Hiring in infrastructure and utilities is not easy, the demand for skills far outweighs the supply and most employees are open to considering new opportunities even if they’re not actively looking to move. The result is that it’s becoming harder to retain top talent. The question is: What can companies do about this?

The default is usually to offer more money in the form of a counteroffer when resignations happen. The problem is that this is often too late. Employees have already gone through the motions of interviews and considering outside offers. Dangling a carrot of more money rarely is enough to get them to stay. By that stage, there’s usually more to their move than earning more. Here are our three takeaways for companies looking to retain top talent:

Engage

Understand what’s important to employees. Whether it’s promotion and learning opportunities or flexible working, each person has their own idea of an ideal working environment. Sometimes it aligns with an existing company culture, but usually its employees compromising on what they really want for the sake of company policies. Then when other opportunities come up that may be a better fit it makes it easier for them to walk away. By engaging with employees, companies can adapt to create a working environment that makes an employee feel valued.

Reward

It’s not always about money, but companies should be aware of industry related salaries. Employees will think twice about moving if it’s hard to match or improve what they’re already earning. Equally if they have a flexible working environment in which to operate in or a fair amount of autonomy, there’s less chance they’ll feel that work could be better elsewhere. Rewards can have many forms but it’s always about valuing the input that employees provide.

Promote

Having a culture that promotes internally creates an incentive for employees to be more engaged. Promotion can also be about providing learning opportunities and helping employees to gain skills and experience that support their career progression. When employees know that they can gain this from a company it’s an incentive to stay.

If your first thought is that all of these suggestions have a price tag attached, you’d be correct. But when you count the cost of lost expertise, hiring costs and lost revenue while a replacement is found and gets up to speed, you’ll discover it’s worth it.