Compensation Planning to Retain Top Talent

Company management, and human resource departments in particular, are often guilty of treating talent management solutions as five or more separate processes used to build a strong employee base. However, it is the integration and flow between all these applications, that when correctly used allows exceptional organizations to leave their competition in the dust. Consider how compensation planning and management factors into every facet of an individual business.

The average employee will have at least ten jobs before they turn 48. That’s a tenure of about three years. Lack of career advancement is always cited as a top reason why employees leave. This is particularly true amongst millennials. But you can’t just give employees greater responsibility and compensation if they are not ready for it. Below are three key steps to ensure that you are developing, paying, and entrusting the right talent.

Have a Career Path Program

It’s not enough to just point to openings in an organization and tell your ambitious young talent that they have opportunity to rise. You have to put a plan together that involves training, performance, and often a degree of sacrifice. The dangled carrot in addition to a larger role is the increased compensation. Unfortunately, most of the time when employees do get promoted, the rewards don’t seem to live up to expectations. So it’s good to make expectations clear beforehand, and to make sure your paying consistent with the market. Otherwise you might be training someone else’s future leader.

Provide Mentors

If you have been in business long you know that classroom training only takes an individual so far. On the job training is better, but it often involves knowing that the employee is going to get it wrong a couple of times before getting it right. This might be alright in an entry level job, but in management the stakes are much higher as the effects are more amplified.

A mentor who has been there before can direct high performing talent in real time through the decision matrix of management responsibilities. If as an employee you are not assigned a mentor, think of asking for one. Employees who have mentors are twice as likely to be promoted as those who don’t. A mentor can also coach you on how to ask for a raise.

Build Growth Succession Plans

It is important for organizations to have a succession plan in place. It helps guard against sudden departures, plan through retirements, and provides a holistic view for management to see future opportunities. That best kind of succession plan is one that incorporates growth, showing not only positions on today’s chart, but new ones that will be created as the business increases in size and scope. Transparency in responsibilities, as well as compensation can give planning managers a blue print to build career paths for their high performers.

Showing realistic career advancement possibilities with requisite pay and responsibility is key to keeping talented employees with your organization. Don’t get caught watching your best people walk out the door, as other companies benefit from the talent you’ve developed.

For more compensation planning best practices, view the resources in our Learning Center.

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