CRO Challenge Number 7: Attracting & Retaining Talent

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CRO Challenge Number 7: Attracting & Retaining Talent

In this blog’s series I’m zooming in on the top 10 most common issues that CRO’s have fed back to me on my travels this year. What’s interesting (and maybe surprising) is the consistency of these challenges, regardless of the industry and the size of the business’s I’ve engaged with. I’d love to hear your feedback on whether these resonate with you, or what else is causing you to reach for a bottle of the hard stuff.

Each week, I’ll offer you my “Magnificent 7” ideas for how you might deal with one particular issue – this week I’ll address CRO challenge number 7. These ideas are always practical, simple and based on my personal experience…as well as from ideas provided through my CRO community.

Every week in each month, I’m providing a free downloadable template or tool that I’ve designed to help accelerate revenue growth. This month’s tool is the ‘90 Day Plan for CRO’s’ – a very popular framework (with specific examples) for lighting a fire under your business. It’s proved to be hugely popular with both seasoned CRO’s wanting to kickstart their top line and new CRO’s fresher into their role, wanting to get quick control and gain credibility in their role.

CRO Challenge #7 Attracting & Retaining Talent

Our investment in employee development and engagement is lacking

Here are my ‘Magnificent 7’ ideas to help address this challenge…

1. Creating a Unique Environment

Create a unique and appealing environment, with built-in flexibility, support mechanisms, and differentiated benefits to show you care.

2. Referral Program Launch

Launch a referral program with incentives – research shows candidates hired through referrals tend to be of higher quality and stay longer.

3. Employee Engagement Investment

Treat employees like customers – invest in Employee Engagement surveys and act on the feedback.

4. Clear Career Roadmaps

Create clear career roadmaps and provide the scaffolding to support personal development and internal job opportunities.

5. Talent Programme Development

Build a Talent Programme to identify, develop, and retain the top 10% (‘stars’) in the organization – and leverage their skills through delegation and ambassadorial work.

6. Address Poor Performers

Deal with poor performers – high-performing individuals get seriously demotivated when they are over-achieving but shirkers are perceived to be tolerated.

7. Recognition and Rewards Innovation

Create imaginative recognition and reward vehicles that include both internal and external exposure.

In summary, the challenge of attracting and retain the best people has to be approached using a cocktail of tactics, rather than any one silver bullet. Expectations of employees has changed significantly in the past few years, and the ‘job for life’ mentality has all but disappeared. As employers, we need to think about the value proposition with our people in the same way we do with our customers.