy workplace when viral illnesses are at their peak.

No matter the circumstances that have employers considering remote workforce management, implementation often comes with challenges. Maximizing benefits while navigating potential pitfalls requires a clear strategy, the right infrastructure, and a close eye on both culture and human resource management. If you have questions about managing remote employees, are planning to evaluate your current WFH policy, or anticipate having remote employees, the following 10 best practices can help guide you through the process.

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1. Set Clear Expectations and Document Policies

Successfully allowing your employees to work remotely starts with establishing clear parameters. No matter the circumstance for considering a WFH policy, it's important to set and communicate expectations for remote employees from the beginning, including:

1. Which positions may be eligible to work from home,
2. Guidelines around hours of availability,
3. Job responsibilities, and
4. Performance goals.

A remote arrangement or WFH policy should also establish clear business hours and address how to properly track hours worked, communication frequency, and data security best practices.

When a manager takes time to discuss the expectations about working offsite, it sets a precedent for clear and open communication. This is critical to not only effectively managing remote employees, but supporting their ability to turn in deliverables, ask questions, engage with the business, and get the answers they need to do their best work. This conversation should be ongoing, whether the arrangement is permanent or temporary.

2. Address Onboarding Challenges

Remote workers face a unique set of challenges during the onboarding process. They aren't physically immersed in the business culture and cannot walk down the hall to ask a colleague a quick question. It may be more difficult for a new, remote worker to develop relationships with their co-workers. These interactive aspects of work can be achieved but often require more detailed explanations and follow-up in a remote environment than a traditional in-office workspace.

An employer can set clear expectations, but remote workers need the right kind of support to meet those expectations from a remote location. This includes having the right technology and training to understand how to use it. Training should also emphasize the business culture and provide ways for a new hire to get to know other employees. For instance, consider pairing a new employee with a co-worker who can mentor the employee until they feel comfortable. Managers need to make sure they are available to answer questions and help new, remote workers access the resources they need for success.

3. Evaluate Your Technology

Technologies that help employees collaborate and connect are essential for managing remote employees and allowing team members to communicate with each other. As such, your IT strategy may need to evolve to accommodate this. Consider hardware investments such as laptops, smartphones, and tablets. You may also consider if a "bring your own device" (BYOD) policy is right for your business. A good rule of thumb is for workers to test-run these devices before starting to work from home, to make sure they can connect to the internet and any job-specific internal networks while away from the worksite.

It may also be important to leverage cloud-based software systems and collaboration tools that make it possible to have conference calls, host webinars, work on documents simultaneously, engage in video chat, and participate in a way that can help increase productivity and build relationships.

Virtual communication and project management platforms allow employees to share knowledge, encourage conversation, and enhance meetings while staying connected with their supervisor, team, and company. Providing technical training to instruct remote employees and their managers on virtual tools and resources can encourage use.

Your technology should also support other business functions that remote workers need. HR and payroll services would ideally include an employee self-service feature, so workers can get answers to questions about their pay, hours, and benefits at their convenience without always having to speak to someone in HR.

4. Develop Collaboration Methods That Support Remote Workers

These days, remote work has become the norm, rather than the exception. Team members may be working on a project across different geographic areas and work environments. Because collaboration and clear communication are essential to productivity and the success of projects, collaboration methods should work for both remote and in-office employees.

Video fatigue is real. Using brain scans, researchers have found that video meetings require more cognitive processing than traditional, in-person meetings. There are several ways to combat this phenomenon.

1. Ask yourself if a meeting is truly necessary. Perhaps the objectives can be met through an email with a conference call for follow-up.
2. Carefully consider which meetings are essential for video and which ones can be handled in other ways.
3. Adjust meeting length and style to be more appropriate for online communications. If video meetings are critical, try and group them together in a block. This can improve efficiency by creating fewer disruptions to an employee's workweek. Whenever possible, make the video portion optional.

Recognize that distractions of a different type are inherent with remote work locations. A dog can start barking during a conference or video call or a barista may be heard in the background. If a critical meeting is scheduled where these types of disruptions would be problematic, let staff know ahead of time so they can make appropriate arrangements.

5. Outline How Supervisors Can Stay Visible Without Micromanaging

Micromanaging an employee can imply a lack of trust, which is typically not a healthy foundation for a happy, productive workforce. Recognize that individuals have different work styles. One of the advantages of a flexible work environment is that it can allow an employee to take advantage of when they are most creative and productive, which may not perfectly align with traditional work hours.

That said, managers need to maintain communication with their teams and have visibility into work output. In a remote work setting, managers may need to check in more regularly with employees, but this could be perceived as micromanaging. It may be worthwhile to talk with supervisors before employees start working from home to discuss how to keep teams focused and productive when they're working remotely.

