What Can You Do to Retain Top Executive Talent?

The future success of your company is largely dependent on the upper-level hires that you make. Here’s why.

Everywhere I go, I hear one thing: “It’s an incredibly tough market out there for top talent.” However, some companies can’t staff key positions because they can’t find good people to fill them. If you’re in this situation, listen up, because I’ve got some great ideas to help you recruit and retain top talent in your business.

To have a successful company, you can’t just have one talented person. There has to be talent across the board. The problem with talent is that it’s tough to find and it’s tough to keep. It’s one thing to provide competitive compensation and benefits, but the top management people are looking for more. They want to retire healthier than just a basic salary and a basic 401(k). They want to know that if they help your company grow, there is something in it for them.

These people want to build wealth, and you can’t do that these days with your basic 401(k) plan. This is why companies are developing special incentive plans to lure top management people away from companies like yours so they can get that talent to help their business grow.

Let’s say you have a company and a young family. Someday your kids might want to come into the business, but you don’t know yet. In the meantime, you want to have an executive management team on board to help you grow. One common question that’s asked about these employees is whether you should offer them stock or not. Having other stockholders can be challenging at times. What else can you do?

One thing we like to do is help companies set up unique incentive plans such as phantom stock plans. Phantom stock doesn’t dilute shares from you, but it does give executives the ability to build wealth, and when they get to retirement, they can cash it in for extra money.

Another thing you can do is set up stock appreciation rights. It basically says the stock is worth a certain amount, and we’ll value it again when you retire. Then we’ll take the difference between those two points, multiply that by the phantom shares you have, and provide a big bonus to you when you retire. You can also set up deferred compensation plans to build up wealth for your top executives who hit performance benchmarks.

Having plans like this in place helps people want to stay with you through retirement, which is the goal here.

The bottom line is that there are plenty of things you can do on top of the basic salary and benefits packages that everyone else is offering. It not only helps you ensure that people stay, but also helps you recruit more top talent to your business.

If you have any questions about this in the meantime or need any help, don’t hesitate to give me a call or send me an email. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

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