Chances are, you already know that attracting and hiring the best-of-the-best to work for your nonprofit organization is key to success. But getting top talent to sign an offer letter and join your team is only part of the battle — convincing stellar employees to stick around is equally important.

In the day-to-day chaos of running an organization, especially with limited resources and a never-ending to do list, it can be all too easy to focus on putting out fires while neglecting the long-term investment in employee job satisfaction in the process. As a result, the initiatives that keep rock star employees engaged and motivated long term unfortunately often aren’t prioritized. But the consequences of losing a top performer can be devastating for an organization, so developing and implementing a solid retention strategy is well worth the effort.

With retention, it can be difficult to identify where to start, but there are specific, easy-to-implement strategies that can help keep top talent around for longer:

1. Recognize their worth. By the time an employee has given their resignation, it’s often too late to offer the raise that may have kept them with you longer. If employees feel under-compensated, other engagement initiatives aren’t going to be enough. To keep your top employees happy, conduct regular salary surveys to ensure you’re offering competitive financial incentives and total rewards that are at or above the market.

2. Conduct stay interviews. If you’re not sure if a key employee is planning to stick around, a simple solution is to ask them! Conducting stay interviews is an excellent way to keep up to date with employees’ future plans, and to identify and address any issues before they spur a departure.

3. Encourage learning. Keep star employees interested and engaged by encouraging opportunities for learning. Know what their goals are and find a way to help them reach those goals by investing in their professional development. Provide a professional development budget where feasible and offer paid time off for employees to expand their knowledge and gain new skills that relate to their work.

4. Show them the path. Keep employees motivated and help them visualize a career path with you by spelling out what the future with your organization could look like. Collaborate on a career plan for each of your top performers to support their growth with the organization and generate excitement for the future.

5. Play to their strengths. As a general rule, people like doing things they’re good at. Notice areas of strength and keep tabs on duties employees enjoy focusing on. Reward top performers by playing to their strengths and assigning tasks you know they’ll find interesting. Especially if salary increases are not an option, offering interesting and rewarding work projects can be an excellent incentive to stay with the organization.

6. Offer a two-way performance review. Solicit real, meaningful feedback during performance reviews. Top performers have great insight into your organization and asking them for their input is an excellent way to make them feel valued. Keep them invested in your mission and shake up the performance review process by offering a two-way review that provides employees with an opportunity to give feedback as well as receive it.

7. Encourage celebration. Create a tradition of recognizing and celebrating employee accomplishments. Recognition and appreciation at work are essential to employee engagement and retention, and celebrating excellence together is a great way to build your ideal culture and nurture a cohesive and collaborative team.

8. Conduct exit interviews. The reality is, most employees don’t stay with the same organization indefinitely. It’s inevitable that at some point, a key employee you really wanted to keep will leave. Mitigate the damage by conducting exit interviews to pin down why they’re leaving and prevent history from repeating itself in future.

The Takeaway? Retention strategies can be an excellent way to prevent costly turnover and help build excitement for the future! If you don’t have a retention plan in place, take the first step by scheduling a check-in with each of your top performers to talk about career growth opportunities with your organization.

Engaged HR transforms workplaces by providing essential human resource management services and expertise to non-profit organizations and small to medium-sized business. Whether you are building your start-up HR program, facing people-management challenges, or growing your business, Engaged HR will help you create a great place to work. www.EngagedHR.com