Great employers help their team members do their best work. By providing a good working environment and giving people the opportunity to enhance specific skills, employers can help them maximize their potential. However, employers can’t expect that providing excellent support and teaching will make it possible to turn just anyone into a great employee. When you’ve recognized excellence in your team, you need to make a concerted effort to keep it there. Here are some things that you can do will help you retain your most valuable employees.

Make Internal Hires

People will be more likely to stay in a position when they see opportunities for advancement. If employees don’t see an avenue to move higher in the organizational structure, they will have to apply outside of the organization if they want to develop professionally.

When employers have to fill a position, they should look to their workforce before moving on to a large pool of candidates. A person who receives a promotion or even just switches departments within a company feels valued by his or her employer. Other employees see internal hires as positive indications that they can move beyond their job roles.

Reward Excellent Performance

Employees want their hard work to be recognized. To derive enough satisfaction from their job roles to want to stay in them, people generally need to know that they’re good at what they do. Employers should find ways to commend team members who go above and beyond to do good work.

Bonuses and pay increases are one of the most effective ways to show appreciation. Also, it conveys that a company cares about fairly compensating people for their contributions.

There are a lot of desirable qualities that employers want their team to have which are not very trainable. When it comes to these highly sought-after traits, a person either has them or they do not. While it is reasonable to expect that people will enhance certain skill sets, you cannot reasonably anticipate that a person will develop these unteachable qualities later in life if they have yet to demonstrate at least some threshold level of these qualities. Likewise, people who exhibit great qualities such as a strong work ethic and good problem-solving skills aren’t likely to lose them. Employers need to be strategic in how they manage their teams to make their most gifted and valuable people want to keep working for them.