Retention has become more important than recruitment in an organisations workforce strategy. Recruiting talented individuals is getting a lot harder, more expensive and more time consuming.
The emphases is on retention because talent is so scarce and expensive. Retention can be more effective and efficient than recruiting where a heavy investment in training and bring up to speed will be required before the individual is able to perform at the level of the person they are replacing. Retention has the advantage of reducing the risk involved in recruitment, because however refined/sophisticated your organisations recruitment process and however effective your gut instinct everyone makes bad appointments occasionally.
So if not for promotion and better pay why do people leave organisations? Bad bosses are the most frequent answer. Employees from minority ethnic groups may also mention their line manager but they also talk of the frustration and disillusionment they feel due to their experience of the gap between rhetoric and reality.
Retention is not about keeping employees for as long as possible but for longer . Giving managers more time to develop others who might fill the gap. It’s about reducing turnover not eliminating turnover. Steady turnover is healthy some people are ready to move on and holding them back would be counter productive and the organisation is of course glad to see the back of some employees.
You keep ambitious and talented employees longer by giving them more opportunities to broaden their experience ,knowledge and skill. Thus making them even more attractive to a prospective employer and so increasing their chances of getting their first choice post.
Employing more people from ethnic minority groups and appointing more women to middle and senior management post won’t change a culture of racism, misogyny, homophobia and bullying.
