The Real War for Talent ...I Repeat

This started as a comment on Fred Wilson's AVC.com blog post on "Retaining Your Employees"  -- a great post by Fred and well worth the read.  I love this series he is doing on "MBA Mondays" titled simply "People." As you can see my response became quite long (and this is the shortened version!) so I thought I'd better move it over to my own blog.  


If there is one area in which I sound like a broken record, it is with regard to retention.  When I hear the term "War for Talent" referring merely to recruiting and hiring I want to yell that the real war for talent is fought in retaining employees.  Recruiting top talent can be a battle but the war is much bigger than this.

And retention, as Fred points out, begins with the hiring process.  It is a much different process when you are recruiting for the long-term rather just trying to fill a job.  You don't just throw together a job description or borrow one that you found on the internet, for instance.  Also, you solicit honest feedback from your team about what it's like to work at your company and what they wish they had known coming in.  I would add that hiring for the long-term includes starting the new team member off on the right foot, paying attention to his/her transition into the company and managing the expectations of the other team members.  (Especially important if the person is replacing someone who did not work out.)  

A lot of my vehemence around retention comes from hearing every day why people are willing to consider leaving their current job for a new one -- and the few (and I might add very few) times that someone I have placed does not work out, I lose a lot of sleep and try hard to analyze the situation to determine what went wrong.  

I ask early in the conversation with a prospective job candidate, why he or she is willing to talk to me.  Sure, this is often because I am presenting a compelling opportunity, but something I have heard so often that it no longer surprises me, is that the seeds of discontent were planted early in the person's time with the company.  Since then they've been an exit waiting to happen.  Normally it is because something that was told to them in the interview process was not true or something promised was not delivered.  This wasn't done intentionally, but due to carelessness, or because there is some way in which the CEO (or whichever leader was the hiring exec) is out of touch.

I know that the hiring exec and I have partnered well and done our job when I call the new team member a few months down the road and ask if there have been any negative surprises, and the answer is "no."  If the answer is ever "yes" then the problem needs to be addressed pronto!