Employee’s View of the Talent Paradox

Deloitte Consulting and Forbes Insights just released their 2012 report titled Talent 2020: Surveying the Talent Paradox form the Employee Perspective, and there are some interesting insights in the report.  

One of the more interesting insights is that 80% of employees say the plan to stay with their organizations over the next year (compared to the 65% of employees who said they were planning on leaving their organization in 2011).

“As more employees appear to be sitting tight in their current positions, companies may be tempted to neglect their talent and retention strategies out of a false sense of security that their employees are here to stay. However, we warn that companies’ most critical employees are also those with the most opportunities for movement.”

 Based on the survey results and analysis, three challenges were identified:

1. Engage employees with meaningful work…or watch them walk out the door.  Employees who are seeking new employment believe that their job does not make good use of their skills (42%) or that their position lacks a career progress (37%) or lacks challenge (27%)
2. Focus on turnover “red zones.  “Red Zones” are employee segments most at risk of departure.  Two groups with a high risk of turnover are employees with less than 2 years on the job and Millennial workers (those younger than 31).
3. When it comes to retention, employees are telling us that leadership matters.  More than 60% of workers who plan to say report high levels of trust in their corporate leadership, while only 27% of employees planning to leave exhibit that same trust.

The report delivers three clear takeaways for leaders:

1. Focus on utilizing, engaging and developing employee skills
2. Emphasize and reward authentic leadership
3. Don’t underestimate the returns on communication

A copy of the entire report is embedded below and is worth a detailed read if you are concerned with employee retention at your company.