Onboarding employees is no small feat, but it can cost organizations valuable time and money when those employees decide to leave. The process of hiring new employees can be extremely frustrating and expensive. This is where it becomes necessary to keep the existing workforce happy and satisfied with compensation plans and not just monetary benefits.

A remarkable number of CIOs and CTOs across industry segments are having a hard time finding and retaining talent. According to a global survey, 60% of respondents of 4,000 IT leaders said they face skills shortage. If left unchecked, this could lead to more than USD 8 Tn in unrealized annual revenue by 2030.

There are innumerable ways to counter the increasing turnover rate, but the most effective way is by creating holistic compensation strategies that will foster employee performance and enhance employee retention. Among the several attractive benefits that both new and existing employees look for in a company, the following are a few of those that talent management teams should shift their focus on:

• Access to wellness and health programs
• Offering training and education subsidies
• Incentivizing high performers with innovative compensation plans

In today’s competitive job market, hiring and retaining the right talent has become more challenging. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, employees are looking beyond monetary benefits.

Let us look at some compensation plans that will help your organization thrive during and after this workforce crisis:

Championing innovative compensation models

The workplace is rapidly evolving, and compensation must catch up. Companies globally recognize that conventional compensation models are now outdated. And talent managers are forced to redesign their compensation strategies to attract and retain talent by providing their existing employees with innumerable reasons to stay.

The latest crop of talent demands quality-of-life additions to their compensation packages. Talent management teams must make every person onboard feel appreciated and valued for the work they do. Companies can invest in out-of-the-box ideas that stand out from the traditional monetary benefits system. Talent management teams can focus on the following trends to boost their employee engagement programs:

• Profit-sharing and ESOPs: As employees are instrumental in achieving business outcomes, you can consider offering a stake in your company to recognize their contributions. By implementing this profit-sharing model, employees can stay motivated and continue to build a growing and profitable company.
• No-questions-asked paid leaves: Remote working has come with several side effects, triggering stress and other health problems. Organizations have leveraged the use of this one-of-a-kind compensation approach to address concerns rising among employees as remote working becomes a new norm.

Besides the aforementioned non-monetary compensation plans, organizations can reward high-performing employees with extended paternity leaves and caregiver leaves. A research report from Draup pointed out that such forward-looking policies will attract more talent and improve retention rates over the long term.

When it comes to retaining talent, one of the critical things that need to be addressed is the compensation model. Enterprises that place employee welfare at the top of their agenda will attract more niche talent and improve retention rates. AI-driven talent intelligence tools like Draup can help identify cost metrics by taking location and several other factors to help talent managers formulate compensation practices.

Emphasizing health and wellness programs

The pandemic brought economic stress to many employees. This tumultuous suffering of employees has led talent managers to consider wellness programs. To hold back the tide of turnover rates, incentives focusing on physical and mental health have become the need of the hour.

Companies, big or small, are implementing various components of wellness into their employee well-being programs. The most popular and uplifting wellness trends we are witnessing since the onset of great resignation are:

• Access to online counseling and fitness sessions
• Providing resources for working mothers. Companies are doing their bit in reducing the sufferings of working mothers by supporting them with flexible schedules and delivering meals, to name a few.

Employees are looking for opportunities with companies that prioritize time off to decompress. As the demand for better well-being increases, talent management teams are now paying attention to the growing expectations of the modern workforce.

Supporting training and education subsidies

The pandemic has exacerbated the need for improvements in how companies train their workforce. Some of these needs are longstanding but urgent, including the need to equip employers with in-demand skills imperative in the coming years.

The younger workforce is more drawn towards companies that focus on the development of their employees. According to a survey, 87% of millennials rate professional development as a must-have when exploring the job market. While 69% of the older workforce agree to the same thing.

Offering training and education subsidies like tuition reimbursement become a valuable tool in retaining the existing talent. Such initiatives can help the workforce in pursuing educational opportunities outside of their regular tasks.

Besides offering support through training subsidies, talent managers can achieve other enterprise goals like increasing gender and racial diversity. Businesses can upskill their existing talent force to work in new fields. Many IT giants have leveraged this idea to amplify female representation in STEM-related areas, which have predominantly been male-dominated.

This workforce crisis has forced talent management teams to rethink the way they work almost overnight. And to bail out of this phase, only a strong workforce planning strategy can ensure organizations meet the needs and desires of their current employees.

As talent management teams work proactively to reduce employee turnover rates, talent intelligence platforms like Draup assist them by providing in-depth insights into the talent ecosystem. This analytics-driven workforce tool assists organizations in strategic workforce planning, talent recruitment and reskilling by evaluating talent ecosystem pillars, including industries, companies, locations, universities, and professionals.