How do you recruit, retain, and support your talent so that your business grows?

That’s the focus of our three-part video series moderated by Jeremy Spidell, the director of client engagement at Truist Leadership Institute.

Part 1: Recruitment strategies for today’s tough talent market

In part one, “Let’s talk. Talent recruitment,” you’ll hear Spidell talk with Will Sutton, president and director of Truist Leadership Institute. Sutton has been helping nurture and develop better leaders for more than 20 years—both inside and outside of Truist.

Sutton starts the segment with his thoughts on how the reasons that people come to a job are intertwined with the reasons they stay at a job.

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Jeremy Spidell: Will, do you think that people come to a job for the same reason they stay at a job?

Will Sutton: These two are intertwined with each other. I think the reason that people come to a job is because of the pay, the role, and the promise of what they think they're going to get out of that position. The reason they stay, though, it actually comes in to be the culture they work in, the people they work with, and ultimately the fulfillment that they get out of that role.

And that last part, the culture and the people and the fulfillment, that ultimately becomes your brand, your employment brand out in the marketplace. And so what happens is people are drawn to you because they begin to understand what that reputation is, and they understand that out in the community.

So for example, within Truist, we want part of our employment brand to be we're creating a radically caring organization. And that means we put our employees and our teammates, as we call them, in the center of everything we do. We try to create a place where diversity, belonging, and inclusion are really important to us. And we also have this thing called the Truist Leadership Institute, which is very unique among financial services companies. 

And one of the things that we talk about at the Leadership Institute is our definition of leadership, which is really this idea of we're going to create an environment that inspires others to do great work. And when we're able to do that, you create this long-term value proposition for your teammates and your employees, which will make them want to stay with you and recruit others to your company.

Jeremy: It really sounds like it's a full-circle thing. They're coming for a certain set of reasons, and then they're staying for another. But then if you're doing all of that well, you're going to attract new people, and it's going to be this full-on cycle.

Will: That's right.

Jeremy: Keith, I want to hear from you on this, and talk to us a little bit about what has been the ROI on investing in leadership development.

Keith Middleton: The numbers. I mean, people talk about it. It costs a lot more to hire somebody than retain them. And we have not only a consulting business, but we also have an executive search practice. And when you can't find people, it's expensive to hire recruiters versus taking those same dollars, keeping that historical knowledge of the company, train them, develop them, give them the soft skills, the technical skills, run the numbers from a fully loaded cost of how much time it takes to hire somebody and onboard them versus giving them some training and development.

Jeremy: Absolutely. We had a client that came to us and said, we want to develop our people, and particularly their mid-level of managers. We had done a lot of work with them at the top of their house, their senior executives, their C-suite. They said, we got this new group that we—first of all—we want to train them. We want to develop them and then help them understand what leadership is and why it matters. 

But secondly, when we're out there recruiting, when we're on the recruiting path against our competition, we want to be able to say to them in the interview process, here's what we're going to do to develop you. This is the process, not a flash in the pan.

This whole thing, engagement, was about 12 months, with different programs and executive coaching and a lot of things bundled together. And so far, we found that has been a great retention tool and something that they are actively using in their ability to try to promote their brand out in the marketplace to recruit people.

Will: Yes. I would just say the war for talent is real. And what I would recommend that business leaders do every day is re-recruit your employees. Make them feel as special today, 10 years into their career with you, as you made them feel 10 minutes into their career. It really does go a long way, and that retention is going to be a factor as we go forward. 

The reason that people come to a job is the pay, the role, and the promise of what they think they’re going to get out of that position.
Will Sutton
Truist Leadership Institute

Part 2: Six proven ways to retain and engage talent

In part two, “Let’s talk. Talent retention and engagement,” Jenni Marsh adds her perspective. Marsh is the director of consulting for Truist Leadership Institute. Her specialties are executive coaching, talent development, and helping teams and leaders successfully navigate change. This video includes her explanation of the six main drivers of employee engagement: clarity, control, competence, connectedness, fairness, and importance.

