The War for Talent is not just a theoretical concept; it is a reality. Despite what our politicians may say, there are many good jobs available at all levels of skill, talent, and experience. Throughout my years of consulting and coaching, I have never seen a period where so many companies have vacancies for key positions and are struggling to recruit for them. From what I can see, several variables are driving this phenomenon:
- There is a genuine issue of supply and demand. Often, especially in specific industries, there aren’t enough talented people to go around.
- There is so much noise in the recruiting area that it’s becoming increasingly complex to accurately gauge the return on investment (ROI) of recruiting efforts. Traditional methods have become trite. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of innovation or differentiation happening in the recruiting space. Quantity is battering quality at the moment.
- People with minimal work experience are job-hopping at an accelerated rate, sometimes without any rhyme or reason. Such behavior makes it challenging for these individuals to develop a proper skill set. It’s easy to hire raw talent, but much more difficult to hire seasoned professionals.
- Employees now view the employee-employer relationship differently. Top talent now more than ever fully understands their value and will act as free agents, leaving if they don’t feel appreciated (and this means different things to different people).
- Expectations surrounding job flexibility have made it especially challenging for employers who require staff to be on-site and adhere to standard work hours.
- Our society continues to devalue blue-collar trade work (to our peril) compared to white-collar, sedentary, service-related work. Physically demanding work is less attractive than ever before. Additionally, trade schools and apprenticeship programs aren’t producing enough graduates.
- Commuting has become a significant issue, particularly in major cities. Geographical constraints are becoming a substantial burden on working families, especially those with young children. The job may be a fit with their skills, but the effort to get there and the stress around getting back home, as well as accommodating your spouse’s/partner’s work life, can tilt the cost-benefit analysis in the wrong direction.
- Employers are becoming increasingly skilled at screening potential applicants and being disciplined about finding a good fit; therefore, the process takes longer and filters out more candidates.
What do you do if there aren’t enough qualified people who can commit to the job? If your key people have numerous opportunities to leave at their discretion, how can you maintain their engagement? How can you continue to recruit and retain talent in this challenging environment?
Here are some thoughts:
- Make recruiting every employee’s job and encourage them accordingly. It’s incredible to me how many employers are willing to pay a recruiter 20% of a first-year salary but balk at paying their employees a much smaller percentage than that.
- Maintain open communication lines with vendors and key clients regarding your recruiting needs. In almost all cases, they have a personal stake in your success. Consider paying them commensurate referral fees.
- Don’t just recruit when you have an open position. Always be recruiting for talent at all levels of the organization. This doesn’t mean you have to hire where no need exists, but you can begin building relationships for when a need arises, upgrade the talent that currently exists, and even make some exceptions for the right candidates.
- Depending on the number of people you hire each year, you may want to consider hiring for in-house, full-time recruiting positions that focus solely on this task. You should certainly keep hiring recruiters if they have proven effective or if you don’t have the volume needed to justify an in-house investment. In addition, using both in-house and external talent provides a helpful check and balance on the efforts of both.
- Do your homework and pay for what’s required to get the talent you need. Don’t be penny-wise and pound-foolish. Pay is dissatisfier, not satisfier. If you underpay someone, they will eventually uncover it and resent you for it.
- Collaborate with local community colleges, universities, public workforce development agencies, trade associations, and other stakeholders to establish a longer-term pipeline of qualified candidates.
- Aggressively use internship positions to attract young talent to your company.
- Use temporary employment agencies whenever feasible and consider a temporary-to-permanent employment model if it proves successful for a reasonable period.
- Be much more open to splitting job duties using a part-time model. There are many talented individuals who, for various personal reasons, cannot work full-time, but they can still contribute value.
- Whenever and wherever possible, allow telecommuting (at least part-time).
- Don’t keep talent pinned down in any one job too long. Good people want advancement opportunities and a clear path to achieve them. The path can be either deep or broad, depending on one’s skill set and personality. If people are learning and growing, they tend to stick around longer.
- Invest in selling your company to potential recruits, just as you have a marketing/public relations budget to promote your products and services.
- Don’t burn the bridge when good people leave. Keep the door open for them if they decide they want to come back. Make them feel good about the time you spent together. I would also stay in contact with them and pay recruiting referral fees to them.
- Lastly, build an employee-friendly culture. Be a place where others want to come to work because of how well you treat your employees. Word does get around.
I’ve always told my clients that business fundamentally comes down to two things: math decisions and people decisions. In today’s hyper-competitive world for talent, you have no choice but to acknowledge this latter reality and consciously go about outperforming your competitors in your recruiting and retention efforts.
Related Articles:
- The War For Talent: It’s Real and Here’s Why It’s Happening (inc.com)
- How To Develop A Winning Strategy In The War For Talent (hrexecutive.com)