Focus on professional development: Creatives have a strong sense of personal obligation to grow and take their work to the height of their ability. If you aren’t facilitating that growth, they may well outgrow you.

Harness the power of the bullpen: Create a program to foster earlier connections with schools and students to facilitate mentoring and capture mindshare.

Know what motivates your employees, then build your rewards program around it: Creatives are motivated more by intangibles such as opportunities to work on exciting new projects than by traditional benefits like compensation. But remember, one size does not fit all. You need a program that takes individual preferences into account and allows for reward customization.

Nurture an open and diverse culture: Creatives thrive in an environment that celebrates and respects differences and encourages expression.

Give more than lip service to work-life balance: Creatives need a variety of stimuli to fuel innovation. Give them the time they need to explore their community – the Next Big Thing you’re looking for may well stem from this exercise.

Facilitate collaboration: Develop think tanks that give your creatives an opportunity to feed off of one another’s ideas and insights.