Our expert’s opinion: how to retain top talent

It is crystal clear that talent scarcity challenges almost all companies in nearly every industry. According to Beth Stackpole’s article, finding and retaining talent is the top challenge for 54% of the respondents of their survey.

Stackpole says part of the problem lies with an ongoing skills gap: “There are too few workers and skilled candidates to fill an ever-increasing number of high-skilled jobs like those in the engineering sector.” 

This is shown by the number of respondents that are having difficulty finding suitable candidates to hire: 83%. As a company, you’ll have to shift your focus more and more to the retainment of your highly-skilled employees. 

Therefore, companies are offering more flexible work options. These include the possibility of remote work, and an increasing focus on career development, mobility, work-life balance, and inclusion initiatives.

At Catalay, we have adapted to this new situation by giving more career options to our engineering consultants. By expanding our client network, the chances of not finding a suitable project for a consultant are significantly reduced. 

Next to that, it is very important to keep investing in the personal growth of our consultants and the constant training of both their hard and soft skills. We organize monthly training and workshops based on the different needs and notice that the attendance rate keeps on rising. 

One of our top priorities to increase the retention level, is community building. The events we organize make a difference here and give our engineers an extra dimension that makes their experience at Catalay unique. 

We strongly believe that the combination of career development, more suitable projects to keep it challenging, and a strong community focus is the best possible way to work towards a higher retention of our engineers.

Written by Leendert Coene

Talent Manager at Catalay