According to a survey by Right Management, three out of four employer lost high-performing employees they wanted to keep on staff during the past year.
This is a decline from a similar survey Right Management conducted a year ago, which found only 54 percent of responding employers lost its top talent. In this year's survey, only 13 percent experienced no top-talent departures over the last 12 months.
"We found that most organizations are finding it tough to hold onto their best people even when there are relatively few job openings," says Bram Lowsky, Right Management's group executive vice president for the Americas. "Previous research findings tell us there's a furious war for top talent under way, constant poaching of high performers by competing companies and, overall, a very restive workforce. The latest survey shows organizations losing the employees they need, erosion that may accelerate once the job market picks up."
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Modest turnover is always to be expected, Lowsky says.
"The challenge is always to retain your best contributors, to target them for development and show them they have a future with the organization," Lowsky explains. "It's really not enough to tell them to wait until the economy improves, especially if they're new employees and more impatient for opportunity and advancement. Employers are learning the hard way that they must take the steps needed to preserve their key competitive advantage, their talent.
"Top talent always has employment options. They'll usually find some place that they feel appreciates what they bring."
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