Employee Engagement –An Effective Tool For Talent Retention

Employees with the right talent and engaged with their work is always a scarce resource. So how does one retain the right blend of talent and engaged employees in the organisation? Today, organisations have no other choice but to nurture and pamper them. Firms need to identify what ticks the employees to stay back in the organisation and extract the best out of their talent pool. Employees should be engaged and the employer should be a brand that attracts talented employees and retain them. Employee engagement which is termed as a psychological state in which employees feel a vested interest in the company’s success and are both willing and motivated to perform to levels that exceed the requirements of the job. IES1 defines engagement as a positive attitude held by the employee towards the organisation and its values. An employee who is engaged is aware of the business context and work for the benefit of the firm. The firm in return must work to develop and nurture engagement, which is two-way relationship between the employer and employee. Today employee is behaving more like a consumer while making choices as to join or stay in the organisation. Therefore employers have to brand themselves to create a strong, positive, distinctive, attractive identity that differentiates them from other organisations. Organisations have to develop lucrative people policies and have to communicate these policies both externally as well as internally to brand themselves to the employee. Talented employees always wants to enjoy the work they do and need an employer who is benevolent to their needs. Managing the talent the organisation possesses is a tough task for the employer. They need the organisation to protect them, recognise their worth, and give them challenging and interesting work to do, to keep them engaged. Once the organisation takes care of these aspects, your employee will give the best out of him and also have a sense of association to the organisation during tough times like a recession or slump in the company’s performance. The talented employees can be retained by identifying what keeps them engaged. Therefore engagement is good for the firm as well as the employee as it contributes significantly to the organisations performance, by improved customer service, customer satisfaction etc, which ultimately leads to better financial results. It also serves the employee to prove himself and understand his relative worth, thereby have a sense of accomplishment. The key element to drive employee engagement and retain top talent in the organisation is to reciprocate both the parties’ needs.