Tips To Retain Your Talent During The Great Reorientation

Nearly three in four (72%) CMOs agree that marketing is critical to their company’s growth strategy. So shouldn’t retaining your marketing talent be critical too?

If your answer is yes, you must act quickly—almost a quarter (23%) of CHROs think marketing and sales will have the most significant talent gap in the next year. And if you want to maintain or accelerate your position in the market, retention will be hypercritical.

To do that, you’ll need to lead the way in what HR experts are dubbing, The Great Reorientation. Forbes Senior Editor, Jena McGregor, defines this next phase as “an inflection point when an economic downturn could reshape which organizations survive and which ones fall behind, and test their investments in talent development.”

We looked to McGregor and the senior HR experts at Forbes’ recent event, Building The Workforce Of The Future and at Forbes Proprietary Research, to draw three tips on how to retain your marketing talent in the days ahead.

Doubledown > Downsize

Yes, a recession may be coming. But, at the same time, “it doesn’t look like the United States has ever had a recession where we walked in with this much of a labor shortage,” Rachel Romer Carlson, co-founder and CEO of Guild Education, pointed out at Building The Workforce Of The Future.

What will this mean for marketing teams? While marketing budgets are often the first to go (ad spending in the U.S. dropped by 13% in the aftermath of the 2008 recession), this time may be different, and for a good reason. Several studies—from the 1920s to now—highlight the advantages of maintaining (or even increasing) ad budgets during a weakened economy.

Rather than downsizing, you could see doubling down on your marketing as a competitive advantage by keeping your marketing team engaged. And engagement has a significant impact on retention—highly engaged employees are 87% less likely to leave an employer.

Retaining your marketing talent will save you money as an extra perk. For one, lack of engagement can cost your company up to $550 billion annually (including everything from low productivity to high turnover). And when you look more specifically at employee turnover costs, replacing a salaried employee can range between six and nine months of their salary.

Subscribe to Forbes Connections, the the go-to digest for data-driven marketers and creative storytellers who want to better connect with their target audiences—brought to you by Forbes Content & Design Studio.

Lead With Learning & Development

Upskilling your marketing team is key to your talent retention strategy. Data shows that 76% of employees are more likely to stay with a company that offers continuous training, and 55% say they need additional training to perform better in their roles.

Thankfully, this aligns with C-suite intentions. According to Forbes research, expanding the marketing team’s skill-set is one of CMOs top marketing focus areas over the next two years. CHROs are on the same page and plan to prioritize investing in new platforms for e-learning and external training (40%) and focus on developing employees’ soft skills over the next year (39%).

So, how do we move forward? According to Verizon CHRO Samantha Hammock, who spoke at Forbes’ Building The Workforce Of The Future, it’s important to experiment. “A lot of times, we wait until we try to get things perfect, or we can do them at a grand scale,” she said. “We don’t always need to do that to make a massive impact.”

“My advice is do it—even if you’re going to start small.”

Another tip from Obed Louissaint, the senior vice president for culture and transformation at IBM, is to avoid trying to build too much internally. “You can burn a lot of time trying to build content when the content already exists,” he said.

Communicate, Communicate, Communicate

Turbulent times may be ahead, and communication with your team is key. As a marketer, you already know that transparency is vital. (But, as a refresher, remember that more than 90% of consumers say transparency by a brand is important to their purchase decisions.)

So if you’re prioritizing transparency with consumers, why not to your teams?

What you don’t want to happen is for your marketing talent to look for other roles because they are unsure of what’s coming next at your company. While The Great Reorientation unfolds, you have an opportunity to retool your internal communication strategy to keep your people in the know—and the company.

Watch The Replay: Building The Workforce Of The Future

Storyteller Spotlight

How you bring people together matters, and Webex by Cisco understands that challenge.

The company behind a top enterprise solution for videoconferencing wanted to lead the conversation on the future of hybrid work, and they partnered with Forbes to launch an award-winning thought leadership program built on Forbes’ credibility and C-level reach.

The multi-platform program included a virtual event series, custom branded content, a custom-designed hub, digital display ads, animated videos and social amplification. Each campaign element put a spotlight on Cisco’s expertise in key hybrid workforce topics—from blended workforces to using tech to embrace inclusivity.

The astounding reach of the campaign was one thing, but who it reached mattered most. Chief executives from industry-leading brands, including IBM, FedEx, Well Fargo and Macy’s, all engaged with the content. Data also showed that more than 3 in 5 readers had management roles as directors or higher.

Tack on digital ads targeting C-suite and tech influencers (with interaction rates 5x higher than industry averages), and you’ve got yourself a brand that successfully used thought leadership to lead a conversation on the future of work with their ideal audience.

Dive deeper into the work: The Future Of Collaboration & Remote Work

Top 6 Reads You Can’t-Miss

1. What do front-line workers want? Higher pay and more training
2. A guide for CEOs and CMOs on entering the cultural conversation
3. Leaders call on CFOs to rethink the value of marketing in a recession
4. World Youth Skills Day shines a light on the world’s great resource
5. These are the 5 types of talent behind The Great Resignation
6. Well, well, well, the girlboss era may be over forever

Virtual To-Do List

Partner with Forbes

Cross-platform content solutions that deliver

The Forbes Content & Design Studio is the in-house creative team responsible for producing and distributing award-winning content solutions—across digital, video, social and print—that help brands connect to their target audience. Reach out today to see how our award-winning team can craft stunning content uniquely tailored to your brand’s strategy.

Subscribe now to get you these insights in your inbox each month, and let us know what topics you want us to cover next.