How to attract and retain top talent in 2024 (2024)

Employee attraction and retention is an ongoing challenge for organizations. It’s a complex issue encompassing a competitive job market for talent, keeping employees engaged in their role, and building positive company cultures. According to research by the Integrated Benefits Institute (IBI), 61% of employers struggle to retain their employees while 73% have difficulty attracting them. The institute also found the cost of turnover to be equivalent to 1-2 times an employee’s salary — which becomes a significant expense if turnover is high.

So why do people choose to join and stay at an organization? It often comes down to one thing: a compelling employee value proposition (EVP). Your EVP encompasses all the benefits and opportunities your company offers — going beyond the size of an employee’s paycheck to include whether they feel valued, engaged, and welcomed on a daily basis.

Developing and communicating a top-of-class EVP leads to a better employer brand, more candidates knocking at your door, and fewer employees looking for a way out. Here are seven ways to attract and retain the very best talent at your company by creating an EVP that’s hard to turn down.

12 best ways to attract and retain talent in 2024

1. Prioritize culture when hiring — and afterwards

More than its industry, size, or even its mission, your organization is defined by its culture. It’s the water your employees swim in every day, and it influences every aspect of their work. If a team member doesn’t align with the culture your company has built, they’ll struggle to perform at their best, potentially cause discord in their team, and be likely to move on sooner rather than later.

That’s why it’s so important to prioritize cultural fit as highly as skills or experience when hiring. Keep culture in mind during each stage of the recruitment process, from crafting the job description, interviewing candidates, to onboarding and beyond. Transparent communication about the type of candidate you’re looking for will encourage applicants and interviewees to be honest in turn.

Of course, cultural alignment will only have a positive impact if your company has a culture worth aligning to. Great organizational culture is one where employees feel welcomed, engaged by their work, and free to be themselves. Implement the initiatives described below, and others like them, to build a culture that the very best talent wants to be a part of.

2. Develop a top-tier onboarding process

Onboarding sets the tone for everything that’s to come in an employee’s journey at your company. Are they gradually incorporated into your organization while being given the training, resources, and information needed to succeed? Or are they handed a project after a week of introductory meetings without context or support?

To make your organization known as a fantastic place to start working, begin by planning an onboarding process that continues over the employee’s entire first year with your company — if not longer. The first weeks will be the most focused, but there should be aspects that persist far longer, like formal coaching relationships and periodic training updates.

During onboarding, communicate exactly what is expected of the employee and establish channels for asking questions or providing feedback when needed. Evaluate your onboarding process frequently and don’t hold off on making much-requested changes. Otherwise, your company risks alienating a significant proportion of the talent it has worked so hard to bring in.

3. Make employees feel valued with recognition

Employees want to work at an organization where they know they’re valued for what they bring to the job every day. A good salary won’t necessarily keep a dissatisfied employee around, and a chronic lack of appreciation can seriously tarnish your employer brand. So make it crystal clear with a comprehensive employee recognition program that engages current team members and entices new ones.

This goes far beyond an occasional word of thanks for another successful project or sending out a gift card when an employee’s work anniversary rolls around. Your program should incentivize employees by providing both tangible rewards and social recognition on a frequent basis.

The right employee recognition platform makes it easy for every team member, not just managers, to show these forms of appreciation, regardless of whether they get the job done remotely, work in-office, or fall somewhere in-between. These moments of recognition build genuine connections between coworkers, elevate the employee experience, and make your company an organization people want to join.

4. Prioritize and monitor employee engagement

Employee engagement is simply a measure of how much someone’s job motivates and interests them. Do they get excited about coming to work and tackling their next project? Or do they feel emotions like boredom and dread when contemplating another day on the job?

Improving employee engagement makes your team members more productive and more likely to stick around. It also makes a real difference when candidates can tell that current employees really love their work.

There are many great ways to engage your employees, from giving them genuine opportunities for professional development and advancement to providing them with the support they need to thrive. But what keeps one team member engaged may make little or no impact for another.

