Building your people plan: Recruiting and retention

Begin with three important questions: 1) Are your stakeholders happy? 2) Would you enthusiastically rehire your team? and 3) Are you happy? 

Success requires honest answers to these questions.

Attract and develop

Defining your A-player will drive recruiting efforts. While technical skills are important, they aren’t good predictors of long-term success because they require frequent updating. The strongest hires demonstrate the will to excel, values that fit the organizational culture, the ability to deliver results, and the capacity to continuously learn and adapt.

Establish a job scorecard that identifies a handful of specific, measurable outcomes the new hire must achieve over the next one to three years rather than checking boxes on a resume. Candidate profiles should emphasise cultural fit and potential.

The best talent sources are often referrals and proactive recruiting efforts. Your A-players tend to know other A-players, however, the best candidates are usually already employed. Treat recruiting as a form of guerrilla marketing that requires active networking, strong branding, campus recruiting, digital outreach, engagement with recruiters, and participation from the entire team.

Retain

Hiring great people is only half the battle. Retention is the true key to long-term success.

Leaders should meet with A-players, help them define goals, remove obstacles, and identify growth opportunities. Research consistently shows manager support determines employee retention. Gallup found that employees who strongly agree they feel supported by their manager are 70% less likely to experience burnout.

You can also improve retention by reducing unnecessary frustrations, communicating transparently, providing meaningful recognition, and helping employees leverage their strengths. Effective managers hire carefully, compensate competitively, set clear expectations, dehassle, and create environments where people play to their strengths.

Retaining talent requires an investment, but you can soften the financial impact through automation, process improvement, and client management. Just as important is building an employee-first culture.

Creating lasting relationships

The employee experience begins long before a new hire's first day. A formal, thoughtful onboarding process creates a strong first impression and accelerates integration.

Internships, job shadow days, and ongoing professional development help attract ambitious candidates while strengthening long-term engagement. High-achieving recruits expect the relationship to begin when the offer letter is signed, not on their first day of work.

Winning the talent war requires strategy and commitment. When you create clear expectations, invest in people, and build nurturing environments, you not only attract top talent – you keep it. 

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Jeffery L. Mowery, Managing Partner of M&S, and Global Vice Chair of GGI’s ITPG, specialises in solving tax and business issues for entrepreneurial businesses. His leadership, vision, passion, and influence have been widely recognised across industry publications as the co-founder of an IPA Top 150 Firm.