Most companies report losing top talent this year

Houston Business Journal – by Ashley Furness, Austin Business Journal

Date: Tuesday, July 26, 2011, 2:14pm CDT

 

Despite the lagging job market, 75 percent of employers reported involuntarily losing their most high-performing employees this year.

A new ManpowerGroup survey showed just 13 percent of respondents saying their most-valued staff stuck around in the last 12 months. The workforce solutions company polled 268 firms nationally between June and July.

“We found that most organizations are finding it tough to hold onto their best people even when there are relatively few job openings,” said Tony Rogers, a talent management practice leader for Right Management, a Manpower division.

“There’s a furious war for top talent under way, constant poaching of high performers by competing companies and, overall, a very restive workforce.”

The trend is a significant increase from last year’s report when just 54 percent of companies said high-performing workers left. About 12 percent in the poll this year said they didn’t know if they lost top talent.

“Top talent always has employment options. They’ll usually find some place that they feel appreciates what they bring,” Rogers said.

Houston-area unemployment jumped to 9 percent in June from 8.2 percent a month earlier, despite job gains in all but two industries tracked by the Texas Workforce Commission.