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Jeremy Spidell: Let's jump into some retention. All right, so it's a difficult landscape out there right now. It's been a little choppy over the last few years, I think is a fair assessment. So, Will, what do you think is the current landscape for businesses who are trying to keep their best talent?

Will Sutton: You know, I think we have shifted from—a year, year-and-a-half ago, we were talking about the great resignation or the big quit. It went by all kinds of different things, quiet quitting. There was all sorts of things there.

I read a really interesting article1 recently, which really rang home for me. And it was this idea of, yes, the great resignation is behind us, but now we are moving into the forever labor shortage. And it's really around this idea of, as baby boomers are starting to retire in droves, they didn't produce as many children as the generations before. And so these employees are not there anymore. And so, as a way forward, it's going to be harder and harder to find new employees. And so it becomes really critical that you retain the ones that you have and that you spend a good deal of time talking to those employees and getting in front of them and working on those retention strategies. Jenni, I know you and I were having a conversation about this just the other day. 

Jenni Marsh: Yeah. Yeah, people want a long-term and want sustainable reasons to engage in organizations. And for some people, that's about belonging. They want to come to a place where they're cared for and they feel like they belong. For others, they want to be developed. And they want to know that they can grow in their career and flourish. And for others, it's removing roadblocks so that they can achieve unbelievable results. They want to produce. The organizations that we work with often first think a quick hit or a flash in the pan, things that make people happy, are engagement. And what we encourage is more sustainable policies or processes that people can attach to over time. And it's not just a quick fix, a quick hit that fades away with time.

Will: Jenni, I love that because we're talking about creating a long-term value proposition for our employees. In today's world, it is really important that everybody understand their purpose, as well as what the organization's purpose is and how those two mesh together, how my purpose serves the greater organization and how the organization's purpose serves my needs and wants personally. So it's really important. And to get to that point where you've got those two purposes are in total harmony, that's where you've got an employee that's typically on fire for what they do and what they do for you as their employer.

Jeremy: Awesome. Yeah. So, Keith, I mean, this is part of your business. This is part of something that you all consult people on. And it's also something that clearly you've done well at Fahrenheit. You've got 140 employees now. So what are you seeing as a leader that has helped Fahrenheit's retention or even some of the clients that you work with?

Keith Middleton: Yes, from day one it was about brand and culture. And we didn't focus on why. We didn't focus on strategy. We just focused on growth. And so we have really seen a huge difference in recruiting and retention, of getting the team on board of why we're there, and another one it's community.

Pay is important, but how are you engaged in the community has really bubbled up more so than ever. Through this labor market, we've been able to successfully hire and retain, but that has come back with feedback of what's my career path, where am I heading, what's the development? It's a must-have now.

And probably the last place that helped us in the tight labor market is we call work-life integration. We all know that life comes to work, and sometimes work goes in life. And so we give our employees the flexibility to deal with life, to engage life, and I think that actually has been huge the last couple of years.

Jeremy: Yeah, it's something that we are all continuing to adapt to and figure out and make strategies around. So good on you for making those commitments to your people and to your process.

Jenni, you've worked with a lot of our clients on retention, on engagement, which is pretty lengthy, right. If you're engaged, good chance you're going to be retained. When you start the disengagement, the pull-back process, that's when other things get in motion. So how do you feel like engagement fits into this whole narrative

Jenni: At the Leadership Institute, we study engagement. In fact, we understand that there are six drivers of engagement. And they are clarity, control, competence, connectedness, fairness, and importance. Understanding these is key.

The first one is clarity. And when we think about clarity, that’s really about role clarity. People know exactly why they’re here, what they’re about, and change certainty. Change is a part of our lives now. And so the more that we can do to provide some clarity during change, it really helps with engagement—to keep engagement strong.

