Luxury homebuilder aims to keep top talent

A retention program is like gold to a fast-growing homebuilder, which is why London Bay Homes Vice President of Human Resources Sabra Smith and her team spend so much time on it.

It starts as soon an employee starts working at the luxury homebuilder. “The time we spend with them post hire — introducing them to the entire company, our processes, procedures, staff — can make a tremendous difference in their success and retention rate,” says Smith.

Retention becomes even more targeted once an employee spends time at the company, and executives and managers assess the quality of his or her work. The company, starting recently, has begun to emphasize its top employees and spend less time on C and D-graded staffers. “We want to spend our time working on our A players,” says Smith.