Tactics to Retain IT Talent
Keep talent from walking out the door by discovering and addressing moments that matter and turnover triggers.
- Regrettable turnover is impacting organizational productivity and leading to significant costs associated with employee departures and the recruitment required to replace them.
- Many organizations focus on increasing engagement to improve retention, but this approach doesn’t address the entire problem.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- Engagement surveys mask the volatility of the employee experience and hide the reason why individual employees leave. You must also talk to employees to understand the moments that matter and engage managers to understand turnover triggers.
Impact and Result
- Build the case for creating retention plans by leveraging employee data and feedback to identify the key reasons for turnover that need to be addressed.
- Target employee segments and work with management to develop solutions to retain top talent.
Workshop: Tactics to Retain IT Talent
Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
Module 1: Identify Reasons for Regrettable Turnover
The Purpose
Identify the main drivers of turnover at the organization.
Key Benefits Achieved
Find out what to explore during focus groups.
Activities
Outputs
Review data to determine why employees join, stay, and leave.
- List of common themes/pain points recorded in the Retention Plan Workbook.
Identify common themes.
Prepare for focus groups.
Module 2: Conduct Focus Groups
The Purpose
Conduct focus groups to explore retention drivers.
Key Benefits Achieved
Explore identified themes.
Activities
Outputs
Conduct four 1-hour focus groups with the employee segment(s) identified in the pre-workshop activities.
- Focus group feedback.
Info-Tech facilitators independently analyze results of focus groups and group results by theme.
- Focus group feedback analyzed and organized by themes.
Module 3: Identify Needs and Retention Initiatives
The Purpose
Home in on employee needs that are a priority.
Key Benefits Achieved
A list of initiatives to address the identified needs
Activities
Outputs
Create an empathy map to identify needs.
- Employee needs and shortlist of initiatives to address them.
Shortlist retention initiatives.
Module 4: Prepare to Communicate and Launch
The Purpose
Prepare to launch your retention initiatives.
Key Benefits Achieved
A clear action plan for implementing your retention initiatives.
Activities
Outputs
Select retention initiatives.
- Finalized list of retention initiatives.
Determine goals and metrics.
- Goals and associated metrics recorded in the Retention Plan Workbook.
Plan stakeholder communication.
Build a high-level action plan.
Tactics to Retain IT Talent
Keep talent from walking out the door by discovering and addressing moments that matter and turnover triggers.
Executive Summary
Your Challenge
Many organizations are facing an increase in voluntary turnover as low unemployment, a lack of skilled labor, and a rise in the number of vacant roles have given employees more employment choices.
Common Obstacles
Regrettable turnover is impacting organizational productivity and leading to significant costs associated with employee departures and the recruitment required to replace them.
Many organizations tackle retention from an engagement perspective: Increase engagement to improve retention. This approach doesn't consider the whole problem.
Info-Tech's Approach
Build the case for creating retention plans by leveraging employee data and feedback to identify the key reasons for turnover that need to be addressed.
Target employee segments and work with management to develop solutions to retain top talent.
Info-Tech Insight
Engagement surveys mask the volatility of the employee experience and hide the reason why individual employees leave. You must also talk to employees to understand the moments that matter and engage managers to understand turnover triggers.
This research addresses regrettable turnover
Low unemployment and rising voluntary turnover makes it critical to focus on retention
As the economy continues to recover from the pandemic, unemployment continues to trend downward even with a looming recession. This leaves more job openings vacant, making it easier for employees to job hop.
With more employees voluntarily choosing to leave jobs, it is more important than ever for organizations to identify key employees they want to retain and put plans in place to keep them.
Retention is a challenge for many organizations
The number of HR professionals citing retention/turnover as a top workforce management challenge is increasing, and it is now the second highest recruiting priority ("2020 Recruiter Nation Survey," Jobvite, 2020).
65% of employees believe they can find a better position elsewhere (Legaljobs, 2021). This is a challenge for organizations in that they need to find ways to ensure employees want to stay at the organization or they will lose them, which results in high turnover costs.
Executives and IT are making retention and turnover – two sides of the same coin – a priority because they cost organizations money.
- 87% of HR professionals cited retention/turnover as a critical and high priority for the next few years (TINYpulse, 2020).
- $630B The cost of voluntary turnover in the US (Work Institute, 2020).
- 66% of organizations consider employee retention to be important or very important to an organization (PayScale, 2019).
About Info-Tech
Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.
We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.
What Is a Blueprint?
A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.
Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.
Talk to an Analyst
Our analyst calls are focused on helping our members use the research we produce, and our experts will guide you to successful project completion.
Book an Analyst Call on This Topic
You can start as early as tomorrow morning. Our analysts will explain the process during your first call.
Get Advice From a Subject Matter Expert
Each call will focus on explaining the material and helping you to plan your project, interpret and analyze the results of each project step, and set the direction for your next project step.
Unlock Sample ResearchContributors
- Gregory P. Smith, CEO, Chart Your Course
- Dr. Iris Ware, Chief Learning Officer, City of Detroit
- Jane Moughon, Specialist in increasing profits, reducing turnover and maximizing human potential in manufacturing companies
- Linda Goldblatt, Independent Consultant
- Lisa Kaste, Former HR Director, Citco
- Michael McGuire, Talent Management and Senior HRBP Lead, Shopify
- Phillip Kotanidis, CHRO, Michael Garron Hospital
- Piyush Mathur, Head of Workforce Analytics, Johnson & Johnson
- Richard P. Finnegan, CEO, C-Suite Analytics
- Thomas W. Lee, Professor of Management, University of Washington
Develop a Targeted Flexible Work Program for IT
Monitor IT Employee Experience
Recruit and Retain People of Color in IT
Effectively Recognize IT Employees
Start Making Data-Driven People Decisions
IT Diversity & Inclusion Tactics
Design and Sustain a Purposeful IT Culture
Tactics to Retain IT Talent
The State of Black Professionals in Tech
State of Hybrid Work in IT