Sweat the Small Stuff: How to Keep Your Top Talent from Becoming Someone Else’s

By Sarah Sain

Your success is all about the people around you. If you don’t focus on your staff first, they will not be engaged or want to stick with you for the long term.

Lisa Ryan, speaker and chief appreciate strategist with Grategy, emphasized the idea and practice of gratitude in engaging and retaining top talent at the 2019 New Ideas Annual Conference. She walked through the idea of “THANKS” and how the acronym can help you focus your energies on building up the people around you.

T: Build trust and set the foundation for open and honest communication.

H: Help employees be better tomorrow than they are today. Be proactive and help them get where they want to go in their career. Create a learning culture; training is not a punishment – it’s to help the organization and the individual.

A: Acknowledge, applaud efforts and show appreciation. The people we’re around the most are the ones we thank the least. Don’t wait to give positive feedback – do it
right away.

N: Navigate work-life integration to reduce stress. Bring on the fun!

K: Know your staff and what’s most important to them. Treat them the way they want to be treated and recognize them how they’d like to be recognized.

S: Serve the greater mission and give your staff the opportunity to make a difference.

Ryan shared one final tip: She said don’t just do an exit interview – do stay interviews. Ask your staff questions like, what do you like? Why are you staying in this job? What would entice you to leave? What can we do better?

Photo credit: iStock.com/blackred