This article presents a case study of two companies operating in the Brazilian market; one in the electrical energy sector, and the other in the pharmaceutical sector, both of which appeared on the list of 150 Best Companies to Work for in Brazil in 2012, and have stated that they consider retaining talents to be essential to their Human Resources strategies. These companies identified the professionals they considered to be talents, through the application of a questionnaire to the employees, with 51 statements, the results of which were used to analyze the link between retention factors and intention to remain in the company. Together with the application of the multiple regression technique for associations between the variables, the retention factors, measured by means of the employees' perceptions, were qualitatively linked to the practices of talent retention adopted by the companies. Among the results, it is highlighted that the retention factors explained 86% in company A, and 83% in company B, of the variation in the variable "intention to remain in the company." It was observed that the talents are determined by the management model of each company, and that the employees who were considered talents based on their current performance, together with those with potential to be considered talents in the future, represent 20% of the company's staff. Based on the results, we believe that before implementing a talent retention strategy, companies need to understand the influence of the macroeconomic scenario on the job market; the social influences that impact on employees' career expectations; and the individual personalities of the talents.
