Why your recruitment and talent management

strategies need to change | Nikhil Jassawalla

For those involved with the hiring, development and retention of key employees,
there are challenging times ahead. Talent analyst Mervyn Dinnen examines the
changing landscape for talent acquisition and management and provides four key
areas where HRs approach needs to change.
Senior leaders regularly voice concerns over their future senior pipeline, but now
the combination of demographic change, new technologies, shifting skill demands,
and the evolving preferences and expectations of employees and customers, are
creating new challenges for talent professionals.
Digital skills can be lacking. Nearly 90% of all new jobs require digital skills, yet
this year alone the UK has a potential shortfall of 745,000 workers that possess
them. They are important, as technology is involved in nearly everything our
employees do. In fact, 92% of employees say their satisfaction at work depends
on having the technology necessary to do their job efficiently.

Around one-third would quit a job if the technology they were using was outdated
or inefficient. HR needs to understand the digital needs of the business and be
part of the conversation around digitisation.
Employees also want to be heard. Ultimate Software found that 75% are more
likely to stay with a company longer if they felt their concerns were being heard
and addressed; a higher proportion than those looking for recognition for their
ideas. Meanwhile 71% rate open communication with their managers as a
significant contributor to job fulfilment.
The opportunity for growth and development at work is now a major differentiator.
Employees look for personal and professional development, and whilst we are
embracing more ways to support them in learning, it is the opportunity to stretch
and develop their skills and take on new challenges that is important.
Internal mobility, for so long an afterthought in companies who default to external
hiring for every new position, is now a major contributor to competitive
advantage.
With jobs evolving quickly, requiring skills we might have hired or developed
before, this restlessness among employees for progression can be a positive.
Cultures of innovation require people with agility, curiosity and flexibility, who can
build on their competencies and capabilities.
This is important, as the most successful hires will often step in to a role that will
stretch them and help them grow and realise potential. The challenge for
recruiters is to understand the type of people you need, and finding the right way
to attract and select them.
These changes all point to a new approach for recruitment and talent
management. People need to be found, developed and retained differently.
Employees now have more choice over how and where they work and will look for
organisations that can help them grow, develop and achieve their potential.

The way that businesses bring this offering to life, and embed it in their culture
and vision, will help determine future success. Everyone has talent. It is finding the
people right for the business and the role, irrespective of background and work
trajectory, that organisations need to focus on.
I spent the best part of a year with my co-author Matt Alder researching these
trends and how companies are responding to them for our book Exceptional
talent. So how can HR start changing its talent approaches and help the
businesses to compete?
1. Attraction and selection

Firstly, businesses need to look at the way they attract and select candidates.
Recruiting to a detailed job description listing historical experience and
achievements, and using it as an interview checklist, no longer delivers the best
results.
We need to hire for potential and culture fit. Jobseekers now know far more about
a business before they apply. We can use digital marketing approaches to create
content that will reach our target candidate pool and engage them; not by creating
digital white noise, but by understanding their concerns and aspirations and
showing how our organisation can help them achieve.
Rather than design an assault-course-style selection process, look at ways to find
out they can fit in and develop. Creating gladiatorial rounds of interviews may help
hiring managers find reasons for rejection, but unless that they represent what
your culture is really like, they will give a poor impression.
2. Redefine talent

The second change is to redefine what we mean by talent. It is probably the

most misused and overused word in the modern labour market, usually implying
someone who appears high skilled has high potential.
Often it also means someone who can step into a new role that replicates one they
have done before and perform immediately. Thats wrong. In a recruitment market
where new jobs often require skills that have not been hired before it fails to take
into account the many ways in which employees can develop, use their initiative
and capabilities to meet business challenges and spot opportunities.
Create an approach that will help people show what they can do, irrespective of
their previous experience and achievements. Recruit for the future, not because
of the past.
3. Improve onboarding

Having found the people we need, the third change is to improve our approach to
onboarding. This is arguably the most important HR process, linking recruitment
to development.
Korn Ferry research showed 90% of executives saying that new hire retention
was a problem in their organisation, with up to a quarter of new hires leaving
within the first six months. The reason? That the role is different from what they
expected it would be from the hiring process. Clearly, onboarding needs to set
clear expectations on role, responsibilities, timescales and objectives.
It should start during the interview stage and continue well beyond the first few
weeks. A new employee should be pre-boarded, arriving with all their paperwork
complete and already have an insight into their new colleagues, managers and
environment.
All of this can now be done digitally, and through a mobile device, helping to
increase productivity, retention and satisfaction. Rather than a probation period
to be reviewed, view the first few weeks as a time of integration, taking real-time
feedback on how the new hire is settling in.
4. Real-time feedback

Regular, real-time feedback is becoming a key part of the new talent processes.
The fourth change is to use this as part of a people-centric employee experience.
Listening to employees, understanding and acting on what you hear is important.
The employee experience, particularly the way that they are integrated, developed
and retained, is becoming a key differentiator.
Employees want to be listened to. They want opportunities to stretch their skills
and grow. They want to know how they are progressing in real time, not at the end
of six or 12 months. Goals should be agile, responding to trading circumstances,
not fixed in advance.
The importance of technology, communication and internal networks to employee
retention can never be overstated, and culture, purpose and recognition play key
parts. It is the effectiveness of the way that we attract, hire, retain and develop
our employees that will not only be the organisations competitive advantage, but
also the yardstick by which successful HR teams will be measured.