A comprehensive employee retention program is a key differentiator in tight talent markets. Here’s how to reduce employee turnover, retain top talent, and establish an engaged workforce.
The unemployment rate for tech occupations sits at just 2.9%, trending low as it has for years.
That makes competition for IT talent fierce, according to CIOs. Competition for high-performing IT talent is even more intense.
That has IT leaders concerned: 72% of CIOs said hiring and retaining skilled talent is their top issue, according to the Futurum Group’s Q2 2025 Global CIO Survey.
HR research and advisory firm McLean & Co similarly found that retaining employees ranked a top priority for organizations. In its 2025 HR survey, retention comes in at No. 2, just after developing leaders. It’s ahead of recruiting, which is the No. 5 priority among surveyed organizations.
“When we look at that external environment, given how much uncertainty is happening, keeping talent is so critical,” says Grace Ewles, director of HR research and advisory services at McLean & Co.
Ewles says it’s critical for keeping productivity up, building a leadership pipeline, and ensuring a positive workplace culture. Her firm’s research has found that organizations reporting low voluntary turnover (10% or less) were 18% more likely to report high overall organizational performance.
However, the risk of turnover is high, with Gallup finding that half of U.S. employees are open to leaving their jobs.
On the other hand, Gallup research also found that 42% of employees who voluntarily left their organization in the prior year said their manager or organization could have done something to prevent them leaving their job.
What is employee retention?
Employee retention is an organization’s ability to keep its employees under contract, making for a more stable, productive workforce.
Companies that are serious about retaining their talent establish policies and programs aimed at reducing employee turnover. Those that succeed in achieving high employee retention rates operate at an advantage both in meeting business goals and in recruiting new hires.
A well-establish, well-executed employee retention strategy is a key competitive differentiator, as a company’s ability to hold on to its talent — especially in tight hiring markets — has profound ramifications for its ability to operate at a high level, without the disruptions that employee turnover bring.
Why retaining top talent is essential
IT departments in particular have been ramping up efforts to retain valuable employees in the face of ongoing talent gap issues, according to CIOs and enterprise hiring managers.
The reason: an ongoing tech talent shortage, which is expected to grow. Numerous studies show that recruiting tech talent remains difficult and competition is as fierce as ever.
Consequently, CIOs must focus as much on retaining their own employees as they are on hiring new ones if they want to have the talent they need.
CIOs and HR professionals say achieving high employee retention rates means creating the right culture with competitive compensation and flexible work options. And they say retaining high performing IT workers requires even more.
7 strategies for retaining your top talent
Creating a strong employee retention program takes thought, planning, and work. It also requires a multipronged approach. Here, CIOs with high retention rates along with HR pros offer seven strategies that help retain top talent.
1. Identify your high performers
Savio Lobo, CIO of IT services provider Ensono, works with his executives and managers to identify the critical workers at all levels of his IT department.
Part of it is for succession planning purposes.
“We look at every critical role and ask, ‘Who is the primary and secondary person, or who could we develop, to step in and do the job?’” Lobo says.
And part of this is for identifying high performers, a task that’s also done as part of the company’s performance review process.
Identifying such workers helps the company better plan its employee development programs, Lobo says.
Jamie Smith, CIO of the University of Phoenix, takes a similar approach. He works with his leadership team to identify top performers, whom they call 10Xers (a reference to the high impact they have on IT’s productivity).
2. Proactively engage high performers
Smith doesn’t wait for high performers on his IT team to seek out challenges or promotions; rather, department leaders reach out to discuss what the company can offer to keep them engaged, interested, and fulfilled at work.
That may mean quickly promoting them to positions or offering them new work with a more senior title, Smith says, explaining that “if we don’t give them more interesting work, they’ll find it elsewhere.”
For example, Smith assigns high performers to innovation projects, and he has named high-performing junior workers as team leads. Both moves come with more challenging assignments and visibility, “which keep them interested and energized,” Smith says.
Ewles endorses that kind of proactive engagement. She also advises organizations to conduct stay interviews to learn what keeps workers at the organization, and she recommends doing flight risk assessments to identify which workers are likely to leave and how to make them want to stay.
“Those can be key differentiators in retaining top talent,” she adds.
3. Challenge and empower your star workers
McLean & Co. data shows that the No. 1 reason workers leave is a better career opportunity elsewhere.
“Top performers in particular are hungry for those opportunities,” Ewles says.
So CIOs who want to retain them need to give them more opportunities where they are, she adds.
Smith takes that approach, giving his 10Xers more autonomy with their time, techniques, teams, and tools “to feel more empowered.” He also looks for innovation projects where top performers can work together so they’re challenged by each other and “where they have a little more freedom.”
Similarly, Anthony Caiafa, who as CTO of SS&C Technologies also has CIO responsibilities, directs interesting work to the high performers on his IT team, saying that they’re “easier to keep if you’re providing them with complex problems to solve.” That, he notes, is in addition to good compensation, mentoring, training, and advancement opportunities.
Caiafa also gives them autonomy. “You really focus on empowering them, because those are the folks who will leave if the leadership is not just giving them orders,” he says.
4. Highlight their impact
As part of his retention practices, Sebastián Arriada, CIO of tech services provider Globant, makes sure his IT workers are clear about “how what they’re doing has an impact.”
“From my experience, top talent wants to build value and do work that matters, and if what they do doesn’t make sense or doesn’t add to the business, they’re not going to stay,” Arriada says. “So we help them understand how what they’re doing matters, so they feel they’re part of something, and they see how they’re connected to the business overall.”
5. Make sure they know they’re valued
Knowing they’re contributing something of value is part of a good retention policy, says Sibyl McCarley, chief people officer at tech company Hirevue. However, employees — and particularly those who go above and beyond — also “want to be seen, feel valued, and feel connected. If they feel that, they’re going to want to stay.”
That means a good overall compensation plan, but it also means being recognized for the value they bring to their organization, McCarley says. That may mean being asked to present, or being thanked publicly, or getting exposure to other departments on special projects, an opportunity that demonstrates the company’s trust in them and their work.
Caiafa doles out quarterly bonuses, posts the names of workers doing top work on leaderboards, and offers prizes for winners of quarterly hackathons — all of which he has found keeps workers engaged. And to encourage workers of all capabilities, he lets anyone with an idea pitch to judges in a shark tank-type competition, with winners getting to develop a proof of concept. “These things really highlight achievements,” he says, noting that while top talent may naturally get the most wins, the programs encourage all workers to strive.
6. Offer targeted training
Ensono has a robust training program, which supports employee retention at all levels. But Lobo says retaining top talent often requires a more targeted approach where their managers direct them into career development programs that can really accelerate their professional advancement.
“We focus on the individual’s development and make sure we have the right individual going to the right programs,” he says.
7. Focus on growing all workers
Lobo says the primary focus of his talent strategy is to help his workers grow.
“I don’t worry if they stay with us. If they’re growing, that’s good enough. But if they’re growing with us, they’ll likely stay with us,” he says.
Moreover, he says that approach can help average workers become high performers. One worker on his team had worked as an individual contributor in the same role for many years, but as he built up his career development efforts, she was able to move into a senior manager role and flourish.
“We wanted to work with her, to help her achieve something bigger, and that helped keep her on our team,” he says.
