Talented People: Growing or Going?

Please Join Us!

What: #MTtalk

Where: Twitter

When: Friday, Nov 11 2016 @ 1pm EST (5pm GMT)

Topic: Talented People: Growing or Going?

Host: @Mind_Tools

About This Week's Chat About Talented People

"Train people well enough so they can leave. Treat them well enough so they don't want to." - Sir Richard Branson

High-achieving employees are often referred to as the "top talent" in a business. These individuals can have a big impact on the bottom line, and businesses need them to succeed. So many companies run talent management and retention programs, but how successful are they?

Many management teams make a mess of trying to develop their next crop of leaders. In many instances, they set them up for failure.

Let's look at the case of Sandra. Her manager, Tina, mistakenly assumed that highly talented equals highly engaged and neglected her - until she started missing deadlines. Then, Tina suddenly zoomed in on Sandra and required her to document insignificant things, and to report back on almost everything she did each day.

Sandra quickly grew tired of Tina's new micromanaging style, and started looking for a new job. She felt distrusted and incompetent. Tina found out that Sandra was looking at other opportunities, and she was livid - she thought she was doing "everything in her power" to develop and retain her. However, Sandra became actively disengaged, and the company lost her to a competitor.

In our Twitter poll last week, we wanted to know if people thought that their companies were committed to keeping top performers and removing low performers. Only 21 percent said yes. That would explain why one in four talented employees plan to leave their current employer within a year.

In this week's #MTtalk chat, titled "Talented People: Growing or Going?," we will explore the area of managing and retaining talented employees. Here are some questions to get you thinking:

• What are the benefits of retaining talented people?
• What signals suggest that an employee may be planning to leave?
• When an employee has left, what steps do you take within your team?
• Employee engagement and employee retention are linked. How?
• Do you negotiate to retain talented employees or should they go if they want to?
• What are the costs of losing talented employees?

Resources

We've compiled a list of Mind Tools resources to help you to prepare for the chat:

• Managing Interns
• The Psychological Contract
• Four Dimensions of Relational Work
• Aptitude Testing
• The Leader-Member Exchange Theory
• Boost Your Team's Engagement
• High-Performance Coaching

At Mind Tools we enjoy hearing from people all over the world, who share their thoughts and experiences with us.  We'd like you to participate in the #MTtalk chat, too, this Friday at 1pm EST (5pm GMT). Remember, we feature great participant responses right here on our blog every week!

How to Join

Follow us on Twitter to make sure you don't miss out on any of the action this Friday! We'll be tweeting out 10 questions during our hour-long chat. To participate, type #MTtalk in the Twitter search function. Then, click on "All Tweets" and you'll be able to follow the live chat feed. You can join the chat by using the hash tag #MTtalk in your responses.