Tips for Attracting and Retaining Talent


The Attraction & Retention of Talent panel at the 2024 NIBA Convention talked about some tried and true practices as well as new innovations


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The Attraction & Retention of Talent panel at the 2024 NIBA Convention talked about some tried and true practices as well as new innovations. Tom Wheeler, Associate at Lockton was the host of the panel which included Nese Akay, Executive General Manager, Strategy and Innovation, CBN; Josh Del Rio, Co-founder and CEO, Ploomo; and Lynette Walsh, Queensland State Director at Aon. 

Key considerations to retain talent mentioned by the panel included: 

  • Ensure that the onboarding and training experience is well organised 

  • Involve employees in decisions about change, innovations, and community work 

  • Have open discussions about short-term and long-term career goals 

  • Give employees a purpose and the freedom to work out how they are going to achieve their own goals 

  • Cross-company experiences such as graduate pathways could be great for new employees too       

  • Have more conversations on the topics that promote engagement 

  • Check-in on long-term employees to see if their priorities have changed, and if they have, discuss what can be done to accommodate them.   

Recruitment Tips 

The panellists concluded with their top recruitment tip: 

Nese Akay: “Focus on the experience for the employee from the beginning to the end because by creating a great experience you've created an advocate, and they will do wonders for the business.” 

Josh Del Rio: “All the way from your hiring, screening into the way you lead your team, develop the skill to learn what accountability looks like and find and encourage that. If use whatever tools and solutions you can to help you find and nurture accountability everything becomes easier.” 

Lynette Walsh: “As a leader or a hiring manager make sure that when you're sourcing candidates also look from within and really try to create a culture of sideways moves and rotations to gain those greater perspectives.” 

Tom Wheeler: “Not all Gen Zs are hard to work with.” 

Watch the session below  

You can watch the full video of the session below.