Recruiting and retaining A+ performers.

• Author: Ibarra, Patrick

One of the finance leader's roles is to shape the workforce in ways that allow governments to execute their missions and goals. In doing so, governments are competing with the private sector for talent as never before, and they face substantial challenges in attracting and retaining their best people.

The number of college students who want to join the public sector is low--6 percent total, less than 4 percent of whom specified that they wanted to work in state and local government. State and local governments are therefore in some level of competition with the private sector (cited by 30 percent of those students as their employer of choice) for the best and brightest employees available. (1) All organizations want to attract, and keep, employees who will be top performers.

To do so, an employer should strive to promote its strengths and confirm its values, showing top talent that it is an employer of choice during both recession and boom times.

"Next practices" can help--contemporary, progressive, and practical strategies and tools to attract, retain, and optimize talent.

One emerging trend is "branding"--in particular, an organization's employer brand, or the way the employer is perceived both internally and externally as a place to work. Every organization has an employer value proposition (EVP), which communicates that image to target audiences and reinforces the reasons why talented people would want to stay with or join the organization. Part of the EVP is the spoken or unspoken exchange between employers and employees that define the relationship. In its simplest form, the exchange represents the money paid for performing a job. In its highest, most strategic incarnation, it's the promise employers make to provide pay, benefits, career opportunities, and a supportive work environment in exchange for an employee's discretionary effort to bring the organization's mission, vision, and values to life.

As a result of changes in the workforce and thus the workplace, the EVP in all sectors has experienced a dramatic change away from the idea of a lifetime with one employer and toward a different arrangement. Employees today often consider themselves as "knowledge free agents" who choose to stay with an employer so long as they are engaged in challenging and productive work.

KEEPING YOUR BEST PERFORMERS

The place to begin is at home--that is, making sure your existing top performers stay with you. Conventional wisdom says that employees...