Here's how you can attract and keep top talent with creative approaches.

As an individual leader who has worked the private and public sector attracting talent is easy. The area of opportunity is how do you keep them interested in staying at your organization. Know who your audience is and what their needs are. Benefits are not a one size fits all option. Creating an environment that can address the majority of the needs of your employees. Developing a series of benefits, learning opportunities, career planning and clear paths for their personal growth are key pillars to any individual. This surpasses age, generation, gender etc. most employees want to know what can I do with this experience; how is it going to help me become XYZ; and how does this fill my purpose?

Invest in employee development. Employees need to have opportunities for growth and development in order to be engaged and productive. HR and TA professionals can invest in employee development by offering training and development programs, mentoring programs, and job shadowing opportunities.

A company's true uniqueness lies in its work culture. Instead of just saying "we are a family," it's important to make employees feel valued through rewards, recognition, and performance-based salary hike. Engaging employees in activities they enjoy is also key, so we should form interest-based clubs and organize activities accordingly. Addressing employee concerns is crucial, with a dedicated counselor or approachable HR representative ideally fulfilling this role. Training plays a very crucial role, as no one is born perfect or becomes perfect without continuous learning. Even with extensive experience, there is always something new to learn. Company should always keep the gates open to offer employees training and development programs.

Attracting and retaining top talent requires more than just competitive salaries and benefits. Here are some creative approaches to stand out as an employer of choice and foster long-term loyalty among your employees: 1. Create a positive work culture 2. Offer Unique and relevant perks and benefits 3. Embrace a growth and development 4. Enhance work-life balance 5. Foster a collaborative work environment 6. Highlight Your Employer Brand 7. Leverage technology and innovation 8. Engage Employees with a sense of purpose Attracting and retaining top talent involves a multifaceted approach that goes beyond traditional compensation and benefits like cultivating a positive work culture, offering unique perks and creating growth opportunities.

In today’s competitive job market, attracting and retaining top talent requires more than just competitive salaries. A strong, positive company culture is key. Promote transparency by sharing company updates and holding Q&A sessions, and recognize and celebrate both individual and team achievements regularly. Foster a sense of community through team-building activities, social events, and volunteer opportunities, and create multiple channels for open communication, ensuring employees feel comfortable sharing their ideas and feedback. By doing so, you create a workplace where employees feel valued, engaged, and connected to the company's mission.

Although strategies for attracting and retaining talent overlap, I approach them with distinct perspectives. I promote a positive and inclusive workplace culture by highlighting our values, mission, and community involvement. Sharing employee testimonials enhances our brand, and committing to diversity and inclusion ensures everyone feels valued. Once an employee is onboarded, retention follows from our attraction strategies. Maintaining a safe, healthy, and supportive work environment is crucial, both physically and emotionally. Strong, communicative, and inspiring leadership is essential, as is fostering a culture of open communication where employees feel heard and valued.

Strong organisational culture authentically market the employer brand. Surveys implicate that people are leaving because they didn’t feel valued by their organisations or managers and they didn’t feel a sense of belonging to work. It becomes very important that leaders should empower their team members, celebrate successes and create connection points and of course prioritise inclusion.

Organizing company-wide communication by quarter, for example, will contribute to the right message and challenge that we want to escalate with our teams, sharing with them the real situation and how we will move forward to achieve the objectives. including them in the conversation, sharing the results and how we are solving some challenges, it is crucial to maintain an honest and transparent culture, within these spaces it is important to reserve a space where everyone can share any message or doubt related to the previous conversation or question about the future.

In the sense of creating a clear career pathway we implemented an "Aspiration Development Plan" policy, which helped my current organization retain top talent by aligning their personal career goals with organizational growth. This plan involved regular one-on-one meetings to understand employee aspirations, offering tailored development programs and setting clear, achievable milestones. We identified future leaders and provided them with mentorship, cross-functional projects and leadership training; enabling them to see a tangible path to their career advancement, thus fostering long-term loyalty and commitment.

In my experience, a leader needs to determine how they can support their top talent. With the changing landscape of the workforce, it is easy for employees to look elsewhere if they are not feeling fulfilled in their role or are not seeing any pathways to growth. Firstly, outside of their annual review have at least quarterly sit-downs with your top talent to understand how things are going and if there are any ideas and interests they would like to pursue. Secondly, offer suggestions on how they can pursue them, connect them with other individuals in the organization that may be of assistance. If employees feel like they are being heard and supported, they will feel more engaged in the company.

While outlining potential career paths is valuable, it's important to recognize that careers often develop in unexpected ways. Therefore, it's crucial to: 1. Stay closely attuned to employees' evolving aspirations 2. Maintain awareness of emerging opportunities within the company 3. Be ready to connect these aspirations and opportunities when the timing is right This approach allows for more flexible and personalized career development, adapting to both individual growth and organizational needs.

Future and career development must be initiated and motivated by employees (as individual contributors), because they are the stars of our company, in many cases they are very clear about where they want to be in the future, but all these plans must be put together by the Leader and HR members, it is important to note that if we (as an HR member) do not motivate employees to challenge themselves on a specific topic such as "career development", They will wait for our impulse and this will probably take a long time…. If we consider each employee under our scope, but for this to work and have a natural fluidity, we must be very clear and map the growth opportunity and the employees how they can do it.

With today’s multi generational workforce, employers should embrace flexibility by way of Autonomy. Leaders should establish principles and not policies. For instance, if you are trying to create a hybrid workplace, it’s important to set guidelines for best practices and clearly communicate the needs of such principles. Also give the employees the tools they need to work autonomously from anywhere. Tools for skill development, goal setting and performance monitoring are enablers of autonomy. Finally organisations should invest in competence and relatedness. Relatedness refers to our sense of belonging and social cohesiveness with others.

Rewards and recognition can be both Monetary and Non Monetary. A shout out in a team meeting about employee contribution will also be enough.

Employee recognition has long been a cornerstone of effective management,yet it is an art few have mastered. We need to create a specific employee recognition program that can relate to their work and create job satisfaction. This approach encourages successful behaviours amongst employees while acting as motivation to match,or even better,their performance. A successful program doesn't always involve a cash reward, instead it has to be creative like skill set development, accommodating personal responsibilities etc., Such programmes also boost employee morale and employer branding.

Recognition creates a positive cycle. Employees who feel appreciated know their worth. This boosts their commitment to their work and the company. Higher engagement naturally leads to better results. And so the cycle continues, building on itself over time.

Involving your organization in community engagement initiatives that resonate with your employees' values can significantly boost morale and attract socially conscious talent. At Suncoast Credit Union and DTCC, I participated in charitable events, environmental sustainability programs, and local community projects. These initiatives not only enhance your company's image but also instill a sense of pride and foster a deeper connection with the organization. When employees see their workplace contributing positively to society, it strengthens their loyalty and engagement.

Flexibility - Top talent today is looking for flexible work options. You believe you can only work from office two days in a week? We’ve got you covered. You want to work from home for a month due to some personal commitments? Go ahead. Flexibility is the X factor today that really helps organisations that offer it stand out in the job market. And organisations that embrace change must adapt to the ever changing needs of the job market. You ask any talent acquisition specialist what is the one question that keeps coming up during negotiations with candidates. Guess what, it’s flexibility and workplace options.