Written by Nicola Gater | 9th August 2024

Retaining your best employees has become more of a challenge, as people expect more from their workplace in terms of interesting and meaningful work, benefits, flexibility and development opportunities, and with the current shortage of skilled staff, employees are being enticed elsewhere.

People leave a business for a number of reasons and it’s therefore important to not only make plans to replace those people as quickly as possible, especially if those leavers are in key roles, but ensure remaining employees are not unsettled and want to stay.

Here are some considerations for developing a talent and succession strategy to attract and retain employees.

Plan for effective succession

Having a solid succession plan in place to ensure positions are filled quickly by your existing people who have the skills and expertise to do the job will reduce the impact of leavers on the business, and is more cost effective than recruiting.

This is not only about top-level leader roles, there may be some roles that require expertise that you cannot afford to be unfilled, such as technical experts.

Once you have decided which positions are critical to your business, you’ll need to identify which employees have the potential to step into these roles, and then assess and deliver the training and development they may require in order to be ready to progress to these roles when needed.

You can read more about our considerations for succession planning in our blog here.

Identify skills gaps

In order to fill positions with the right people, you need to identify where there are gaps in skills, knowledge and experience. Before this, think about the medium and long-term goals of your business as these will directly impact the skills you’re looking for in new employees, as well as the ones you want to develop in your existing workforce.

Once your commercial goals have been agreed and you’ve planned the roles needed to reach these goals, it’s important to map out the skills and people qualities needed for each role to be successful.

You can cross reference these with the expertise that suitable employees have already and carry out a skills gap analysis. Identifying gaps can also be done through individual employee assessments and conversations between the employee and their manager.

The UK Government’s annual employer skills survey found 1.72 million employees are now judged to be under skilled – that’s compared to 1.27 million in 2017. Looking at data, tech and digital skills are those that specifically need boosting for organisations to succeed in the future. So how can businesses close these gaps so they have the talent they need?

Invest in learning and development

Effective learning and development is a critical part of a talent and succession strategy. Giving opportunities for personal and professional development across all levels will help your people feel valued, challenged and see their own opportunities for future growth. Their development is win-win – as well as benefits to the individual, their increased capability, capacity and confidence will enable your organisation to better compete and grow.

After identifying skills gaps, initiatives which upskill employees or reskill them in new areas of work can help them reach their potential, it gives opportunity to develop their career and have more meaningful work, and so gives them more reasons to stay in your business.

Learning and development should be well planned and consider the needs of each individual –everyone learns in different ways. Create a programme that incorporates multiple learning styles such as webinars, group discussions, online learning or lectures. Coaching and mentoring are also great ways to develop top talent, uncovering an employee’s motivators and breaking down any previous barriers to success, so they can go on to achieve better performance and results.

Apprenticeships

Amid the current skills shortage, developing talent internally is an attractive and cost-effective alternative to recruiting more staff. Many employers use apprenticeships to develop new employees and to upskill and retrain their existing workforce, filling key skill gaps in their business and boosting employee motivation and commitment by investing in their development.

Apprenticeships are partly funded by the Government through the Apprenticeship Levy, so they are a low cost learning option for many employers. More information on the Apprenticeship Levy and why it’s cost effective can be found in our blog here.

Apprenticeships are not just for school leavers but also existing staff; perhaps one of your team members is keen to get a formal qualification in their specialist area, or wants to progress into a different role. There are apprenticeships from level 2 to level 7 (equivalent to a degree) so you can find apprenticeships that suit the learning and development needs of your employees.

The new Government are planning a focus on apprenticeships so they work better for employers and learners; and with apprenticeships being designed by you as the employer, they will reflect the relevant knowledge and skills that your business needs.

Successful organisations and employers will recognise the importance of an effective talent strategy and succession plan, in meeting the wants and needs of employees and candidates and to attract and keep talented staff for the long term.

If you would like support developing an effective succession plan, talent management strategy or resourcing and recruitment strategy, please get in touch with our team at [email protected]