High employee retention is a strategic advantage in a competitive talent market
When you look at tech talent today, it’s clear we’re in a hyper-competitive environment. Unemployment across tech roles sits at 2.9%. That’s functionally full employment. If your company isn’t actively investing in retaining its top performers, you’re at risk, plain and simple.
Retention is a strategic asset. Companies with low turnover aren’t just more stable. They move faster, respond better to change, and scale with less friction. Losing experienced people slows product development, fragments institutional knowledge, and forces you to spend time and money replacing what you already had. That’s a terrible use of resources in any economy.
The data supports this. In Q2 2025, 72% of global CIOs cited hiring and retention as their number one challenge, according to Futurum Group. And it’s not just about recruiting, HR priorities show that developing leaders ranks highest, while retention ranks just beneath that. Recruiting is only fifth. That tells you where the smart investment really is: inside your own team.
If your people perform well and remain engaged, you don’t have to scramble to replace them or constantly retrain incoming talent. You just build from a stronger foundation and focus leadership efforts where they matter, on growth and innovation.
Grace Ewles, Director at consulting firm McLean & Co., explained retention’s impact well. Companies that managed to keep voluntary turnover at 10% or less were 18% more likely to outperform their peers. Retention directly correlates with organizational performance. It’s not just a feel-good HR initiative. It’s a key performance lever.
Executives should look at retention not as a cost center, but as business optimization. The payoff? Speed, consistency, and long-term competitive edge.
Identifying high-performing employees is essential for effective retention strategies
Before you can retain top talent, you’ve got to know who they are and what they’re capable of. Most companies don’t spend enough time on this part. They either treat everyone the same or focus only on annual performance reviews. That’s not enough. Identifying your high performers, your highest-leverage people, needs to be baked into your leadership process.
Savio Lobo, CIO at Ensono, takes this seriously. His team evaluates each critical role to identify primary and secondary successors, people who can step up when needed. It’s succession planning, but it’s also recognition. If someone matters to the future of your infrastructure, your roadmap, your delivery timelines, you should know. You should also be investing in them.
Same goes for Jamie Smith, CIO at the University of Phoenix. He calls his top performers “10Xers” because of how much more productive they are, ten times, in many cases. These aren’t just good engineers or reliable workers. They’re accelerators. They’re pivotal to scaling your department without burning people out.
Identifying star talent isn’t just about rewarding results. It’s about aligning investment with impact. If someone’s outcome-per-work-unit ratio far exceeds average, focus resources there. That means mentorship, mobility, leadership exposure, whatever keeps them learning and engaged.
For C-suite leaders, acting on this insight is simple. Build frameworks to detect high performers early. Don’t wait for them to raise a hand. That way, retention becomes proactive. You keep your best people not just by paying them, but by creating paths where they can lead, solve, and thrive. That’s what talent wants, and what your business needs.
Proactive engagement of top performers is vital to prevent attrition
Reactive leadership is inefficient. If you’re waiting for your top employees to come to you, ask for growth, or explain their frustrations, you’re already behind. Top performers don’t operate on autopilot. They’re thinking ahead. If they don’t find growth or challenge inside your company, they’ll look for it elsewhere.
Jamie Smith, CIO at the University of Phoenix, understands this. His team doesn’t wait. They reach out to high performers, offer meaningful projects, expand responsibilities, or upgrade titles, often before the employee even asks. That’s not just a retention tactic; it’s a smart leadership move. It signals readiness to invest in someone long-term.
There’s structure to this. You create space for advancement, assign them to high-impact initiatives, and ensure they’re not sitting idle in routines. For example, Smith puts ambitious junior staff on innovation teams and names them project leads. That increases their visibility inside the organization while giving them work worth staying for.
Grace Ewles at McLean & Co. backs this with research. She recommends using stay interviews, short, direct conversations that uncover what employees need to feel committed, and flight risk assessments to identify potential exits before they happen.
C-suite leaders need clarity here. You can’t assume people stay just because they’re paid well. Challenge, relevance, and recognition are stronger anchors. If your highest-value employees aren’t feeling engaged weekly, you’re at risk. Fixing that is a leadership responsibility.
Empowering high performers with greater autonomy and complex challenges enhances retention
Retention isn’t just about compensation or job security. For high performers, the quality of work matters. If you’re not giving them something difficult, or if you’re managing every detail of how they get the job done, they’ll disengage. These individuals want ownership. They want room to solve big problems and contribute meaningfully without micromanagement.
Jamie Smith gives these high-output employees more freedom across the board: how they use their time, what tools they select, how they organize their teams. This operational autonomy turns individual talent into organizational advantage. It also keeps their energy directed toward meaningful output.
At SS&C Technologies, CTO Anthony Caiafa takes a similar line. He specifically channels difficult problems to his top contributors. The goal isn’t optimization, it’s engagement. High performers stay where they’re learning and building. Caiafa adds that it’s not only about technical work, mentoring, training, and leadership opportunities also help top employees expand their influence in the organization, which deepens their commitment.
Autonomy also allows for momentum. When the people closest to the work have authority to make decisions, things move faster. That’s critical in environments where product cycles are short and competitive pressure is high.
Executives should apply pressure where it counts: outcome, not process. If you’ve hired smart, ambitious people, the best thing you can do for retention is to remove the unnecessary constraints. Give them room to move, room to lead, and problems worth solving. They’ll stay where the work matters and where they can shape it.
