What’s Trending in Talent Management?

Managing talent is the single most important job of HR and organizational leaders.  Just three years ago, 93 percent of CEOs knew they needed to change how their companies were attracting and retaining talent but, only 61 percent of those CEOs had actually done anything about it.

Is your company in need of change but you don’t know where to start?

Trends to watch

Individualization

Today, it’s easier to predict an individual’s preference instead of grouping everyone together.  Start moving away from treating people in segments and start treating everyone as individuals.

Moving in this direction could involve employees customizing their employment contracts to fit their individual needs, having a range of learning opportunities, and building relationship management training for HR professionals who will no longer be just processing employees but managing the organization’s relationship with them.

The employee will want to have some freedom to make their own choices at work. Having multiple training paths is one way to give that to the employees. Having some flexibility in the contract, such as flex hours, is another way.

Coaching

Coaching the talent your company currently has is a great way to decrease your turnover rate. Good employees tend to want to get better.

Coaching can be done in several ways, including:

• Doing drills to practice
• Giving feedback
• Be a mentor
• Lead by example

The benefits of coaching your current employees can be immense. You can see employee productivity and engagement both improve with a good coaching,

These benefits can only be seen if coaching is done properly. This means doing hands-on coaching as the need arises and making sure everyone knows how to be a coach, even senior leadership.

Growing Talent Pools

You can find talent almost anywhere these days. Along with your internal options for a position, there are many external options that can help grow your talent pool.

Some of these include helping start-ups and when you have an opening, see if any employees at the startup would be interested. You can also work with freelancers, who could be used on an as-needed basis.

An easy way to grow your talent pool is through previous applicants. Keep the resumes of those who didn’t get the job, because there may be something in the future that is a fit for them.

Social Media is another great way of increasing your talent pool. In 2013, 14.4 million job seekers in the U.S. used social media in their search. In addition, 29 percent of those job seekers used social media as their primary job search tool.

Teams and Teamwork

The workplace is becoming more and more collaborative. The Harvard Business Review found managers and employees are spending 50 percent or more time working on collaborative projects than the last two decades.

This is a sign work is already becoming a more team-focused environment. In fact, 87 percent of executives in the U.S. said organizational design is important or very important for the future, according to the 2017 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends report. By defining areas of dysfunction within your workforce, you can realign your business practices to current trends, realities, and goals to develop plans to implement the new changes.

The Employee Experience

With competition for talent expected to continue to increase, a good employee experience can be the difference between talent joining your team or going to your competition.

But what exactly is the employee experience?

To put it simply, employee experience is everything employees interact with while at work. It is a combination of the cultural, physical, and technical environment of the workspace and, believe it or not, it can vastly affect employee engagement and performance.  This includes your workplace culture, the technological tools they work with (ex: computers and phones), and the physical environment of the office, such as chairs and desks.

Companies have already started to invest in the employee experience. In 2016, 56 percent of human resource departments said they were trying to improve their employee experience. This year, 80 percent of executives said the employee experience was important or very important.

Attracting and retaining talented employees is vital to the success of any business. Visit KnowledgeCity for tips on managing your talent and how to keep them engaged with our course on Employee Engagement.