Retaining Top Talent: How Can HR Foster Loyalty and Commitment Today?

An HR professional needs to retain talented and well-performing candidates. It is important work for HR to recognize and reward the real performers as market competitiveness is growing, requiring more collaborative efforts to establish loyalty among employees.

What do you think can be done to ensure their commitment in your organization?

The first statement of your post reads, "An HR professional needs to retain talented and well-performing candidates." Here, one needs to understand how performance is measured. On what parameters is it measured? Is what deserves to be measured being measured? Are measures customized? Is performance measured accurately? Without this data, it is difficult to say whether an employee is really "well-performing" or not.

Those who score 85% or more need special attention. They require special training courses. For this, the company needs to loosen its purse strings. To enhance their knowledge and skills, it is better if the company does not display its usual stinginess.

Your Confusion on Performance, Loyalty, and Commitment: It appears that you are confused about these concepts. A well-performing employee may not be loyal. Conversely, an under-performing employee could be loyal. Furthermore, a loyal employee may not be committed. Loyalty often lies towards a person, while commitment is towards the organization's values, personal values, or the job itself. Building commitment requires leadership to be committed to the mission, vision, and values of the organization. Many times, in pursuit of business expediency, leadership neglects the organization's values. Leaders who do this have no right to expect commitment from their employees.

High-level Performance: To address the questions raised in the first paragraph of this post, it is crucial to establish a well-designed Performance Management System (PMS) in the organization. Otherwise, accurately measuring performance becomes challenging.

Thanks,

Dinesh Divekar

In addition to what Mr. Dinesh said, I think loyalty, particularly of star performers, cannot be won by material benefits since there is always another employer waiting to offer them more, but it can be won by emotional bonding. The following steps may be of help.

1. Install an effective PMS to identify the star performers as well as their aspirations.

2. Star performers are bubbling with energy and enthusiasm, and therefore they need to be engaged in the growth processes of the organization. Star performers do not like to be treated as employees but as partners in progress. Find ways to make their job interesting by offering projects that allow innovation. Give them the leadership role by granting them the freedom to make decisions and think of strategies. A sense of ownership will always engage them.

3. Find out whether non-monetary incentives like work-life balance, flexible hours, or providing accommodation near their office (if you can) can be more attractive for them.

4. Recognize and reward them for their performance.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
B. Saikumar
Navi Mumbai