Highlighting the impact of employees’ work fosters a strong sense of purpose and loyalty
Top employees want to know their efforts actually make a difference. They want to see how their work moves the company forward. When they understand how their role connects to business value, they stay more engaged, and they stay longer.
Sebastián Arriada, CIO at Globant, puts this into practice across his IT organization. He makes it clear how technology initiatives support broader business goals. Employees see the direct link between their projects and measurable outcomes, whether it’s client success, revenue growth, or internal efficiencies.
This approach turns purpose into something tangible. Arriada knows that impactful workers don’t want to waste time on things that don’t move the needle. When they know their work counts, they stay focused and motivated.
For an executive team, this means rethinking communication. Project briefings, leadership touchpoints, and team updates should consistently connect the work to strategy. If your best developers, designers, or engineering leads don’t know how their work is helping the business win, that’s a leadership failure.
Give visibility to the metrics they’re influencing. Let them present outcomes. Invite them to strategic reviews when their work directly affects the result. When their contribution is visible, retention becomes easier. They no longer feel like one of many, they see themselves as essential. That perception matters.
Regular recognition and validation of employees’ contributions are imperative for retention
Recognition is straightforward, just often neglected. Many companies assume financial rewards are enough. But people, especially high performers want to be appreciated. The problem isn’t just lack of raises. It’s the lack of clarity that their work matters to others.
Sibyl McCarley, Chief People Officer at Hirevue, is clear about this. She says high-performing employees want to be seen, valued, and connected. You can’t automate this. Managers need to identify standout contributions and call them out, publicly, sincerely, and consistently.
Recognition doesn’t need to be excessive. It needs to be targeted. Anthony Caiafa, CTO at SS&C Technologies, structures this with intent. He runs quarterly hackathons where winners not only get prizes but also earn public recognition through leaderboards. Employees with strong project outcomes get bonus compensation or opportunities to present across departments. These simple, structured systems affirm employee excellence and promote healthy competition.
Executives should prioritize recognition as a strategic lever. When someone ships great work, say it. When someone improves a process, surface it to the broader team. Let other departments hear about it. When achievement is visible, top performers don’t have to guess if their effort was worth it.
Every team has standout contributors. Whether they stay often depends on how often they’re reminded that the company knows they matter.
Targeted training and development programs are critical to accelerating employee growth and retention
General training programs help, but they aren’t enough for retaining your best people. High performers want growth that aligns with where they’re heading, not generic modules that check a box. If the development path feels too slow, too broad, or misaligned with their goals, they’ll move on.
Savio Lobo, CIO at Ensono, has a strategy for this. His team doesn’t just offer access to training platforms, they design custom development paths for high-impact individuals. They identify potential and map out where that person can go next. Not every training program fits every employee. The match needs to be intentional.
C-suite leaders need this level of precision. If you’re building a business that runs on innovation and speed, then your best people need to be sharper every quarter, technically and strategically. That doesn’t happen by default. It takes targeted investment.
You should know which employees are ready for leadership coaching, which ones need advanced technical certifications, and who should be exposed to cross-functional work. Development doesn’t mean endless coursework. It means accelerating capability in a measurable, relevant way.
Having a system that identifies growth gaps, and then fills them with specific, high-impact training, also sends a message to your high performers: that you’re serious about their future, not just their present. And that’s the kind of organization top people stay in.
Investing in the growth of all workers can enhance overall performance and foster internal promotion
A strong talent strategy doesn’t stop at the top. Building a high-performance workforce means elevating more than just your highest achievers. Everyone in your organization should have a path to improve. When that’s done right, you don’t just boost capability, you reduce your reliance on hiring externally.
Savio Lobo from Ensono applies this company-wide. His principle is simple: help everyone grow, and some of those people will become your next top talent. He recalls an example where a long-tenured individual contributor advanced into a senior management role after targeted development. That’s a better outcome than replacing that position with an external hire who doesn’t understand the culture or systems.
C-suite leaders need to think long-term here. It’s not just about improving current performance, it’s about creating a stronger internal bench. If new roles open, you shouldn’t always need to interview externally. You should already know who’s on track and ready to step up.
This approach also boosts morale. When workers see a clear path forward, they’re more likely to stay. Career progression becomes a system, not a matter of luck or timing. That also helps you build a resilient talent pipeline that can support larger growth targets.
Growth culture should be embedded across the organization. From onboarding to ongoing feedback, every employee should feel that their path forward is taken seriously. Not everyone will become a 10Xer. That’s not the point. The point is offering speed, support, and structure to anyone who wants to contribute more, and letting your future leaders come from within.
The bottom line
Retention is execution. It doesn’t sit with HR alone, and it doesn’t fix itself over time. If you’re serious about building a high-performing organization, you need to protect and invest in the people driving the results.
Top talent doesn’t leave for fun. They leave because the work’s stale, the growth is slow, or leadership isn’t paying attention. These are all solvable problems.
The companies that outperform don’t do it with gimmicks. They do it by making smart bets on their people, identifying who matters, challenging them with real work, giving them autonomy, and making it clear that they’re not just part of the team, they are the team.
Executives who get this keep momentum. They move faster, retain knowledge, and build teams that scale with the business. Everyone else keeps hiring in circles.
You already have talent. Don’t lose it by default. Keep it by design.
