During a booming economy, retaining good employees can seem like an uphill battle. In fact, keeping good people is a challenge at any time. During a boom, the goal is to hang on to your star performers and anyone who can do a good job for you. The key is to prevent people from looking on the job market. Once they're out there, aware of the opportunities, whether real or fictitious, it is hard to pull them back over the bridge. You will find this ten-point approach will help you to be proactive in retaining your people.

1: Rewards

In an inflationary employment market, organizations can quickly find themselves out of synch with marketplace compensation practices. The key is information and action. Stay in tune with trends by job function, industry and location. Use formal salary surveys, either customized for your sector and location, or annual generic surveys for all employers in a particular category. Watch out! They can be out of date by the time you get them, they are expensive, and you may be comparing apples with pears.

Informal benchmarking can help. Share information reciprocally with peers in other organizations. Seek trend data from professional networks and Chambers of Commerce. Advertised jobs may not reflect the actual salary at which a job is filled but can be used to confirm or disconfirm potential problem areas.

Think about raising pay twice a year and not just once a year. People are less likely to leave if they know that the next raise, although small, is just around the corner. Consider additional incentives: commissions and bonus pay, phantom shares, discount purchases, for performance that excels. Don't get locked into these. Manage expectations well up front- and communicate that they are "windfalls" for substantially increased revenue and profit over and above expectations for the time period.

2: Recognition

Prevent people from looking at your employment competitors. Show that you're aware of people's achievements. Don't just assume that salaries and bonuses recognize performance. Make people feel valued as individuals. Genuinely and liberally say thank you and well done. Use a group lunch or meeting to publicly reinforce desired behaviors and performance achievements. You'll encourage individuals to stay in an appreciative environment. Don't take for granted full attendance, courteous customer service, and support for colleagues. Be fair and consistent in your praise. Recognize actions and results, not personalities.

3: Work life

More and more organizations are paying attention to work-life issues to ride the tight employment market. Open your doors to a wider, more diverse workforce. Offer ways that people can balance work with personal life. Word will get around. The most important work life benefit, at minimal cost, is flexibility of work hours. Conduct a simple employee climate survey. Solicit responses on preferred hours, which will fit with the needs of the customer and the business. Some benefits, such as childcare, are expensive to provide. Use your bargaining power as an employer to negotiate discounted rates to pass on to your employees. Other discounted work life benefits range from reduced auto and home insurance to coupons for the movies.

4: Work environment

Surveys that ask what people value most about a job place work environment at the top of the list. Changes in skill demands and increased work expectations create a stress. Remember the DAM principle: Direct, Align and Motivate. Give people the context of why things are done the way they are. Direct and coach to help them understand and respond to expectations. Make sure that roles are aligned clearly between people to do the job efficiently. Communicate directions in writing to ensure that all players know what they'll do and what others will do. Avoid explaining expectations after mistakes occur and comments behind people's backs that get back. Actively create trust and you'll turn people on, with hearts and minds, to do a good job.

5. Responsibility

Giving people additional responsibility develops them and shows that they are valued and trusted. Over time, they gain opportunities for additional status and rewards. Responsibility, though, requires capability. Failure results in stress for those who must sweep up the errors. A flatter organization means that people don't have to wait for the next opening on the organization chart. Competency lists have been helpful in providing criteria by which people can grow within their jobs. When the next skill level is achieved, promote the individual to the next increment level of accountability and reward appropriately. Use them as trainers of others, providing coverage when needed and producing high quality work with little direction.

6: Career paths

Flat organizations can make future opportunities invisible and tempt people to look outside. Communicate career paths- possible routes for growing within the current job, laterally, and upwards. Clarify the skills and steps needed. Create the expectation that people will be cross trained to build the skills needed to grow in the organization. Set up a psychological contract: people will, where logical and practical, be given career development opportunities. Sometimes those skills will make them more marketable, but the departure could occur even earlier without visible personal growth.

7: Development strategies

Use the career path competency list as a basis for personal development. Balance formal training with other ways of enhancing people's abilities. Sponsor attendance at professional associations and conferences to open people's eyes to best practice. Offer projects and assignments that broaden functional and business knowledge, and encourage teamwork. A combination of line and staff move, generalist and specialist roles, all help prepare people for more career possibilities. Make the investment. In return the silos will reduce through increased understanding of the demands upon other functions.

8. Exposure to senior management

Provide opportunities for wider exposure to more senior people. Encourage managers to be mentors. Invite presentations at management meetings. Involve people in multi-level task forces that demonstrate the company vision in action. You'll observe them communicate acquired insights informally back to their colleagues. Help them can gain credibility among a wider and more senior pool of people. Provide this kind of exposure and constructive feedback through coaching to give more meaning to their roles.

9. Counter and counter early

When people do opt to leave, on principle many employers are loath to counter a competitive offer. The departing employee seems disloyal and word of a counter could get around. Then, loyal players will consider their treatment unfair in comparison. Avoid reinforcing the "get another job and management will give you a raise" syndrome. Pragmatically, though, accept that something went wrong for this individual to decide to leave. Respond quickly and undefensively. Ask why they sought another opportunity and, if appropriate, what could be done to encourage them to stay. If the response is money and if the individual is going to be difficult to replace, then do counter but expect it to be leaked. Preempt the reactions of others who will feel disadvantaged. A counter is rarely a one-person fix. If pragmatism dictates that it is the solution, attend to other potential problems at the same time. Alternatively, accept the situation and try to use the opportunity to give responsibility and reward to others who may also be looking for other employment. Avoid inadvertently pushing others to look elsewhere. Recognize and compensate those who now do their own jobs and absorb the work from the vacancy.

10. Contingency planning

Be prepared to lose people. Review the organization regularly. Contrast the organizational structure with business and staffing trends. Plan how to cover key roles. Be flexible and brainstorm alternatives to direct replacement. Look for win-wins to keep other key players. This is a real succession plan - not just names in boxes. Construct a long-term pool of talent to meet current and impending business challenges. Recognize too where you really are vulnerable. Be proactive. Network through professional associations to identify potential replacements in the event that you'll need them. Build relationships that will make it easier to encourage these potential candidates to join you later. Actively court casual applicants and strong job candidates for whom the right role could arise later. Follow up with a "how are things?" call, say every three months. The individual will appreciate your professional interest. You won't lose contact and you may also find that these candidates may supply you with other useful referrals should you need them.

This ten-factor approach can help you retain your best talent and suspend the crisis of losing a key player. One problem can make retention seem more of an issue than it really is. Put in some measures of retention - the frequency, cost and lead-time to replacement. Measure the trends as you take a more active approach to retention, making it a management objective with ongoing follow up actions. If you have managers working for you, set expectations of them, too. Make it an organizational initiative. You'll find that giving attention to retention will help you achieve other objectives more effectively.

The United States currently has the lowest unemployment rate in twenty-five years. With annual turnover for service-oriented positions of 20% per year and escalating, company loyalty is a thing of the past. Today's employees often put their own welfare before that of their company. With limited resources and a finite supply of talent, organizations must pay attention to getting the right people and keeping them. We invite you to join Susan Blazer, Director of Wilson Learning Corporation, to learn about

• How you get the right people in the door in the first place
• Why people choose to leave an organization
• How you can avoid brain drain and lock in talent
• What the ingredients are for an employee retention formula