Best Practice: Developing & Retaining Top Talent

13 September 2013, Singapore: Came across this "best practice" article for developing and retaining top talent. Happy reading ...

Nurture your high performers and maximize corporate potential. Research has found that:

• The top performer differential is 2.5 to 10 times that of an average employee (Sullivan, 2008)
• In knowledge intensive organizations, like IT or healthcare, the gain can be as much as a 100 to 200%
• "Superstars" produce up to 12 times more than the average employee (Corporate Executive Board)
• The more top performers you have, the greater the organization’s productivity

Why are top performers important to your business? According to Dr. John Sullivan, top performers:

• Produce as much as 10 times more than the average worker, while they often require less than two times the pay
• Generate most of the innovation and new ideas
• Help others to improve their performance, because they serve as mentors, trainers and role models

What attracts top performers to your organization

• Value alignment
• A compelling employee value proposition
• Challenging/interesting work opportunities
• Development opportunities
• Prestige or a positive reputation

What do you need to do to retain top talent? In Engaging and Retaining Top Performers, December 2009, Towers Watson says:

• Have a clearly articulated and compelling vision and set of values 
• Ensure your senior leaders support this vision and values in their words and actions 
• Include top performers in strategies and plans to improve company competitiveness 
• Equip top performers to work to the best of their abilities 
• Improve manager effectiveness and capabilities 
• Emphasize career progression and personal growth