Just hiring top talent – a job in itself – is not enough. Retention is paramount and career development is a main component in winning the retention game. That may be easily achievable if you are a Fortune 500 company. However, smaller organizations, including non-profits face a seemingly insurmountable challenge with retention and creating a viable career development program.

Not only is creating a solid career path and succession program a challenge, recent societal cultural changes help compound this issue. According to Millennial expert, Chris Butsch in his upcoming new book, Those Damn Millennials, “There are alternatives to unfulfilling positions or careers, and Millennials know it; it’s become easier than ever to build our own boats.” So, a generation that makes up 53.5 million people in the workforce couldn’t care less about your prestige positions or gold watches; and you can kiss company loyalty goodbye. Further complicating retention issues for small businesses is, of course, the lack of resources that just require dipping into deep pockets for a larger organization. So here are some ideas that can help.