6. Create Human Capital Management Infrastructure

HR software can help facilitate collaboration across the company, allowing managers and staff located in different locations to easily share resources with remote employees.

From an HR perspective, companies can take a variety of steps to improve their ability to manage and serve a remote workforce. Cloud-based HR software can give employees self-service access to a range of different applications such as:

• Time and attendance reporting
• Benefits enrollment
• Information management
• Training and professional development

A flexible human capital management infrastructure can make it easier to successfully serve a remote workforce, while potentially delivering an outstanding HR experience.

7. Promote Culture and Information Sharing

When your team is dispersed, it's important to have a clear plan for promoting culture, disseminating knowledge, and communicating values. Tools such as an employee handbook and regular communications from leaders can help convey that information. This may include facilitating regular meetings, company-wide discussions, and forums.

It may be worth it to consider ways to bring employees together for occasional in-person interactions in ways that combine professional development and exposure to company culture. An annual, in-person retreat can be organized either regionally or even nationally. Consider offering an event once or twice each year to encourage remote workers who live near each other to get together. Doing so can strengthen a sense of team and camaraderie.

8. Understand Expense Reimbursement for Remote Workers

Remote workers are likely to have a set of expenses that differ from their in-office colleagues and it's important to understand how to make these reimbursements equitable. For instance, does the business provide on-site workers with coffee, tea, or snacks? Perhaps give remote workers a small stipend for the equivalent at their home office. Please note that there are reimbursement rules in certain jurisdictions that you should consider before making any final decisions.

9. Provide Meaningful Learning and Growth Opportunities

Knowledge-sharing is also critical when explaining key performance indicators for job evaluation. Feedback and follow-through on the remote employee's performance is critical to productivity and accountability.

Look for opportunities for the employee to evolve and develop in their role. A learning management system (LMS) is an ideal way to administer, document, track, report, and deliver educational resources, training programs, and opportunities to all employees. An LMS not only allows employees to learn when it is most convenient for them, but it may allow for anytime, anywhere access on any device — a notable benefit for offsite workers.

10. Consider Remote Employee Engagement and Teambuilding Activities

In the absence of face-to-face contact with colleagues and managers, remote employees could feel forgotten, disconnected, or unmotivated. Teambuilding activities can play an important role in engaging and nurturing a sense of camaraderie and can help workers stay productive and positive.

Activities based around health and wellness is one way to help keep employees engaged and connected. Additionally, healthier employees can mean a more vibrant and happier workforce with fewer health claims. Initiatives such as team-based step-counting contests or various physical and mental health challenges can be organized and tracked remotely to include all workers, regardless of location. This can be especially impactful if employees struggle to fit in physical activity around their work schedules or are at risk of burnout.

Establishing ways to celebrate and recognize employees' successes and accomplishments both professionally and personally can help nurture bonds and appreciation across teams. Be careful to make sure recognition is inclusive. A remote worker with a quiet, introverted personality can be easily overlooked. And don't overlook the impact that fun activities can have as well. If it fits with your business culture, encourage remote workers to introduce their pets or consider the occasional, designated video social hour.

Pitfalls and Challenges of Managing Remote Teams

While there are many benefits to a remote workforce, there are challenges of managing remote teams. These can include:

• Failing to Differentiate Between Remote Work and In-Person Work. Remote work environments remove much of the uniformity and control that are typical of a traditional, physical location. Many of the rules for success that apply to a traditional office don't always transfer to a remote location.
• No Clear Expectations or Boundaries. One of the benefits of working remotely is the ability to better balance personal and professional responsibilities. Due to different time zones or schedules, a remote worker may work different hours than a traditional worker. Lack of clear expectations around deliverables, desk time, and other responsibilities can develop a disconnect between a worker and a manager.
• Poor Communication. When managing a remote workforce, out of sight should not be out of mind. Regular communication is critical to keeping a remote worker and a manager aligned with their needs and goals. Information bottlenecks due to missed emails or phone calls, lack of clear instructions on assignments, and not being available to talk and answer questions are all examples of poor communication.
• Feelings of Isolation or Loneliness. Human engagement is an important part of mental health. A remote worker does not have the benefit of office camaraderie and the energy of spontaneous, work-related interactions. Couple this with poor communication and remote workers can struggle with developing a sense of attachment or loyalty to your business.
• Burnout. Blurring the lines between home life and work can lead to a remote worker putting in long hours, including weekends and holidays. This can lead to burnout. Symptoms of burnout include diminished enthusiasm and engagement as well as an increased risk of quitting.
• Lack of Trust. Remember that you hired an employee because they impressed you with their credentials and work ethic. Forgetting this and replacing it with a belief that a remote employee is trying to do as little as possible leads to micromanaging and a toxic work environment.

