Strategies for Attracting and Retaining Top Talent in Hong Kong

Your A-players are updating their LinkedIn profiles. It’s not about the money. I see this destroy companies every week. High performers join excited. They see potential. They're ready to grind. Then they meet the team. The sales rep who hasn't hit quota in 8 months but has great "potential." The marketing manager who runs campaigns with no measurable results but works "really hard." The operations director who creates busywork instead of solving problems but has been there "since the beginning." Your A-players look around and think: "If this is what excellence looks like here, I'm in the wrong place." So they leave. And you're left wondering why you can't retain top talent. The answer is simple: You don't have a meritocracy. You have a participation trophy culture. Here's how to build a true meritocracy: a system where outcomes matter more than effort, seniority, or intentions: 1. Make Performance Impossible to Hide Every role gets 3-5 KPIs that everyone can see. No ambiguity. No interpretation. The scoreboard tells the truth when feelings lie. 2. Reward Results, Not Effort Hard work without results isn't good enough. Period. Stop promoting people because they "try really hard." Start promoting people because they deliver outcomes. 3. Make Feedback Your Weapon Real-time, honest evaluations. No surprises at review time. Great performers crave feedback. Mediocre performers fear it. 4. Celebrate Winners Publicly When someone crushes their numbers, make it visible. Promotions and bonuses tied directly to measurable outcomes. Show your team exactly what success earns. 5. Let Consequences Have Teeth A meritocracy only works if there are consequences for failure. Enforce performance standards. No exceptions. No excuses. Mediocrity tolerated is meritocracy destroyed. 6. Design Culture That Repels the Wrong People Be clear: "This isn't a family. It's a championship team." Your culture should make underperformers uncomfortable and high performers excited. Your job is fairness, not comfort. Stop protecting feelings. Start protecting standards. Every day you tolerate mediocrity, you're telling your best people their excellence doesn't matter. Ready to build a team where performance actually matters? Learn how to create the meritocracy that attracts and keeps elite talent: https://buff.ly/ky7riOr

I think we tend to overcomplicate how to attract and retain top talent. It really comes down to one thing: Treat people well. And take lessons from brands that get it right. In Cypress HCM's work as a staffing partner to Netflix, I’ve witnessed three strategies that help them attract and retain top talent. 1. Competitive compensation. Netflix is known for paying top talent what they are worth, aiming to fill each position with the best person in their craft. This approach ensures a roster of exceptional performers who consistently deliver outstanding results. They follow a mentality of: Paying employees more than another company would. Not being short sighted and considering the costs of hiring a replacement. Paying enough to prevent them from joining a competitor. 2. Contagious culture. Netflix has built a culture that employees are excited to share with their friends. Amazing people attract other amazing people, a philosophy Netflix consistently proves. They shaped their culture not only to be strong but also to motivate high performance. 3. Encouraging radical candor. Netflix adheres to the saying, “to disagree silently is disloyal.” Employees are encouraged to adopt “radical candor” and push the team to seek out opposing views. This practice fosters an environment of open communication and continuous improvement. Learning from these strategies can help any company create a thriving and loyal workforce. #CompanyCulture #TalentAcquisition

Companies fixate (and borderline obsess) over customer churn. And they should. When customers leave, they take their revenue with them. But what about employees? Why do we not fixate on employee churn at nearly the same rate? In every P&L that I have ever managed, the largest expense line was tied to employee cost. Typically, cost lines inside a business are tied pretty directly to value creation. Higher costs require more delivered value/revenue, etc.  So, if in theory our biggest expense line (employees) delivers the most value, then why not treat it as such? Every data point tells us that employee churn hurts revenue production and decreases productivity. Want a steeper revenue trend line? Then don’t just hire top talent, do a better job of retaining it. Here are a few steps that companies and leaders can take to minimize unwanted employee churn: ·        Recognize that employee engagement starts with the very first interview. Refine and strengthen your recruitment process, including the quality and sequencing of candidate interviews. ·        You get one chance to set the culture bar and ‘wow’ new employees. Lean into your onboarding process so that new hires come away not just inspired on Day 1, but focused around a clear set of goals and expectations. Top Talent knows that they may very well have to move a few mountains to win. They'll typically sign up for to do the hard thing but without clarity, they’ll quickly become discouraged. ·        Prioritize career growth and invest in the development of your employees. Trainings, mentoring, coaching, educational reimbursement all turns words of ‘care and concern’ for employees into a reality that they’ll tell their Top Talent friends about. ·        If the strength of your leaders isn’t elite then your employee churn numbers will suffer. Invest in leadership development with a key area being employee engagement. Measure leaders not simply on revenue achievement but on employee development as well on Top Talent retention. If executives put a strong emphasis on the employee, front-line leaders will do the same. ·        Invest as much time and energy in offboarding an employee as you did recruiting them and onboarding them. How you treat an employee as the exit the company speaks volumes to those that remain. The best employees have options in the marketplace. Never doubt that they won’t be more inclined to move elsewhere if they see a peer treated unprofessionally.

It’s a fact. The once taboo practice of job-hopping every 1-2 years has become a strategic maneuver for many ambitious professionals. The allure? Significant salary hikes often outpacing merit-based increments. And can you blame them? Still, while potentially lucrative for individuals (we can argue the actual merits of this strategy another time), it is also very costly for companies to see their best and brightest walking out the door with this frequency. So, how can companies retain their top talent amidst this trend? Hint: It’s not just about pay. 1. Competitive Compensation: Ok, I lied. It’s partially about pay. You must regularly benchmark your salaries against the market because this baseline is increasing quickly, and for good reason. It’s vital to keep pace, or better yet, lead. And if you don’t, adjust your expectations around the people you’re going to be able to hire. It’s that simple. 2. Professional Growth: Foster an environment of continuous learning. Opportunities for advancement, skill enhancement, and meaningful projects can often outweigh a mere pay bump. 3. Flexibility: Despite what many CEOs seems to want to believe, I believe the future of work is hybrid. Offering work-from-home, flexible hours, and even compressed work weeks can sweeten the deal. And they seem to work well far more often than not. 4. Purpose: Money isn’t everything. Employees crave roles that resonate with their values and offer a sense of purpose. 5. Regular Check-ins: Way before employees start to contemplate a move, engage in open dialogue with them and keep this conversation going. Understand their aspirations and challenges, professionally and personally, and as their manager, really give thought to how you can address them. No, you can’t convince everyone to stick around. But a holistic approach addressing both monetary and non-monetary incentives can make the difference. It's time for those organizations who have been slow to react to pivot, ensuring their value proposition remains irresistible to the modern-day professional. What strategies do you think work best to retain talent today? And will we ever go back to long-term tenure being the norm, and not the exception? I’d love to hear your feedback. #Procurement #ProcurementLeaders #SupplyChain #Recruitment