Attracting key talent to your organisation is getting harder. By that I mean finding people with the skills, knowledge, behaviours and attitudes it needs to thrive. As business strategy has become talent-critical, having the ability to attract the right people should be considered a risk at board-level.
As the world changes, so do talent markets. Changes in career thinking have turned the tables on who’s the supplier and who’s the customer. Talent consumerism means people with the right attributes hold all the cards. And shifts in the way people interact with work have globalised elements of the talent market and tested our assumptions of employment and the workplace. That’s why organisations need to evaluate their approach to sourcing talent and quickly move with the times
Here are 8 strategies to consider:
1. Use strategic workforce planning to understand which talent you need most.
The most common issue I see is a lack of clarity around
talent priorities and risks to business outcomes. Some
talent IS more critical than others. Talent priorities need
to be based less on current vacancies or historical roles,
and more on your organisation’s needs going forwards.
By using proper, business-focused, top-level strategic
workforce planning, you can identify where the biggest
gaps are between the talent you have, and the talent
you need.
2. Move from reactive to proactive for key talent segments.
perspective, you can develop realistic strategies to mitigate
them. Be honest with yourself – how many of your approaches
to attracting talent are truly thoughtful and evidence-led,
and how many are relatively short-term and tactical?
3. Look at attraction as PART of the strategy and not THE strategy.
I don’t believe there’s an ideal ratio of internal versus
external recruitment. What matters is that the strategy
you choose is the optimum one for the job. The best
talent sourcing strategies are often hybridised,
featuring a combination of external and internal
sourcing mechanisms. You need to develop more
than one leg to your stool over time.
4. Base your strategies on data and insights.
If you were trying to sell shampoo, you would research your
audience to find out what matters to them. You need to
apply the same approach to talent. Understanding supply
and demand, what talent is looking for, and what they think
of your brand. Too often, our ‘Employer Value Proposition’ is
based on the views of current employees. Yet the talent we
need might want something different - especially if you’re
looking to move further into the digital space. Talk to talent,
talk to recruitment partners, commission talent intelligence
research … do the work and act on what it tells you.
5. Challenge “plug and play” mentality.
Another way of shooting yourselves in the foot is to make
a small talent pool even smaller. You can do this by being
over-focused on “zero risk” outcomes. Looking for
extremely specific capabilities, particular employers and
lengthy previous sector-relevant experience. Open your
mind to transferrable skills, adjacent sectors and new
target organisations. They can offer the best return when
it comes to increasing the size of your talent pools and
bolstering your competitive brand. Don’t fixate on attracting
individuals from organisations you cannot compete with,
or individuals whose offers you cannot match.
6. Be open to new kinds of working relationships.
The talent you seek already thinks about careers in a different way to your organisation. Are you looking to attract someone
and retain them for the next 30 years, or do you just need them to get over a capability ‘hump’? Could you use short term
assignments? Or a contingent model? Are you okay with someone working a three day week and running a ‘side hustle’
for the remainder? Could you share talent with another organisation? Is your ‘in office’ policy at odds with the preferences of this talent? Being stuck in one kind of model limits the size of the talent pool and your attractiveness in it.
7. Solve the reward dilemma, but play to your strengths.
Key talent is typically available at a premium. That
means you may need to reconcile your perspective on
compensation and benefits. It can be difficult to match
reward requirements, so make a principle-based decision.
If you need this talent, are you prepared to pay what is
needed and deal with the consequences? If not, then fall
back on your data insights and broader talent strategy
thinking. Can you meet a preference the talent has in ways
the competition can’t? Could you trade absolute reward for
wider benefits (flexible working, friendly work environment
and career progression, for example)? If the answer is no,
you may need to rethink your talent strategy, or bring in
and upskill less experienced individuals, or even opt for an
internal career pathing option.
8. Align the wider talent ‘system’ to talent’s needs.
Once you’ve thought through your strategy for attracting
key talent, you’ll need to align various elements of the
value chain. Such as reviewing your recruitment partners,
or talking differently about your organisation to key talent.
Even checking your career architecture caters, for example,
for specialists versus generalists. Will your culture be a turn
on or a turn off for this talent? And how will you know what
progress you’re making?
The most effective thing anyone involved in talent sourcing
can do is think broadly and systemically. Blending internal and
external strategies based upon a combination of relevant data
insight and strategic workforce planning dialogue. Otherwise
you’ll continue to wrestle in the mud looking for gold nuggets
alongside countless others.