The second of these is about control. And when we talk about control, we think about autonomy. Do I have the space around me, the ability to do what I need to do? You talked about this, Keith, as you transition from this CEO mentality to bringing a team together. How can you empower them with autonomy and growth clarity that you instill confidence in them, that you're going to invest in them, and they're going to be able to grow and flourish in their career?

The third engagement driver that we love to look at and help people understand is competence. And competence, as we talk about it, is related to job fit. Primarily is this a good fit for me, the skills, and abilities, and passion that I bring? And also is the challenge right? I don't want to be too comfortable. I don't want to be stretched too far, but that tension needs to be something that engages me.

The fourth driver we study is connectedness. This is all about relationships. So do I have trust and support with my leader? Do I share that in an ongoing way with my team? So teams at their best, teams that form places and cultures where people want to come, and stay, and grow, and flourish, have diversity of thought, and they know how to respect it in a way that produces results at a high level.

The fifth driver is fairness. And we think about fairness really as it relates to pay and also work allocation. It's really important that people understand how that works and that they see it as fair. So how can we help people understand the process to distribute work, not this person gets all the interesting work or the work that people see, but this is how it's distributed. It's fair, and equitable, and pay is as well.

And the last driver that we study is importance. That might seem like am I important, but we really understand that as a connection to values. You talked about purpose earlier, Will, and this is really all about importance is, what's important to me, my values, is that evident in the work that I'm doing? Is there congruence between the work that I do and the things that are important to me, and what this company wants to produce, and the results that we want ultimately? So these drivers, as you can see, are not quick kind of things that we can implement, but knowing the strength of these drivers and the areas where we can invest is really important.

People want long-term, sustainable reasons to engage in organizations.
Jenni Marsh
Truist Leadership Institute

Part 3: The role of leadership training in talent retention

Part three, “Let’s talk. Leadership,” provides a window into the world of Fahrenheit Advisors, a business consulting company. Here, co-founder Keith Middleton shares how leadership training helped his company expand from a small group of contractors to a strong team of more than 140 consultants nationwide—and grow its revenue and reach.

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Keith Middleton: Thanks for everybody for coming in today, kicking off our leadership team meeting. Ground rules, everybody has a say, no stupid questions. We kind of kick off to—are you here? Is your head here? If it is, great. If not, share.

Unnamed speaker 1: Totally here.

Unnamed speaker 2: I'm all here.

Unnamed speaker 3: I'm all in.

Jeremy Spidell: All in, as well. I've got a few things going on at home that are, like, knocking on the door a bit, but I'm dialed into this, and I'll make space for that later.

Keith: Obviously, anything we can do, let us know.

Jeremy: OK.

Unnamed speaker 4: I'm about 80% here, and also 10% at my pickleball game today.

Keith: Fahrenheit was founded by Rich Reinecke and myself in 2010. It was just the two of us, making all the decisions, running the business, a very flat organization. Didn't focus on leadership development, didn't focus on employee development overall. We just hired senior-level people, focused on growth, and eventually potentially a sale.

And then, one day, kind of heading into our 10-year anniversary, we sat back and said, what do we want to be? Do we want to be a lifestyle business? Do we want to push the pedal down? We said, push the pedal down. And with that, we knew that the two of us could scale the business, but we couldn't scale it to where we wanted to go.

And so with that, we said, we need a leadership team. And pulled together members, really practiced leaders, key people in the firm. And said, all right, let's put together a leadership team and start focusing on leadership development.

We really did a deep dive into the gaps—where were we, where would we want to go? Both from how we were running the company, as individuals, a team. And then, really strategy.

So we walked out of there with really three key takeaways that has transformed the company. One is a formal strategy—Rich and I were just kind of running the company and going where our clients took us. And so having a formal strategy that we could have the leadership team, but then all of our employees get behind—understand, clarity, where are we going, how are we going to get there—was a game changer.

The second thing was walking out of there with more work to do on the leadership team itself. And what that gave us was some common language. You know, it gave us some standard agendas that we still use today. And really, how do we continually improve that team?

