GROWTH
CLIENT CASE / Name
Retention Strategy Headline
Retention Strategy Intro
+ Tags Needed
At a Glance
THE PROBLEM
Fill out
THE MISSING PIECE
Fill out
THE SOLUTION
Fill out
OBSERVED CHALLENGE
Having a thoughtful retention plan in place is the last and most important step in a successful talent acquisition strategy. Simply hiring good talent is not enough if that talent will not stay with the company. More than just the loss of knowledge, productivity and morale that having poor retention rates costs employers, it is estimated that there is a cost of up to 200% of an employee's salary to be able to replace them.
When one large FinTech company discovered they were at risk of hiring in critical technical talent into new roles which had just been created into an environment which did not provide adequate support or growth opportunities, urgent action needed to be taken. In order to ensure that this new talent had a chance to flourish and actually stay with the organization, an entirely new support structure needed to be created.
While having technical individual contributors report into non-technical leaders is not necessarily a negative organizational design, it is imperative that the technical talent has the ability to be supported and grown in their technical areas of expertise. The organization felt comfortable with their leadership team directing the technical talent, but there was a glaring risk that they had no ability to nurture them once they were hired.
OUTCOME
Of the 55 new hires brought on board as a part of the new technical talent initiative, there was a 96% retention rate 12 months post-hire and a 92% retention rate 24 months post-hire. This was a respective 14% and 13% increase from historical data.
The bunch development and dotted line reporting structures put in place allowed for increases in employee satisfaction in both the new hires and the dotted line managers. The increase in the existing managers satisfaction was a surprise additional benefit as they stated that the increased cross-functional exposure gave them better insight into their partner teams and allowed them to grow in areas otherwise afforded to them in their roles.
Most importantly to the organization, the strong retention rates allowed for us to prove that they were able to pivot successfully in a new direction which was in line with the new organizational strategy. Without the ability to retain this new talent, many years worth of work would have been placed at risk leaving the future of success of the division in doubt.
Summary end point here.
Decisive Urgency | The talent acquisition process had already started and new talent was quickly going to be joining the organization. Due to the urgent nature of the timeline, decisions that would typically have been made by committee had to take a different approach and be made swiftly. Decision owners were given authority to create new workflows independent of the greater team so long as there remained a high level of transparency throughout the process. These kinds of pivots necessitate high trust within the leadership structure so as to not cause tension.
Cross-Functional Support | In this situation, due to the direction of the organization’s strategy of hiring in technical talent into a non-technical division, there was an opportunity to leverage cross-functional partners. We paired technical leaders and senior ICs from a sister organization up with the new talent coming in to ensure a strong support experience. When creating cross-functional support by means of a ‘dotted line’ reporting structure, it is important to lay out clear roles and responsibilities to all parties involved. Moreso, if leadership is asking for those outside of the remit of an organization to take on additional responsibilities, you must explain in detail how they will be rewarded for the new role.
Bunch Development | A unique structure that was implemented in this situation was something dubbed “bunch development”. While the new technical talent was dispersed throughout the organization, meaning that multiple teams in multiple reporting lines would be hiring in individual technical contributors, there was an opportunity to bunch the new hires together outside of the standard reporting structures. Put simply, the new hires would be connected and directed as a singular group so that they could have the technical support outside of their individual teams, and then set to task in their assigned roles.
Future Planning | As it was decided that the direction of future hiring was going to continue to be pushed in a more technical direction, we needed to plan for future leadership development right away. New hires were screened and selected based not just on technical proficiency, but leadership potential and project management acumen. Once hired, leaders were paired immediately for mentorship purposes so that within the next 12-24 months post hire, we had a strong bench to pull from.
-
Without an a plan to support and growth the talent you hire, you increase the risk of that talent walking out of the door.
SMARTWORK APPROACH
Visual Summary
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Takeaway 1
Takeaway 3
Summary point here
Summary point here
Summary point here
CASE RESULTS