The Importance of Effective Remote Work Management

Remote work has become a lasting fixture in the business environment and the importance of remote work cannot be ignored. Manage a remote team successfully and an employer is likely to gain increased productivity, with loyal workers who are physically and mentally healthier. Other benefits can include lower attrition rates and an increased hiring pool. Mismanage a remote workforce and the opposite can occur in the form of frustrated workers, high turnover, and anemic output.

Like many things, effective remote work management is a learned skill and requires the ability to have an engaged and learning mindset. It's not just employers that need to adjust. Employees must also develop a different set of skills that allows them to be successful in a home office. Working together, and sharing successes, tips, and insights, employers and their workers can reap the benefits that come with this work arrangement.

HR Is Critical for Managing Remote Workers

When a business has remote workers, a combination of clear communication, effective technologies, and efficient collaboration tools must be part of the equation. A dedicated HR professional can guide you through each of these steps, and help you make sure your company and remote employees are set up for continued success.

When competition is fierce for top talent — in addition to high levels of worker stress and the time-consuming and costly hiring and recruiting process — employers need to understand how to approach employee flight risk. In many circumstances, employees who have decided to leave may not be open to reconsidering their decision, in spite of the benefits you offer or how much you solicit their feedback. But it's important for employers to identify some common signs an employee may be about to leave, take proactive steps in employee retention that can help keep a high-performing workforce, and understand how such strategies can positively impact the business.

What Do We Mean by Employee Flight Risk?

Employees who are a flight risk are workers who are most likely to leave their employer. A flight-risk employee may be dissatisfied with factors such as their current pay, position, or future with the business, to the point where they choose to look elsewhere for new opportunities. For this reason, flight risks and disengaged workers often go hand-in-hand.

Signs an Employee May Be About To Quit

Part of identifying whether an employee is about to quit involves taking steps well before they begin to feel unhappy or disengaged. This involves developing a strong benefits and compensation structure that aligns with employees' needs and skills, maintaining close relationships with them, and keeping lines of communication open. By learning and understanding more about their personal and professional concerns, you can recognize when someone is dissatisfied at work and take steps to address issues before they become breaking points.

The following are some common circumstances that may lead to an increased chance of an employee becoming a flight risk:

Major Life Changes Outside of Work

When something big occurs in an employee's life, it often presages a change in attitude about their job. Such big events can include marriage, divorce, a sudden (and/or serious) illness, childbirth, or the death of a loved one. We've seen this over the past few years during the "great resignation", as employees struggled with many challenges in the wake of the pandemic, opting for more work/life balance or prioritizing time with their families. In such situations, employees may reflect on what they're doing at the time and, if they determine the situation isn't making them happy, may opt for "greener pastures" elsewhere.

This is a tough situation for managers and HR teams, since they may not know the full story behind an employee's personal issues or changes that they're going through. Bringing emotional intelligence into conversations with employees early on might make a difference between an employee staying or going. On the other hand, acting without emotional intelligence (e.g., just offering a perfunctory "congratulations" or "sorry for your loss" and then forget about it), may deprive you of an opportunity to prevent the exit of a valued employee.

Changes in Job Role or Responsibilities

Employees should find meaning and value in the work they do each day. In circumstances where an employee's role or responsibilities have changed recently, they may be overwhelmed, underwhelmed, or feel that new tasks don't align well with their career aspirations. They may also no longer have a clear understanding of how their day-to-day work contributes to the business's larger goals. This could lead to the employee doubting their abilities, feeling unaligned with the business at large, and in search of a new start elsewhere.

Employees who take on new projects or roles need resources and training to help them ramp up and be put on a path to success. Managers and supervisors also play an important role here. They should have honest, ongoing conversations and check-ins with the employee about what the new responsibilities require, set measurable and attainable goals to help the employee stay on the right track, and work through any obstacles along the way.

Dissatisfaction With Compensation

One of the biggest catalysts for turnover is employee pay. And within this concern, there could be multiple issues:

• The company pays employees below market value and/or pay gaps exist between peers within the business
• Employees perceive that they're underpaid but don't understand how their compensation is calculated

If employee compensation isn't competitive with the rest of the market, or there are pay disparities between employees in similar positions, flight risks could be imminent. You should evaluate industry data about compensation as well as the business's pay-banding approach, which can clearly define upper and lower pay limits for a specific position. If you identify employees who are below the minimum of their salary range, or whose performance warrants a raise, you should communicate with impacted staff and make those adjustments.

