Whose work grew this year while your praise stood still? Find someone you talked up a year ago and haven't really engaged since. Look at what they're actually doing now. Then do what you can to share what they've become, specifically and in public if you can. The test of recognition is simple... whether the picture you have of someone has kept up with where they are now. Done honestly, it closes the gap between what you say you value and what your attention actually tracks.

Every organization I've walked into with a retention problem has the same look on their face when I ask where people are leaving. Then they point to the exit. Attrition isn't a people problem. It's a symptom. Who stays, who leaves, and when, is at the performance layer of the company. That layer is the end of a chain, not the beginning of it.