We’ve been talking a lot about the cost of turnover: the glaring $630 billion problem that drains our collective organizational budgets. And organizations whose leaders don’t see the value in growing “the care and resiliency of human workers” will suffer the lion’s share of that loss.

It’s no secret that talent retention saves money — when companies keep people happy, they’re loyal. They stay in the “work family,” year after year, even as recruiters reach out and shiny new job postings pop up on their feeds.

These veteran employees also help with internal marketing. Their tenure alone speaks volumes, and they’re great storytellers: about successes, lessons learned and evolution over time. (And 10-, 15- and even 20-year employee veterans tend to have some pretty colorful stories to share!)

Veteran employees have tribal knowledge, or an understanding of your organization’s shared purpose, mission, history and way of working. It’s a type of collective wisdom, and many veterans enjoy passing it down to new hires.

These four practices will help you keep that wisdom in house.

1.   Promote from Within

Want a litmus test for your organization’s professional development? Count how many junior employees move into management.

Through a combination of stretch assignments and support, today’s individual contributors can be upskilled to become tomorrow’s strongest managers. They’re quicker studies because they already have the tribal knowledge of their team’s opportunities and lessons learned.

Linda Fleming, chief operations officer at SweetRush, observes that managers who have risen within the ranks are much more likely to be successful. That’s because they know firsthand how to do the work and which pebbles (or boulders!) need to be cleared to do it efficiently and well.

In fact, these managers are 10% more likely to have highly productive teams, and their employees have higher morale. Promoting from within sends the powerful message that great work is seen and valued — which itself a great motivator.

2.   Future-prep Your People

Whether employees are looking to move into management or deepen their practice, their organizations have a responsibility to keep them skilled. Some leaders see the investment in learning as a liability: What if employees’ newfound knowledge makes them more competitive, and they take it elsewhere?

The desire to hold on to great talent is understandable. But locking people’s skills in limbo won’t help. As Richard Branson, Virgin Group’s founder, says: “Train people well enough so they can leave; treat them well enough so they don’t want to.”

Staying current in their fields ensures that employees have the tools to do their jobs, perform better and enjoy greater satisfaction. In fact, many view upskilling and reskilling as part of their benefits package.

Providing these opportunities is a key responsibility of an organization. Helping employees adapt to a constantly changing industry sustains both the business and the larger ecosystem. It also helps to elevate the conversation in our industry — and ensure a better talent pool. When organizations share a commitment to maintaining their people in a highly effective state, they can count on new hires bringing the necessary competencies with them. This “passport” helps employees transition seamlessly between organizations.

No one likes to lose good employees. But organizations build loyalty — and a much stronger talent market — when they make upskilling and reskilling part of their practice.

3.   Reskilling Over Redundancy

We’ve all laughed (or cried) at the memes of job postings demanding five years of experience in a brand new programming language. But programming isn’t the only field that changes too quickly for university degrees or certificate programs to keep pace.

In the old days, employees without up-to-date skills were let go — and replaced. Leaders viewed workers as a fixed commodity rather than a renewable source. There are a lot of problems with that view, especially as the pace of change has multiplied.

So much is in flux: from the ways energy is harnessed and consumed to where and how children attend school. Rather than letting our current employees fall behind, organizations need to support and reskill them so that they can create the technologies, processes and services of the future.

In short: Reskilling isn’t just the right thing to do: It’s also good for business.

Consider this scenario: A global technology company initially planned to lay off thousands of employees over the course of several years. Due to automation, these employees’ positions would be gradually phased out.

But the leadership team knew that talent hired and trained was a valuable resource —and wanted to invest in their people. Instead of laying these employees off, they chose to reskill them in three key areas: empathy, collaboration and critical thinking. Because these are foundational skills that can be applied to any new technology, system or problem, the reskilling helped people to prepare for new roles at the company.

And by reskilling current employees instead of recruiting new talent, the organization saved a great deal of money. The cost of termination, replacement, vacancy, and the new hire’s learning curve adds up to an average of $15,000 and can run much higher for specialized and senior roles. With thousands of jobs at stake, that number is life-changing — for the technology company and the employees involved.

Now for the best part: the human impact. Keeping those employees kept their families from falling into the spotty networks of unemployment and social services. It protected them from suffering food, housing and transportation insecurity. And by engaging their current employees as partners and co-creators of the future state, the organization secured their long-term engagement and loyalty.

Not least of all, reskilling benefits the industry — and not just by stemming the flood of applicants looking for work. Helping employees achieve a highly effective state upgrades the larger conversation and the talent pool (remember that passport?).

The bottom line: No human is redundant, so long as they’re willing to learn and grow.

4.  Be the Change

From school to work, people are questioning the institutions and systems that haven’t been working. They’ve had to scramble to find alternatives for everything from schooling to flour and, in the process, have gotten pretty good at doing things themselves.

But people also need support. After more than a decade of practice, the team at SweetRush knew how to work remotely. But working from home while schooling children — and sharing Wi-Fi — was something entirely new. When the pandemic struck, SweetRush workers had to reduce their workloads and adjust their schedules, and managers were playing the long game to retain their team members.

Maricruz Vicente, people operations lead, and Erin Krebs, director of client solutions at SweetRush, wanted to help parents. So, they conducted a survey asking employees about the number of children in their families, their ages and the impact that having them at home was having on their work, productivity and schedules.

And because 200-plus minds are better than two, they also asked about ideas for solutions. Out of that survey, two ambitious initiatives were born: BeKind and the Kids’ Program.

For BeKind, the guiding question was, “How might we leverage our in-house experts to help us connect and enjoy some of the in-person activities we miss?”

Through group fitness, yoga, meditation, life coaching and crafting workshops led by in-house experts, participants were able to connect safely and build community around hobbies and healthy habits.

The Kids’ Program started as a six-week parenting course with the guiding question of, “What else might we do to support parents?”.

Through a partnership with an educational center in Costa Rica that offered afternoon sessions to teach children cooking, storytelling, biology, art and pet care, SweetRush developed sessions that kept children occupied and engaged while freeing up parents’ time so they could focus on their work.

Businesses are in a unique position to drive social change. They’re also great places to prototype and test solutions to family and community needs.

But the shiniest, most impressive solution will sit on the shelf if it doesn’t fit people’s actual needs and lifestyles. Timing is everything, too: For example, both BeKind and Kids’ Program took a summer hiatus due to families’ travel plans, workloads and other priorities.

Structuring and managing a grassroots program may sound overwhelming, but it’s not so different from managing any other workplace program. And though a lunchtime skill share can survive without organizational funding or support, receptive leaders are a must for larger initiatives that require budget and time allocations.

Leaders who have funds but no time to DIY a program have the option of investing in services that help people clear away cognitive noise and competing priorities. Michigan First Credit Union does just that with company-wide access to an on-call concierge service that helps with errands and chores. With their dry cleaning and gift-buying covered, employees are free to focus on work.

Retention Over Recruiting

Every talent retention strategy is built on the belief that the best people for the job are the ones who are already doing it. Current employees know their industry, their organization, their clients and each other — and that knowledge has a real market value.

Having and keeping the right people for the job also builds trust. Employees feel secure when they know their teammates are in it for the long term — and when they see deserving people get ahead.

Playing the long game with employees and thinking outside the rigid binaries of full- versus part-time work also supports a team’s sense of security. As a SweetRush team manager once said, “If you can be great for 20 or 30 hours per week, I’m glad to have you on the team.”

To learn more about human-centered business and management practices that support happier, healthier, more resilient humans, check out the e-book, “It’s All About Your People!: Embracing Human-Centered Business, Workplace Culture, and Learning Design.”