The best way to keep talents is to let them go!
What do you do when the best talents in your team are leaving your company? Our resident contributor, Brian Ling aka Design Translator, gives us his perspective in keeping talents for his industry and recommends that we should adopt the free market approach and let them go.
For me another one of my yearly activities is hiring designer talents. This year is no exception. As always this also leads me to figure out how am I able to retain these talents that I hire.
In the case of designers or even the new executive of today, many do not treat jobs as long term careers but as a place to learn. Once they leaned enough they move on. Furthermore the idea of an iron-rice bowl and pension is gone and people are encouraged to treat jobs like a project, and as in every project there is a start and there is an end.
Even if a company can provide, I don’t expect the people I hire to stay more than 2 years. On average I expect most to stay for 1 year.
So in the same spirit of Jason Calacanis, CEO of Weblog Inc., I have some strategies that seem to work in my opinion in retaining talents. Some are even in opposite of retaining talents!
Plan for designers to leave. Some how they all do. Designers often get bored and no matter what you do, even offer more money, many just want to leave even just for a change of scenery. Managers to designers need to deal with it. This means managers will need to ensure there is enough people to do the work comfortably at all times, this basically means the team can still able to operate if you are one man short.
Interestingly enough this indirectly aids my next point, avoid designer burn out. I myself have experienced burn out and the feeling is not good at all. Nothing pushes a designer to quite faster than burn out. This is contrary to many design organizations especially design consultancies, as they operate often very lean.
Hire the best talents you can find. Good people love working with good people. Good begets good. Then if you ever have the option to choose between two equally great designers, do as Richard Branson does, pick the one that has had the more “beautiful†personality!
Provide the best working environment as possible. Designers need space to grow and perform. Its a myth though that you need to provide total freedom. For efficient design work to happen there must be some discipline. So how to find a balance between freedom and control? Just focus on results. This puts everything in perspective when designers know they need to produce in the end.
Finally train and nurture a designer as much as possible. You may ask “why?†especially when they will leave. This is precisely the reason. By training a designer well, nothing advertises your team as well as a great designer formerly from the team. This become cyclical as people when people find out they want to be part of your design team. To me the greatest fear is when people say “god this new designer SUCKS! Where was he from?â€Â
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9 Comments, Comment or Ping
wonderdoggy
Good article on thoughts on retention. I have a similar problem with sales staff. Most of them do not stay past 2 years. And we are already quite an attractive employer paying market rate with good commissions.
Here is what we have noticed works :
1) Hire with some buffer. So that if someone leaves, there is still enough people around.
2) Hire only people who are good. As discussed, good people like to work with better people.
3) Offer a good working environment. Normal working hours, considerate HR policies all matter in the decision making.
4) Pay people what they want. This way, we start off on the right foot.
Unfortunately, for a small firm, nothing can prevent boredom and lack of challenge. It is not feasible to allow sales people to change job scopes too much or switch between products too much. So definitely agree with you design translator!
Jul 12th, 2006
BL
Hi DT,
Interesting article. I thought that I should refer you to an article entitled “When to get rid of the best people who work for you” recommended by Justin a few days back.
I am a believer of free market economics. I don’t think that keeping talent is helpful for their growth. It is also good for talent to move out to survive on their own. I always tell my students to go for the best options and not the options I offer them, in view that they can grow better.
Jul 12th, 2006
Design Translator
Hi Wonderdoggy,
Thanks for your comments, I agree with what you say. Many times though we must look at hiring with a different points of view in the sense that often we hire the best people for the job, but we also need to consider is the job the best for that person!
What a lot of HR peole and hiring manager fail to note is this second part. Thus it becomes really difficult to match a job for that person.
But what i find with my strategies, is people actually decided to stay!
Hi BL,
I agree, in many cases, people need to see that the grass is not always greener, and there are cases of people coming back after a “tour” of duty on the outside!
Rdges
Jul 12th, 2006
Ken
Brian, do you run the company or you work for the company?
I believe what you describe is excellent for a big or at least stable company.
When you are a small business owner you will tend to look at things from a different angle.
I have a lot of people coming and leaving. The present group of people had been one of the best yet. Do I want to let them go? NO.
Frankly, they are not the best of best in the market. I can’t afford the best. But I spend a lot of time to train them. To certain extent, they now deliver much better than a hotshot would. If they leave, I’m back to square one.
I can’t hire with buffer. That’s a luxury.
I can’t hire people how are good, I don’t get to pick.
I can’t offer a good working environment. Good is a bottomless pit.
I can’t pay people what they want.
What I can do?
I can use creative methods to buffer like, hire parttimer, outsource partner, hire student, remote-worker.
I can train people. The less they know, the better they fit my needs.
I am still thinking about the good environment part. At least I’m turning on the air-con when all the offices around us are opening windows. (If you think singapore is hot, try Shanghai summer.)
I can be creative with my paying. I hope to give equity but the system here is a little complicated. Revenue share is the way to good for small company.