To understand how to best engage your unique workforce, leverage an employee engagement platform that makes it easy to collect and analyze data on the key drivers of engagement from across your organization. Look for a solution that includes streamlined, effective feedback tools like pulse surveys and AI-powered HR chatbots together with robust reporting features that guide people leaders from insight to action.

5. Incentivize with a great total rewards package

Employees are looking for things like great work-life balance, an array of attractive incentives, and, of course, competitive financial compensation. These and all other benefits you offer employees make up your organization’s total rewards package. The concept of total rewards makes it easy to pull together everything you offer current and prospective employees, so they can see everything your organization offers.

A company can only provide the total rewards allowed by its budget, so getting the most out of every dollar spent is critical. Avoid shelling out cash for pricey incentives that employees don’t need or want by soliciting input from your workforce to find out which benefits they value most. This allows your organization to tailor its total rewards package to maximize the impact on employee satisfaction, motivation, and retention.

Of course, even the best total rewards offering won’t move the needle if it isn’t communicated effectively to employees. You can confidentially provide statements to new and existing workers laying out the total rewards package they’re receiving, organized by category and value. Only list substantial perks — highlighting free coffee in the break room will just make your company look cheap. And don’t exaggerate the value of any listed rewards to ensure that employees view the statement as an accurate compilation of everything they get in exchange for their hard work.

6. Foster a sense of belonging and inclusion

People want to feel like they belong at their workplace, like they’re part of a team that accepts and values them for who they really are. If your company makes them feel psychologically safe from their first interaction to their last, they’ll eagerly join and will be quite reluctant to leave. But if it instead seems that they’re kept out of the loop and have to avoid sharing their true thoughts to get by, they’ll soon look for an organization where they are actually included — and they certainly won’t encourage others to join the company they’ve left.

A sense of belonging rests on five pillars: being welcomed, known, included, supported, and connected. There are many ways your company can establish these pillars, from encouraging people leaders to truly listen to and get to know employees, to involving employees in community-building initiatives like employee resource groups (ERGs), to prioritizing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in everything your company does.

When every employee at your company is just as comfortable at work as they are at home, you’ll have no shortage of enthusiastic advocates bringing more talent in the door.

7. Follow through on initiatives with meaningful action

Everyone has worked at an organization that talked the talk but didn’t walk the walk. Talking about the importance of things like employee recognition, culture, and employee input with limited or no follow up is often worse than ignoring these aspects of the employee experience in the first place. After all, no one likes a hypocrite, especially when they’re reminded of the disconnect between words and reality day-in, day-out.
Don’t let your organization make this mistake. HR should educate leaders on why programs like those described above are so important to organizational success, scheduling training sessions as needed. If there are roadblocks to developing a better culture or genuinely grappling with employee engagement, people leaders can’t shy away from identifying and removing them. And perhaps most importantly, adopt the right software to empower individuals from the C-suite on down with the ability to contribute to a better employee experience.

8. Share your talent transformation plan

Show candidates that you not only have a plan for their immediate future, but also the growth opportunities they’ll have access to throughout their journey with your company. Demonstrate knowledge of their current skills to ensure that they are in the right position, then pave the way with a clear training and development track.

Employee development isn’t just great for future hires, but it is also key to scaling a sustainable business. Ensuring that employee career aspirations are aligned with the goals of the organization helps create a symbiotic relationship between the employees and the companies they work for — a situation where both sides benefit.

A good talent transformation plan doesn’t just happen overnight but has its roots in an organizational culture that prioritizes and encourages collaboration, learning, and knowledge sharing. What employee development looks like in practice can range from mentorship programs, incentivized continuous learning, to online learning tailored to the individual.

9. Leverage LinkedIn

Engaging with potential candidates on social networks such as LinkedIn can be useful, even if the candidate isn’t currently interested in the position you’re offering. An effective way to approach this is to send a message to the candidate with an introduction and a link to your company website.

By using message tracking plugins like SalesWings LinkedIn message tracking, you can score the lead’s level of interest. Even if the lead clicks on the link but doesn’t show any interest straight away, you’ll at least know that they clicked on the link so you can connect and follow up with more information.