And then, lastly, the relationships we have amongst the leadership team are deep.

Unnamed speaker 5: The rest of it—

Keith: We went through an assessment around motives, both as a team, but then a deeper dive as it relates to myself and how that plays out in my leadership. And an example of that is, you're kind of performance-driven, people-driven, or kind of facts and processes, and I'm kind of in the middle. And so from a leadership team perspective, it gave us this common language to figure out, OK, what's their motive? Where are they coming from? This person is really about performance and this person is really about people—how do you bridge that from a leadership perspective?

And probably the last thing, I walked out of there with a leadership purpose. And for me, it was to truly seek to understand and empower people. I thought I listened, but I didn't really understand. And I thought I empowered people, but I found out I empowered them if they did it the way I wanted to. And so, it was really walking out of there really powerful from helping me be a leader and run the company.

Jeremy: Yeah, so—Keith—I mean, this is something that clearly you've done well at Fahrenheit. You've got 140 employees now. So what are you seeing as a leader that has helped Fahrenheit's retention, or even some of the clients that you work with?

Keith: Yeah, so Rich and I spent from day one, it was about brand and culture. And so this transition through the leadership team, and really diving into more culture, employee engagement, and really coming up, what's the purpose? Early on, we didn't focus on why we, didn't focus on strategy, we just focused on growth.

And so we have really seen a huge difference in recruiting and retention—of getting the team on board of why we're there. And it leads to a lot of—from our perspective—another one, it's community. We're seeing workers—pay is important, but how are you engaged in the community has really bubbled up more so than ever.

Leadership development, employee development, creating a career path is a must-have now. Through this labor market, we've been able to successfully hire and retain, but that has come back with feedback of what's my career path? Where am I heading? What's the development?

And then, pulling it all together is kind of that strategy—like having a purpose, but then having a strategy, where is the business going, and connecting it to the purpose of why you're there—those are kind of the key areas. And probably the last place that we've worked with since day one. But it helped us in the tight labor market, as we call work-life integration.

And so good or bad, not balanced, because we all know that life comes to work, and sometimes work goes in life. And so we give our employees the flexibility to deal with life, to engage life. And I think that actually has been huge the last couple of years. 

Thanks to everybody for coming, appreciate it. Have a good rest of your day.

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

Can't help you there. Oh—

We talked about—

Thank you.

See you.

See you.

Thank you. Good job.

Good job.

Thank you. Thank you.

We have really seen a huge difference in terms of recruiting and retention.
Keith Middleton
Fahrenheit Advisors

Meet the panelists

Jeremy Spidell

Jeremy Spidell
MSW, LCSW
Director of Client Engagement
Truist Leadership Institute

Spidell oversees client development, marketing, and branding for Truist Leadership Institute. Spidell previously worked in the mental health field as a therapist, and co-owned and operated Bluezoom, an advertising and marketing firm.

Will Suttan

Will Sutton
President and Director
Truist Leadership Institute

Sutton is a passionate corporate learning and development professional with over two decades of experience. Under his direction, Truist Leadership Institute has dramatically increased the size and scope of its offerings and opened its world-class learning facility, the Kelly S. King Center, in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Jenni Marsh

Jenni Marsh
Director of Consulting
Truist Leadership Institute

Marsh brings a passion for leveraging self-awareness to challenge individuals and teams to grow. Marsh previously worked in the health care sector, leading at the team, departmental, and executive levels. She also served as faculty for the UNC Health Care System Leadership Academies.

Keith Middleton

Keith Middleton
Co-Managing Partner and Co-Founder
Fahrenheit Advisors

Middleton is a member of the leadership team for Fahrenheit Advisors, a mid-market advisory firm specializing in management consulting, business operations, and growth—and a Truist client since 2019. Middleton’s prior executive positions include CFO of a $6 billion foodservice distributor and senior vice president–corporate controller for a Fortune 500 company.

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