Jul 13th, 2006
Design Translator
Hi Ken,
Thanks for your response. Actually I dont run the company i work for but I run my in-house consulting department and am responsible for its budget/expense and performance.
Actually I think the situation we are in is very similar. I cannot afford to pay top dollar for the best designer hence my term “hire the best you can find” or in other words “the best that will take your pay package”.
“Good” or how “good” is also subjective and a mind set. We do not have many window in our office, we use old PCs and furniture, we do not allow designers to wear jeans or casual outfits, lunch and office hours are very strict. So interestingly if you ignore all our drawings in the room, we look like a bunch of cubical executives. Hardly your typical design studio.
Buffering is, you are right, a luxury, but its also all about cost control and people orientation management. If you can get two people that can do the job adequatly for 2.5K, rather than one for 5K that does it very well, i will go with 2 executives @2.5k anyday. I will then have a system of QC at the end to support this.
You mentioned: “I can train people. The less they know, the better they fit my needs.” This does tell me we are in different industries. In my industry I need my guys to think, if not I cannot survive.
Finally if you notice, my discussion actually focuses very little on the pay package and money, simiply because as i mentioned I cannot pay top dollar. Hence my advice is founded based on creating a work environment that the person will find it hard to walk away from. And many of my suggestions are about a mind set and mentality. Things you can do for free.
Jul 13th, 2006
claris tan
The following is from my own experience.
In order to attract quality people, first of all, we need to be a leader with a vision and commitment.
We have to be a great communicator to sell our vision. Since, most of us could not afford top quality people, then perhaps we should then “inspired” them to show that we are unique company with unique product and service. And in future, if company growth, the profit growth with them.
Unfortunately, most company is setup to provide “me-too” service like consulting, or a web-shop. In other words, providing services and create product on behalf of other company.
I not saying that it is wrong. It is just entreprenurial as well having to been own boss and run own show. It just that it is hard to convinced quality ppl that the company is unique and has a great vision. I’m not too sure if a vision that sound like “Quality Web service at affordable price” sound will attract quality talent that will sacrifice high pay in return for doing something different from other and that “could change the world”.
What talented ppl want to have is the opportunity to create something that is different and something that would be proud of . Something that the company owned wholeheartedly and the talented ppl can further enhanced and see that their work is been appreciated by the user directly. Most talented ppl I observe is not all interested to create their best work and then sell off to other company and then earn monthly salary. After a while, those talented ppl’s motivation soon die off, and perform sub-standard work.
Of course, not all talented are like that. Many actually will work hard and create their best work so as to look good when they switched job.
But then, if one running a company that don’t have a compelling vision will have to pay high salary to them.
Jul 13th, 2006
claris tan
Here my thought about letting talent go.
A company’s success depends on the human resource capability and talent represent those of capability. The growth of the company depends on those talent. If the talent come and go, it will impede the growth of the company in “some” ways. The real talent of the company is in fact a core source of competitive advantage. Losing them is just like losing one limb and arm. If the pain is not felt, most probably that the boss did not delegate enough or do not know the “work done” by the talented employee.
In real world, despite many bosses tell you that no one is dispensable, one may be surprised to actually realized that the bosses actually depend on his “talented” Lieutenants to get job done, and try every mean to keep him “at all cost” and provide him special privilege “under-table”.
If a talent ppl keep going off to work for other company of same industry, it definitely a sign that there is some serious issues in the company and should be rectified. If not, a talented person might entice another talented to join him in another company, and so the cycle proceed until the company feel the pain of losing talented people.
Just imagine the lack of talent like Steve Job in Apple, and loss of Anders Hejlsberg, inventor of C# programming language bring to competitior.
After many programming talents like Anders Hejlsberg leave Borland, Borland lost its development advantages as its former employer develop something against it. Not only that, Anders entice his fellow colleague to join him at Microsoft.
Moreover, the return of Steve Job bring Apple back to its glory days again.
Yes, that’s the impact a special and talented ppl made to a company.
Still, the impact of talented ppl leaving depends on how much contribution he has made to the company.
Jul 13th, 2006
Design Translator
Hi claris,
I think the comments you have made are very insightful. Thanks.
Perhaps the title is misleading, but in actual fact, by adopting a “you are free to go at anytime” i have found people actaually dont leave.
In many cases the intangiables of a great corporate environment is wort its weight in gold. Its funny, the more you hold on to someone to more that person will leave. In my experience the opposite is true. In the last 2.5 years my department of 5 people has existed I have only lost 1 designer who left with our blessings as another company made an offer too good for the to refuse.
Jul 13th, 2006
Ken
Claris,
Excellent point there about vision and people.
You are right that “me-too” companies are difficult to attract talents. For every Apple or Microsoft, there are zillions of such small companies. And I just happened to be one of them.
Face the fact, “Vision” is not going attracting the best talent for me. But here’s what I think,
If I can’t find a shiny gem, can I find a stone and polish till it shine?
We may not change the world, but we aim to make it a better place. :)
Jul 26th, 2006
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