Start with Retention: Rethinking the Talent Equation – Jason Desentz, CHRO of Toshiba America

For decades, the standard HR playbook has been attract, retain, develop. Jason Desentz says we should rethink that order.

As Chief Human Resources Officer of Toshiba America, Desentz starts with the people already inside the business. In technical fields where experienced employees can take a year or more to train, retention is not simply an HR metric. It affects how quickly a company can grow, respond to new demand and capitalize on emerging markets. That equation is becoming even more important as AI infrastructure drives investment in energy and advanced technology while manufacturers compete for a limited pool of skilled technical talent. 

Desentz brings an unusually business-first perspective to HR. He evaluates people decisions against ROI, challenges his team to experiment with AI, and argues that HR leaders need to understand the technology, operations and economics of the companies they serve. At the same time, his approach is deeply human: listen to employees, get creative about the employee experience, invest in development and give people opportunities to try something new. From rebuilding pathways into manufacturing to preparing 6,000 Toshiba employees across the Americas for AI, this conversation explores what changes when people strategy becomes business strategy. 

In this episode:

• Why the return of U.S. manufacturing is colliding with a technical talent pipeline weakened by decades of offshoring
• How AI-driven data centers are creating new workforce demand across energy, infrastructure and field service
• Why Desentz puts retention before attraction when thinking about talent strategy
• How Toshiba evaluates the ROI of retaining highly specialized employees who can take more than a year to train
• Why CHROs need to understand the CEO, operations, technology and business economics, not just HR
• How high-school co-ops, technical education and experiential learning can rebuild pathways into manufacturing careers

3 Big Takeaways

1. Your workforce strategy is part of your growth strategy.
Toshiba sees significant opportunity as AI and data-center investment drives demand for energy generation, storage and infrastructure. But capturing that opportunity requires having specialized technical talent available when demand arrives. For a CHRO, workforce capacity becomes a strategic constraint that has to be planned alongside growth.

2. Calculate the business value of retaining technical expertise.
Some Toshiba field-service employees require more than a year of training to service complex equipment. Desentz estimates losing one could cost roughly $100,000, before accounting for the time required to rebuild that expertise. That changes the economics of retention: spending creatively to improve an employee’s experience can be far less expensive than replacing specialized capability.

3. Build AI capability by giving employees real problems to solve.
Toshiba launched a six-course AI-readiness curriculum through Toshiba University, but Desentz didn’t stop at instruction. His HR organization formed teams to build AI agents around actual business needs, including payroll, attendance and recruiting. Employees learned the technology by applying it, while Toshiba surfaced tools it could potentially deploy in the business.

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