FOSTER A CULTURE OF BELONGING In today’s climate of remote work, poaching happens with greater ease and far fewer warning signs. Tech giants can recruit your employees anytime, anywhere. Employee retention has to be an ongoing effort rather than an isolated battle. Facebook recently announced plans to reach a 50% remote workforce in the next ten years. Similarly, Google and Twitter made it clear that the nature of work at their companies will not return to the way things were pre-pandemic. As these companies continue to expand and remote operations improve, more and more people will take remote positions. An increasing number of companies will gladly shift to pay structures that compensate employees based on their local cost of living, creating an even bigger push to hire outside of Silicon Valley. For companies outside of hub cities, that means their top talent is likely to be targeted by recruiters. In Nashville, Amazon announced that the average employee salary would be $150,000, more than double the city’s annual average salary of $63,856. The ability to out-pay competitors, combined with the prestige of a big name, makes tech giants particularly appealing to workers. Your best defense is one that highlights your unique culture rather than trying to fight a (losing) financial battle. Cultivating a desirable culture goes far beyond stocking your office with snacks or adding another ping pong table to the break room.
Amazon’s HQ in Seattle
RECOGNIZE THE RISKS You can’t properly defend your castle if you don’t know your enemy. The best first step to prevent poaching is to understand the risks and identify your biggest threats. The majority of talent poaching happens between tech giants, with companies like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Facebook swapping thousands of employees each year. If you’re not one of those companies, mass poaching often happens when one of these giants opens or expands offices in your area. In 2018, Amazon announced plans to establish Nashville as its East Coast logistics hub and hire 5,000 jobs. According to Amazon executive Jay Carney, the company starts with local talent everywhere they go. In Nashville, where a significant amount of tech training initiatives points to the lack of available tech talent, “starting local” means recruiting employees from local companies. As tech giants expand, the already tight job market becomes even tighter. Your first line of defense against mass poaching efforts starts by tracking the moves these companies are making. Amazon, for example, continues to expand in Dallas, Denver, Detroit, New York, Phoenix, and San Diego, as well as several more cities outside of the U.S. Other major corporations are taking advantage of the lack of income tax in places like Texas and Florida. Their major cities are experiencing a massive tech boom despite the economic strain of the pandemic. Preparing for big industry moves like these can help protect against mass poaching, but you need to go beyond reading the local business news to retain employees.
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