Improve talent retention with this new approach

Excerpted from SHRM Blog By Ginger Dunca, MA

Do you have an intentional leadership development strategy?

As Henry Ford once said, “The only thing worse than training your employees and having them leave is not training them and having them stay.”

Henry Ford’s words have never been more pertinent as organizations struggle to hang onto their top performers in this economy. And though it’s tempting to instinctively go for that new shiny penny when a new leadership role opens, what if there was already an internal leader poised for the challenge as opposed to looking externally?

Leadership development strategies will not only prepare future leaders but improve talent retention across the organization. After years of developing wide-ranging programs, I’ve seen approaches from structured and intentional succession planning to general leadership training classes for the masses.

When evaluating your own leadership development programs and strategies, there’s only one approach that will set you apart and improve talent performance and retention – and it can be applied to any strategy you already have in place.

Customize Leadership Development for Individual Leaders

It seems like a big ask. Investing more time to tailor your leadership development strategy though is necessary to stay competitive. The generic classes and training programs that have been a product of traditional leadership development strategies are not going to cut it. You must intentionally invest in each leader you’ve identified as top talent.

Take the 70:20:10 Model for Learning and Development. The learning and development model correspond to a proportional breakdown of how people learn effectively, based on a survey asking nearly 200 executives to self-report how they believed they learned:

• 70% from challenging assignments
• 20% from developmental relationships
• 10% from coursework and training

As the survey illustrates, every leader learns differently. It’s important to customize your leadership development strategy based on how a top performer processes information. Not only will this better prepare your internal leaders for their career trajectory within the organization, it’s a unique benefit that will improve your organizational retention and offer them an incentive to refuse external offers.

What does a custom leadership development program look like?

It’s not realistic to design an entire customized program for everyone, as effective as that might be. Instead, customizing your strategy should build on what you already have in place. For example, pair your top performers with a leadership consultant who can give real-time executive coaching in the moment, whether for general leadership development or while integrating into a new leadership role.

Successful facilitators provide tailored growth and development to align the functional, cultural and organizational aspirations of a top performer with the organization to accelerate performance. A leadership development strategy that offers real-time, customizable feedback and growth opportunities is also invaluable to those looking for further opportunities within the organization.

In this war for talent, your current workforce is your best weapon. Intentionally investing in each individual leader by customizing your approach to leadership development will maximize the return on your talent investment and is one of the best ways to retain talent in this competitive marketplace.