Top Talent More Mobile Than Ever

 According to a recent survey by Right Management, three out of four organizations lost high performance employees last year. While it’s typically expected that top talent will move around – exercising their leverage and shopping around for the best offers – recent data suggests that the trend of lower retention is taking off to a whole new level.

The Right Management survey asked more than 268 organizations throughout North America whether or not they had involuntarily lost any of their top talent over the last year. 75% of respondents reported losing some of their best and brightest. The figure is up from 54% the year before, when the previous survey was administered. Only 13% or respondents answered no, they had not lost talent, and somewhat beguilingly, 12% or participants answered they didn’t know.

The results suggest increasingly fierce competition over the top echelon employees.

“We found that most organizations are finding it tough to hold onto their best people even when there are relatively few job openings,” saidBram Lowsky, Right Management’s Group Executive Vice President for the Americas. “Previous research findings tell us there’s a furious war for top talent under way, constant poaching of high performers by competing companies and, overall, a very restive workforce. The latest survey shows organizations losing the employees they need, erosion that may accelerate once the job market picks up.”

Lowsky suggested organizations take preventative measures to preserve their best human assets. “The challenge is always to retain your best contributors, to target them for development and show them they have a future with the organization. It’s really not enough to tell them to wait until the economy improves, especially if they’re new employees and more impatient for opportunity and advancement. Employers are learning the hard way that they must take the steps needed to preserve their key competitive advantage, their talent.”