With a common focus on identifying and attracting top talent, the importance of retaining people is often overlooked. In the Japanese energy market competition for talent is increasing, the types of hiring companies are diversifying and the opportunity for high potential talent to significantly increase their market value with strategic moves is higher than ever before.

Hiring companies need to consider and implement a clear retention strategy from the start. This includes working style and benefits packages, longer term incentives designed to increase retention, visibility for career growth and most critically, a healthy workplace culture where employees feel valued and respected.

The market here is small, and people talk. In the past few months, we’ve seen multiple cases of one or two key people leaving a toxic organization, and within a very short period of time a mass exodus follows. When it comes to retention, prevention is better than a cure. 

The pull factor, temptation from the outside

Why do people pay north of a million JPY for a Rolex or Louis Vuitton bag? Is the quality ten times better than a product that costs a hundred thousand JPY? Of course not, however scarcity drives up prices. Various job functions within the energy industry are either relatively new, or have an outsized impact on the success of an organization. These are the main areas where we see talent scarcity driving up hiring prices:

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