| Engage. Talent. So much time, effort and money go into hiring employees, but do you seek to hire employees or talent? Yes, you must engage talent to retain talent -- but first you must shift from the idea of hiring employees to hiring talent. That means "engage" begins long before you place a job opening. And "engage" has to be a continous loop. As Apple founder Steve Jobs once said “You have to have a lot of passion for what you are doing, because otherwise any rational person would just give up.” Does your company have a culture of communication in which managers and employees share common goals and work together to meet them? According to a study by Gallup and Forbes, companies that have high employee engagement will likely see a 22 percent increase in profits, there will be a 21 percent increase in productivity, and a 25 percent decrease in turnover. Disengaged employees are not only a nuisance to the overall working environment, but a disengaged employee also means money lost. And if that employee is actually the talent you want to retain, the loss is far greater. Companies with engaged employees outperform those without. Engaged workers stand apart from their not-engaged and actively disengaged counterparts because of the discretionary effort they consistently bring to their roles. These employees willingly go the extra mile, work with passion, and feel a profound connection to their company. You need a company culture of "engage" before you can truly recruit and retain real talent. Then, on the flip side, before you advertise that job opening, your entire company needs to identify and clearly define what "talent" is for each position you seek to fill. In a comment to the Times of Malta article that shared the Gallup survey, Robert Gately pointed out that, "Talent must mean the same thing to all employees from the CEO to the summer interns. 80% of employees self-report that they are not engaged. 80% of managers are ill suited to effectively manage people. | The two 80 percents are closely related. Employers keep hiring the wrong people to be their managers and then they wonder why they have so few successful, long-term engaged employees." So, you have to create an engaging company culture. Gately goes on to point out that real "talent" have all three of the following success predictors: 1. Competence 2. Cultural Fit 3. Job Talent He maintains that employers do a: A. GREAT job of hiring competent employees, about 95% B. good job of hiring competent employees who fit the culture, about 70% C. POOR job of hiring competent employees who fit the culture and who have a talent for the job, about 20% He believes that identifying the talent required for each job seems to be missing from talent and management discussions. He suggests asking the following questions to hire talent: 1. How do we define talent? 2. How do we measure talent? 3. How do we know a candidate’s talent? 4. How do we know what talent is required for each job? 5. How do we match a candidate’s talent to the talent demanded by the job? He summarizes, stating: "Talent is not found in resumes or interviews or background checks or college transcripts. Talent must be hired since it cannot be acquired or imparted after the hire." I have to agree. Have you defined what "talent" means in your company? Source: Michelle Amodio, "Dont Just Hire Good Employees, Retain Them." http://www.tmcnet.com/channels/workforce-optimization/articles/396358-dont-just-hire-good-employees-reta-them.htm |
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