High-Performing Employee Retention Strategies for Cybersecurity Employees

Reduce the Impact of Staff Turnover With Six Simple Tactics

The Covid pandemic has created a perfect storm working against employee retention in cybersecurity.

We’re still witnessing the effects of the Great Resignation ─ and there seems to be no let-up in sight. People are still leaving jobs for a better work/life balance and greater job satisfaction.

Meanwhile, research from Accenture and the Ponemon Institute has found that 70% of business leaders believe the risk of cybercrime against their companies is increasing.

You can’t afford your cybersecurity talent to walk when the risk to your business is so high. And that’s before considering the cost to replace a highly valued employee ─ found to be between one-half to two times an employee’s salary.

Poor retention of cybersecurity staff puts your business at risk and costs a significant amount of time and money.

The answer? Embed the following employee retention strategies in your overarching business strategy.

Offer Competitive Salaries

You should always know what to be paying your employees. You risk losing your best employees if you offer uncompetitive compensation, and the cost of losing a staff member is much more than you save when lowballing on pay.

How do you know you’re underpaying relative to the market? Look at your employee turnover. If that’s been rising, it could be the salaries you pay that is the underlying issue. Regular checking of what other employers are paying should be on your company’s HR tasks list. Don’t rely on notoriously inaccurate salary surveys. You or your Human Resources teams should speak to specialists in that particular market.

Run a Cheerful Workplace

Stress at work is another reason for people moving on. And there are some common reasons why people feel stressed at work, including:

  • Friction within the team
  • Poor leadership and management
  • The burden of bureaucracy
  • High workload

The signs of dissatisfaction in the workplace can be seen at both an individual and team level and include:

  • Increased absenteeism
  • Reducing productivity
  • A higher rate of errors and accidents

If any of this sounds familiar to you, then you must act fast before employees start to leave (perhaps they already have)….. Once this starts, you could be in the middle of a vicious cycle. Fewer people on the team means more work for the people left. Please speak to your staff and encourage them to tell it like it is. Demonstrate actions following their feedback, and where possible, try providing them with more of what they like and less of what they don’t enjoy.

Ensure Opportunities for Personal Growth

The best people in cybersecurity jobs are continually seeking progression. They are self-starters, natural learners, and highly motivated to succeed. They will likely leave if they feel stagnated or stifled in their personal development.

Managers play a crucial role here. In one-to-ones, a manager should strive to learn about an employee’s goals and create career development plans to help individuals achieve these. A word of warning: promises must be delivered.

Improve Work/Life Balance

Time away from the office (even if that’s a home office) is essential to everyone. Cybersecurity is intense work, and professionals in the industry need time to unwind and relax. They need time to do the things they enjoy most and to spend quality time with family and friends.

Be mindful of your people’s desire to have a life. Please get to know them and be more flexible to fit in with their home life and routines. Consider if working from home permanently or part of the week could be an option ─ it’s a crucial factor in today’s market.

Hire the Right Cybersecurity Professionals

Do you know what can boost employee retention in cybersecurity teams? Hiring the right people and hiring with retention in mind. What do we mean by this?

It’s crucial to hire not only for technical prowess now but also for where they want to take their skills in the future. Hire for their ability to learn new skills and take people on with room to grow, not just adding value today. You must also understand what candidates desire most from a job in your organization. You can design cybersecurity jobs that will attract exceptionally talented candidates who are least likely to seek new opportunities with your competitors as soon as they dangle higher compensation.

Be Prepared for Employees to Leave

When you design a cybersecurity strategy, it intends to prevent any successful attack on the business. However, no matter how good your plan is, we all know it’s impossible to be 100% secure and still run a working business. With that in mind, we always develop a strategy to recover from a disaster.

You should take the same approach to employee retention in the cybersecurity space. The tactics outlined here will help you retain staff, but you should also be prepared if they leave. It’s good business continuity planning and where developing a partnership with Tiro Security will pay dividends.

We help our clients protect their businesses from cyber threats and the threat of their best people leaving. We help companies to reduce cybersecurity costs and recruit smarter in a candidate-driven market. What sets us apart is we also provide solutions across the spectrum of staffing and consultancy services, so we understand your program.

To discuss how we can help you to hire and retain staff more effectively, or to discuss any of your cybersecurity needs, contact Tiro Security.

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