Posted on March 21, 2023 by Andrew (Sal) Salazar .
The Power or Pain of Retention: Your Super Power or Achilles Heel?
In today’s fast-paced business world, retaining talented employees has become one of the biggest challenges for companies. Retention is particularly important when it comes to data analytics departments, where skilled employees can make or break a company’s ability to stay ahead of the competition and the average tenure is 2.43 years. In this article, we’ll explore how employee retention can be your company’s superpower because work life is different than it was just a decade ago.
Employee retention is particularly important in data analytics departments where the field is constantly evolving, and skilled employees who have built up institutional knowledge are essential for staying ahead of the competition. Losing talented employees can set a company back in both the short and long term depending on the role and how in demand the skillset happens to be in the marketplace.
Benefits of Retaining Skilled Employees of retaining long-term employees are easy to list:
- institutional knowledge and experience
- Cost Savings-Replacing employees can be expensive, especially when it comes to highly skilled data analytics professionals.
- Improved Productivity-Skilled employees who are familiar with the company’s data analytics processes and tools are more productive than new hires
- Increased Morale-Hard to create a sense of team when you are suffering from churn
Now we get to the good part. How to retain top talent.
Training and opportunities for personal & professional GROWTH. In the last week, I’ve been approached by two Colaberry Alumni who have pretty good jobs with well-known companies to approach me for help finding another role.
My first question was why? More money was actually the second thing listed. They both felt stagnant in their roles as the company was stuck using legacy tech and they had no growth opportunities. Their companies did not offer or encourage any upskilling or continuing education.
Offering competitive salaries and benefits packages is usually the first thing we think about when talking about retention. I believe there are 5 areas of a comp plan each employee looks at
- Financial: Annual salary, bonuses, equity, healthcare, benefits, etc.
- Psychological: The internal and external meaning you derive from your work. Your connection to the mission, product, work you produce, and praise you receive.
- Social: Prestige, job title, and identity capital you receive.
- Education: Skills, relationships, and learnings that contribute to your development as a person and professional.
- Freedom: Your ability to work on your own terms. It’s the new normal and especially in the data industry time and location constraints can play a big role in an employee’s decision to stay or go.
A positive work culture; includes things like team-building activities, flexible schedules, and a supportive management style. This includes
Providing regular performance feedback to employees to help them understand their strengths and weaknesses. This helps employees feel valued and supported, which can lead to higher levels of engagement and job satisfaction.
Past performance, can be a huge indicator to help assess if a candidate will stick around or take off at the first offer of more pay. While the current sentiment is to not label job hoppers, sometimes it is what it appears to be. I believe these should be judged on an individual’s personality and story. The uncertainty of the last 5 years has been an unexpected adventure for many of us.
All of these take both time and effort, and there is no silver bullet. Setting yourself and the employee up for a long-term relationship takes planning and dedication in your HR and Learning departments. Finding the right formula can take some trial and error, but there are companies who have clearly figured out the formula and have implemented all of these strategies.
If your company needs to explore how it can offer upskilling or reskilling to help stay competitive Colaberry can be a great resource. Colabery Alumni boast an 80% interview to offer track record and have been in their role previous to Colaberry for an average of 4 years. Have you explored alternative options to sourcing your data talent? Contact us today to find out if there’s a solution beyond what you have now.
Andrew “Sal” Salazar
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682.375.0489
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