How to Reinvent Your Anxiety About Talent Shortages
Many companies approach talent management with a limited (or win-win) mindset. Finding more people and hiring the best talent is considered the key to "winning" the talent race. While there may be some truth to this idea, this limited view of talent management leads leaders to lose sight of the purpose of continuing to function (i.e., making it everyone’s job to recruit, develop, and retain top talent, with no winners or losers).
This limited mindset is part of the reason employers are in the midst of a big resignation. In November 2021, 3% of the workforce left jobs, according to the Labor Department. To make matters worse, a December 2021 poll found that 23% of Americans plan to quit their jobs in 2022, while 70% want to quit by February. This will be a major problem for companies already struggling with hiring.
Thankfully, all is not lost. You can turn things around by embracing a limitless mindset, overhauling your talent management strategy, and making employee experience the center of your work.
So how do you redefine your talent management strategy and move from a limited to a limitless mindset? This is where you can start.
Offers real and compelling benefits
The gap between what employees want and what employers offer is widening, and it's affecting multiple industries. The industrial sector appears to be the hardest hit, with some organizations reporting employee turnover in excess of 100 percent. Research by Slack Workplace Research found that 58% of knowledge workers are considering changing jobs in the next year.
To bridge the gap, identify innovative reward policies and employee benefits to support employee retention and engagement. Policies should reflect the needs of employees, not the needs of the organization. Flip the pages from PwC's book and talk to employees about how to support them. Not only did the company give team members an extra week of vacation last year, but they currently pay employees $250 if they take 40 consecutive hours of vacation through June 2022.
This talent management strategy may not work for every company, but a few iterations can serve your operations well. Once you've chosen the incentives or employee benefits you want to invest in, evaluate the difference between your current state and your desired state. Develop an action plan to implement the policy or benefit and work towards a more inclusive and participatory culture.
Build mutually beneficial relationships
The changing dynamics of the talent economy shift power from employers to employees, who are willing to exercise their agency more quickly than in previous markets. However, if there is a mutually beneficial employer-employee relationship, they are less likely to do so. According to Gallup, it takes a raise of more than 20% to convince someone to walk away from the relationship.
Employee engagement is not just a manager's responsibility. It needs to be in a certain state of mind. Engagement is a psychological phenomenon driven by employee expectations and motivations and good leadership and management practices. Focus on what employees care about and what they enjoy doing. Make sure their interests and enjoyments align with their roles, especially in a job market where talent is scarce. You shouldn't misapply a one-size-fits-all approach.
Expand employment standards to include employee satisfaction
Employers used to be able to pick from qualified (and sometimes even qualified) applicants. Recruiting based on learning agility and other strong skills such as leadership, teamwork, adaptability and problem-solving is becoming increasingly important, to name a few. Each of these attributes is essential to workplace success. With these attributes, you can more easily train employees for specific roles.
Nonetheless, given current hiring difficulties, employers should also consider expanding employment criteria beyond education and skills requirements to gauge whether candidates will like the job. What do they want from employment? Do their interests or work preferences match the position? What do they expect from employers? What's driving your employees: higher wages, development opportunities, flexibility, or something else entirely?
Make talent management a collective effort
Communicate your commitment to the future from a business and employee perspective. Be as specific as possible about the role each employee plays in the overall performance of the company.
Don't forget to use different channels to share this information. Business leaders often rely on town hall meetings to deliver such messages. While effective, each employee has their own communication preferences—whether via email, phone, print, text, or social. By constantly sharing the good news in different ways, you can cast a wide net and consider it for your employees.
Most organizations don't think about their role in the big resignation. Fundamentally, the way leaders think about talent management needs to change radically. Only in this way can companies alleviate today's difficulties in talent retention and talent acquisition.
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