According to LinkedIn, 70% of professionals are passive candidates who aren’t actively engaged in a job search, but connecting with them early on could keep your organization top of mind when they are ready for a new opportunity.

10. Sell the work environment and profile

Highlighting the supportive work environment and growth opportunities that come with working for your company can be a powerful recruitment tool. For example, sharing the career progression plans of those in similar roles can show the candidate that there are opportunities to develop their career with your organization.

A company should be up front about what is needed to be successful in a new position. If an employee needs to develop new skills to better perform in the role, the company should have an upskilling plan in place.

Finally, share your company’s enthusiasm for recognizing great work and talk about how employees are rewarded, whether through monetary rewards or social recognition. Employees crave feedback and acknowledgement, and in fact, our research shows that 75% of employees that are recognized every month report job satisfaction, while 60% prefer more frequent recognition.

11. Get on a “best places to work” list

Top candidates usually target high ranking “Best Places to Work” companies. Everybody wants to work for a company that prioritizes the wellbeing and happiness of their employees, so it is a great idea to explore the qualities that high-ranking companies exhibit and emulate them.

Even if you don’t get acknowledged for your efforts immediately, you will still have taken important steps to make improvements to the workplace environment — and it’s time well spent investing in your organization’s future.

Beyond attracting top talent, the other perks of being recognized include elevating your brand as an employer, boosting productivity as it shows that company culture improvement is a priority, as well as gleaning invaluable insights into how to enhance daily operations.

12. Develop an employer branding strategy

Demonstrating why your company is a great place to work and showcasing it in your employer branding is a critical part of recruitment strategy. In fact, 75% of candidates will do their due diligence on a company’s reputation before applying for a role, so it’s essential to put your best foot forward.

Your website, social media platforms, and Glassdoor page, are a few areas to execute your employer branding strategy. For example, a poor user experience on your website’s career page could negatively impact your employer brand and you might receive less applications in general — especially from top talent.

Patagonia is an example of a well-executed employer brand, as the company is built on a foundation of strong values such as battling climate change, fast fashion, and inhumane work conditions. In turn, Patagonia attracts talent that resonates deeply with their mission and values, and it should come as no surprise that their turnover rate is lower than 4%.

Fast employee retention stats for 2024

After the eras of the Great Resignation and quiet quitting, what comes next? In 2024, we’re likely to see continued turbulence in employee retention, making it a focus for HR leaders and organizations.

• Job seeking: Over a third of workers plan to actively job seek in 2024 and another 25% say they are uncertain about their plans.
  – 2023 Engagement and Retention Report, Achievers
• Talent shortages: 77% of employers struggled to fill open positions this year, partly due to a reduced workforce compared to 2020. Over 25% say they’ve left the workforce to focus on caring for their children and other family members. This significant shortage will likely continue throughout 2024.
  – Future State of Hiring & Retention: 2024 Trends, LinkedIn
• Employee retention: 89% of employers say that retention is getting more difficult or not changing.
  – Retention Tops the List of HR Priorities for 2024, The HR Director
• Mission and purpose: Only 28% of remote employees strongly agree they feel connected to their organization’s mission and purpose, which is a red flag for disengagement that can lead to turnover.
  – 2024 Employee Engagement Strategies Checklist, Gallup
• AI’s impact on talent management and recruiting: The use of AI tools by candidates and recruiters will lead to misconnections and mischief: At least one major company will hire a candidate who doesn’t exist, and at least one well-known company will hire a candidate for a job that doesn’t exist.
  – Predictions 2024: An EX Recession And An AI Revolution Reshape The Future Of Work, Forrester

Attract an engaged, high-performing workforce

The Achievers Employee Experience Platform is a science-backed solution designed to meet the needs of your ever-changing workforce. Whether it’s providing recognition in fun, engaging ways with an easy-to-use app, giving employees rewards they actually get excited about, or effortlessly identifying real-time trends in employee engagement, Achievers offers all the features needed to build an EVP that attracts talent and retains talented employees. And with a robust suite of integrations with the tools HR and other team members use every day, incorporating the Achievers Employee Experience Platform into your employees’ work lives has never been simpler.