4 tips for attracting and retaining top talent in 2025

Attracting and retaining top talent: Key insights

• Ensure your employees are fairly compensated with competitive salary and benefits packages.
• Consider your wider employee value proposition (EVP) and evaluate what your organisation offers its employees beyond remuneration.
• Establish a culture of learning and development by offering opportunities for upskilling and reskilling.
• Expand your horizons when it comes to flexible working policies – consider how you can create a better work-life balance for your employees and encourage applications from undiscovered talent groups.
   

Background to attracting and retaining top talent

The start of a new year is the perfect time for reflection at work: looking back on last year’s successes and planning for the year ahead. Reviewing your organisation’s talent management strategy should be high on the agenda, especially with many businesses in Ireland facing issues with skills shortages and talent retention. As a response to ongoing talent management challenges, many companies have instated new positions like heads of talent acquisition and heads of talent retention.

Since people are at the centre of any successful business, we’ve compiled our four top talent management tips to help your organisation thrive in 2025:
 

1. Ensure you are offering competitive salary and benefits packages

Offering competitive salary and benefits packages is the single most effective way to attract and retain top talent. While it shouldn’t be the sole focus of your talent management strategy, our research shows that salaries remain the main reason professionals in Ireland would change roles. Ensure your wages are comparable to other organisations within your industry. Resources like our Salary & Recruiting Trends guide, a survey of over 1,000 employers across Ireland, and our salary benchmarking services can provide useful insights for your organisation to ensure fair remuneration for your employees.

Beyond base salaries, you can also reward your employees with bonuses and benefits packages, including additional annual leave and private medical cover. Over 10% more organisations offered bonuses in the last 12 months compared to the previous year, according to our guide, and this demonstrates how businesses are adapting to retain professionals in a talent-short market.
 

2. Evaluate your wider employee value proposition

Moving beyond salaries, professionals have shown that they want to work for organisations that have an attractive overall employee value proposition (EVP). Having a strong organisational purpose, clear pathways for career progression, a diverse and inclusive culture, and a defined commitment to sustainability are a few key ways to enhance your EVP for both current employees and future candidates.

Make it clear to both an internal and external audience what your organisational objectives are, beyond profit, and how your business aims to have a positive impact on the wider community. Evidence of a strong organisational purpose is important to 85% of Irish professionals when applying for a new role so it’s crucial that your company’s mission is effectively communicated. Similarly, professionals want to see proven sustainability credentials and evidence of a diverse and inclusive culture in the organisation they are applying to, and failure to meet these criteria could result in losing top talent to your competitors.
 

3. Offer upskilling opportunities in your organisation

A staggering 92% of organisations in Ireland have faced skills shortages over the past year, so upskilling will need to be a central focus of your talent management strategy. By hiring professionals with an enthusiasm for learning, you can create a pipeline of talent that want to adapt to the demands of your organisation. As well as addressing skills gaps, a focus on upskilling in your organisation will be attractive to professionals looking for opportunities for training and career progression in their next role.
 

4. Make sure your working policies are as flexible as possible

Many organisations already have hybrid working policies in place, but the consensus from professionals is that they want a more flexible approach to work. Are you able to adjust your working policies to allow employees to choose the days that they’re in the workplace or provide part-time and flexible working options? With 62% of Irish professionals saying they would be tempted to move roles if they could choose how often they were in the workplace, flexible working shouldn’t be overlooked in your talent management discussions for the year ahead.
 

Attracting and retaining top talent in 2025: next steps for your organisation

If you want to hit the ground running in 2025, take the time to review your organisation’s talent management strategy and consider how you can better meet the needs of your employees. Remunerating your staff with competitive salary and benefits packages is at the heart of attracting and retaining top talent, but don’t neglect other factors like company culture, learning and development opportunities, and flexible working.

To find out more about the talent management trends impacting your industry, access our latest Ireland Salary & Recruiting Trends guide today.