Organizations today are increasingly dependent on brains—not brawn. Organizations that can outpace their competition in attracting, developing and retaining the best talent have a distinct advantage: lower costs, higher productivity, better quality, more satisfied and loyal customers, and higher financial performance.
So what are the best organizations doing to win the talent war? To find out, we studied some of the best performers, interviewed over 70 organizational and talent thought leaders, and examined hundreds of research studies. The results of this are published in Reinventing Talent Management, by William Schiemann. There are several key stages in talent management that leading organizations focus on. Let’s take a quick look at each.
Branding
While employer branding is just beginning to flourish, organizations are recognizing that branding can be a powerful force with current and prospective employees as well as with customers. Leading organizations are:
- Building employer brands that are aligned with their vision, values, strategy and external brand
- Being selective in differentiating workplace attributes that will both attract top talent but that are also realistic in their culture
- Communicating the unique brand in new ways
- Measuring the brand on a regular basis among prospects, recent hires, and current employees
Talent Acquisition
With a solid brand, an organization will draw more of the “right” talent, but they must engage that talent in creative and effective ways. Two phases are critical:
Engaging Prospects. Winning players are engaging prospects in new ways that leave a great taste even among those who are not selected. They have also become both more creative. Reaching the best talent today requires new approaches such as social network websites or Twitter. But be realistic. It is far more effective to advertise the “real” organization than to hire people who ultimately are not aligned with the organization.
Smart Selection. An examination of many organizations indicates that a majority still do not have highly efficient or effective processes for screening and selecting. For example, organizations continue to rely on poorly executed selection interviews which are notoriously unreliable. Most importantly, selection steps are overly focused on assessing Capabilities and not enough on the ability of the employee to become Aligned and Engaged with the organization.
Acculturation
Finding the talent is critical, but helping it blossom is also vital to success. Acculturation is being increasingly recognized among the best organizations as the critical “first impression” that often makes or breaks a successful fit. While employee engagement is nearly 100% on Day 1, it can drop to less than 60% after the first year or even sooner.
The leaders we studied realized that first impressions count, and are not leaving anything to chance. They focus on embedding the employee and his or her family in a proactive fashion, establishing critical conversations during the Selection stage, training supervisors on the key do’s and don’ts, providing mentors and coaches, and helping their new finds getting connected socially. They also provide a wealth of information about the organization to the new hires as well as their families.
Finally, they measure the Alignment, Capabilities and Engagement of their people frequently during the fragile on-boarding period, which enables them to act quickly to avert relationship and performance problems.
Talent Development
Talent development has never been as important as it is today. New employees thirst for development and often choose organizations that make development commitments. Lack of development opportunities is one of the largest causes of declining engagement and loss of top talent. Many employees today want to grow — not just in level or grade — but in their knowledge and skills. The best organizations have found better ways to connect with people on this crucial performance and retention driver.
Leader development is one of the most important issues to CEOs in several recent studies. Most see critical leader talent gaps that must be closed as baby boomers begin the exit the workforce. Most acknowledge that their traditional succession planning and leader transitions are not yielding the results needed. The innovators are also using non-traditional ways — including new technologies — to accelerate the process and enhance its effectiveness.
Optimizing Talent
Three factors go into talent optimization: Alignment, Capabilities, and Engagement. When employees are aligned with strategy and values, have the requisite skills and knowledge to meet customer expectations, and are highly engaged in the mission, performance reaches peak levels. Some of the best organizations are using strategic surveys to measure these factors so they can address the biggest gaps. The research suggests that most organizations have tremendous variation across the organization on these performance drivers, calling for very different uses of resources and initiatives to achieve optimal performance.
Three factors go into talent optimization: Alignment, Capabilities, and Engagement. When employees are aligned with strategy and values, have the requisite skills and knowledge to meet customer expectations, and are highly engaged in the mission, performance reaches peak levels. Some of the best organizations are using strategic surveys to measure these factors so they can address the biggest gaps. The research suggests that most organizations have tremendous variation across the organization on these performance drivers, calling for very different uses of resources and initiatives to achieve optimal performance.
More information on the impact of these three factors — which, taken together comprise People Equity, can be found here.
Talent Retention
What happens when key talent leaves?
- Critical knowledge and intellectual capital goes out the door
- Customer relationships often suffer due to disrupted relationships and inexperienced stand-ins
- Inefficiencies occur due to process disruptions or knowledge gaps
- Company resources are redirected from growth to replacing losses
The costs of losing key talent are high. When key people leave, all their ideas for improvement, growth and development leave with them. This is an enormous opportunity cost. Work is typically interrupted while new people are brought in, trained, and brought up to speed. Quality is put at risk.
Employee turnover costs vary widely, but the cost is almost always far greater than most organizations assume when factors such as productivity are considered. And here is the really bad news: Every dollar spent replacing an employee is a dollar taken away from investing in the growth of the company.
Here's what smart companies do: They maximize value by investing in retaining key talent, rather than paying for turnover. Best practice organizations are not relying on the often misleading information from exit interviews; instead, they are using a variety of tools-- delayed interviews with former employees; turnover predictor surveys; and coaching—to pinpoint the real root causes. And then, after good cost-benefit analysis, are targeting solutions on the most controllable areas.
Metrus Resources
Information
Reinventing Talent Management, William Schiemann, Ph.D., John Wiley, available now.
Education
- Individual coaching for managers responsible for talent acquisition and development
- Custom workshops covering the key aspects of talent management described above
- Leadership development programs covering strategic aspects of talent management
Products & Services
- Strategic guidance in developing talent strategies that are aligned with the unique strategy and culture of the organization
- Creation of scorecards, dashboards and strategy maps to capture the value proposition of the talent strategy and the value-added role of Human Resources
- Diagnostic tools to understand and gather information that is crucial to making the right talent investment decisions: strategic employee surveys, internal and external customer surveys, talent market assessments, former employee interviews and surveys, acculturation tracking
- Custom talent solutions that address the six crucial talent management stages: branding, talent acquisition, acculturation, optimizing talent, development, and high performer retention.
