This talent toolkit shares best practices for hiring, reskilling and retention

Employees want to keep top talent, especially in the tech industry, where competition is fierce.

Reskilling is one method to do that: Technical.ly has previously reported on a few Philadelphia-area companies with training programs to teach tech companies’ existing employees the new skills they need to advance in their careers, including Power Home Remodeling and Linode.

It’s not just tech employers who should consider the importance of retention, though.

The Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia, with support from Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia and Philadelphia Works, released a toolkit on Wednesday to share best practices for hiring, and then keeping, employees. The 23-page document, “Talent Strategy Solutions to Hire, Upskill, and Retain Employees,” spotlights a few national and local companies working in each of those three categories.

PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Delaware River Waterfront’s Bittenbender Construction, LP, for instance, get shoutouts for their hiring and onboarding practices. BNP Paribas Cardif and the Navy Yard’s Rhoads Industries are noted for their upskilling and reskilling programs. Optimax Systems, Inc. and Delaware County’s Nolan Painting are called successful for retaining talent. (Each local company is a Chamber member, as is PwC.)

These spotlight sections also include quick tips for implementing similar strategies, such as encouraging employees to develop personal development plans and offering mentorship programs.

The smaller and mid-size companies were chosen to be highlighted so they can provide examples to the many similarly sized companies in the region. The resources for starting are potentially “lower-lift” options than would be required at, say, a corporation, said Patricia Day, the Chamber’s manager for leadership engagement.

Read the full report

The report was produced by the Chamber’s four-year-old Talent Action Team, which is made up of about 120 Chamber members to inform its work around talent development and attraction. This group also informed a 2018 report called “10 Ways to Retain Young Talent,” which looked at strategies companies can use to inspire millennial employees to stick around.

“Having a talented workforce is important to us across all of our initiatives at the Chamber,” Day said. The Talent Action Team and reports like this one are “making sure people have a sense of [trends] so we’re training for the right skills,” and contributing to a shorter fill time for open positions.

The report also shares some labor stats for the Greater Philadelphia region. The top 10 job postings by industry and occupation, respectively? Professional, scientific and technical services, and software development/engineer, respectively. Software developers also rank second in the report’s forecast for annual occupation shortfalls by number of employees, with a potential average gap of 310 jobs unfilled jobs.

Sounds like a good time to put those retention strategies to use.