In the case of perceived low pay, just paying your employees and hoping they come around likely won't go very far to assuage their concerns. You should also demonstrate your commitment to fair and equitable pay across your organization. Even where not required by law, consider adopting a culture of pay transparency and communicating about the methodology you're using to make pay decisions. If you're not, recognize that your competitors may already be disclosing this valuable information to your employees and other job candidates. Once your transparency plan is in place, it can aid in your recruiting and retention efforts, improve company culture, and help build trust with employees.

Changes in Company Policies

A new company policy or change in procedure that comes out of the blue can blindside employees, especially if employers don't ask for their input before making any decisions. That's because employees want to know that they are being heard at work and that their well-being is part of the consideration process. Where appropriate, check in with employees to see what feedback they have on current company policies or how they would perceive potential changes in the future. This type of feedback usually indicates where employees are feeling dissatisfied or have developed a sore spot for company policy over time.

For instance, if you're thinking about switching your benefit offerings, a good first step may be to get a sense of employee utilization rates of current benefits, what workers would like to see in the future, and where they think the business could be doing better. A conversation about benefits may lead employees to confide that the business isn't doing enough to help them save for retirement, and that they've been talking to other companies with a more robust 401(k) plan. Getting this feedback and taking it into account when making policy decisions can elicit more trust from employees and boost their confidence working for you. And in this example specifically, enhancing your benefits package can be great for long-term retention.

Lack of Development Opportunities

Providing training and development opportunities sends a clear message to your staff: you care about them and believe in their abilities. This can foster a sense of belonging in employees who may work harder with a deeper commitment to their teams. But without such opportunities, employees may question their future with your business.

Training is an important piece of the larger employee lifecycle. It can help develop the skills and expertise needed within your business and is critical in developing your organization's future leaders. Offering professional development opportunities for your employees is also key to their engagement and desire to stay with the company. Having a robust training program can help you stand out as an employer to attract and keep top talent.

How To Calculate Employee Flight Risk

Investing in the right technology may make it easier to take a deeper dive into the company's data and tie it back to critical decisions around employee retention and turnover. HR teams can use predictive HR analytics to help them identify employees who may be a flight risk (usually aggregated at the manager or department level vs. individual level), determine areas of the business where turnover risk is highest, and uncover any underlying issues. Analytics can also help HR more accurately determine what current retention strategies are working well.

Calculating employee flight risk with HR analytics requires details such as:

• Employee demographic data
• Tenure with the business
• Performance metrics and employee reviews information
• Engagement survey data
• Employee workloads
• PTO and vacation usage
• Absenteeism rates
• Compensation data
• Larger industry metrics around compensation and benefits

Building flight-risk models based on this information can result in a better understanding of:

• The catalysts that drive turnover
• Actions that can reduce or increase attrition
• Specific investments needed to drive retention

Of course, insights from HR analytics alone can't keep employees. What's important is turning insights into action once you have these findings. This includes talking to employees and managers, providing training, evaluating your compensation and benefits, and much more.

Why Is It Important To Identify When Employees Are Flight Risks?

Sometimes there's not much you can do to cause an employee to change their mind about leaving. After all, turnover is part of running a business. But it's important for you and your HR team to keep an eye on such behavior to help mitigate being caught by surprise. Consider what the impact of even one employee leaving can have on the business and the workforce that's left. Re-hiring and recruiting for an open position in a tight labor market is costly and time-consuming. Remaining employees may feel resentful picking up additional work in the meantime, and morale can take a considerable downturn.

Don't overlook the power that a well-timed conversation with a "suspect" employee might have. It could uncover causes for grievance that you can address and perhaps change for the better. The key here is being proactive in your retention efforts, communicating with employees, and demonstrating how much you value your workforce.

How To Prevent an Employee From Quitting

There are many reasons for employee departures, and understanding why individuals leave is key to helping others stay. Though it's impossible to retain every employee, there are many innovative retention strategies that can help your business mitigate turnover, foster an engaged workforce, and create a desirable workplace. While you can execute targeted strategies with the goal of improving employee satisfaction, it's also wise to consider that long-term worker retention is a holistic effort, which may include:

• Benefits offerings
• HR insights and analytics
• Quality hiring
• Providing career development opportunities
• Open communication policies, especially at critical junctures such as employee performance reviews and exit interviews (or even a stay interview)

Again, it's impossible to fully eliminate employee attrition. But you can encourage workers to stay by getting their input on areas for improvement and focusing on developing well-rounded employee retention efforts.

Stay Proactive To Help Reduce Flight Risk

The unexpected departure of a top employee is never desirable, but keeping an eye out for warning signs can at least reduce the element of shock involved. When early intervention is possible, you may be able to ward off that departure and retain your team. Beyond that, it's imperative to focus on retention efforts and proactive measures like offering a range of attractive employee benefits, which can go a long way in keeping great employees around for the long term.