As headhunters, we spend more time helping our clients to attract their competitors’ top performers than advising them on how to retain their own talent but, given the risk and expense inherent in lateral hires, the latter is just as – if not more – important.
In a competitive marketplace, if you’re not sitting down regularly with your partners and employees and asking them what their next challenge is, what they’re enjoying about their role, and what they would change or improve, then someone else will be. They can be uncomfortable conversations, but finding out whether a key member of your team is unhappy and whether you can do anything to address their concerns can make the difference between them entertaining the next approach they receive and interviewing with a competitor, and politely saying “No thanks.”
In the world in which we operate – recruiting partners of professional services firms – you can’t assume that people are happy because they haven’t said anything. Unless you ask the question directly – and more often than once a year at their annual review – the first time you hear about it could be when they resign, by which stage it’s usually too late to keep them.
This doesn’t mean pandering to regular demands for pay rises or promotions to appease top performers. The majority of partners we move to another firm don’t move for a leadership role or more money in itself. They move because they feel disenfranchised by their current firm: that the concerns they have are not being listened to or addressed and so will not change, leaving them with no option but to consider an opportunity elsewhere.
The truth is, feeling like a “highly paid employee” with no real control over their destiny, or sense of ownership in the firm, is a common complaint from the partners of law or accountancy firms we speak to every day. Maintaining a regular, one-on-one dialogue with your partners in which what the firm can do for them, not just what they are expected to do for the firm, is on the table is an effective way of making sure any frustrations are addressed.
It is no exaggeration to say those frustrations can be over simple things like having to fill a form before taking a client out for a coffee – so it really does pay to find out before it’s too late.