Now Is the Time to Refresh How You Attract, Engage, Develop Workers

The talent landscape is rapidly evolving, and as a result, employers should embrace the opportunity to adapt. As you and your organization seek to adjust and innovate, your investment in people should not be minimized or antiquated by rigid processes or mindsets, nor should you be too confident that an entirely new approach would resolve all challenges.

Your present human capital strategies can serve as a foundation for an effective response. Save what is working across your talent processes and ideate inventive approaches to the broken or underperforming areas. There is wisdom in old and intelligence in new, but discernment is indeed how to blend the two.

This article shares three key review areas toward embracing a fresh, more effective approach to sourcing, attracting, engaging and developing employees.

1. Sourcing Qualified Talent

Be thoughtful about developing a job description that accurately reflects your intention for the role and the future career path available. Once you are ready to hit the market with your opportunity, consider traditional job boards as important, but don’t discount the effectiveness of social media, individual networks, or using recruiting or staffing companies to broaden your search range.

Evaluate the best way to assess talent outside of traditional screening questions and interviews. Approaches to consider may include:

Professional assessments. Skill-based tools review core competencies needed in the role. Communication or personality-style assessments also may help determine overall culture fit.
Experience-based hiring. Examine moving away from educational requirements and certifications to a more practical focus on applicable experience. This can recapture candidates who may have been disqualified based solely on traditional certifications or degree requirements.
Internship programs. These training programs are gaining renewed interest and utilization, and offer an opportunity for both employers and employees to minimize their initial commitment while preparing for long-term success.
Shadowing. Inviting a candidate into the workspace for a day or even a few hours could help them absorb the cadence and flow of the typical workday. Employers benefit by observing interactions and conducting situational scenarios to better understand how a candidate adapts and learns.

2. Attracting Talent

To appeal to the today’s talent pool, consider ways to offer flexibility and options. Assess ways to take traditional compensation and build on it. Components can include:

The dollars. Set a pay range that is market-reasonable and internally sustainable. Understand what variables (guarantees, incentives, concessions) move the dollars up or down.
Health and wellness. Provide health insurance options that suit a diverse employee base. Go a step further into the wellness and personal arena with offerings that reflect your investment and care for your workforce. This can add unique value.
Flexible work arrangements. Consider the feasibility of offering remote/hybrid options, flexible work hours, extended or shortened work weeks, job-sharing or opportunities to shift seats/duties.
Team engagement. From impromptu trivia to coffee walks to meditation mornings, find what suits your teams’ passions and include everyone in engagement and bonding opportunities. This can shift the focus away from dollars and into connection.
Paid time away. Employees need time away to recalibrate and to do the things they love with people they care about outside of work. Build contests and incentives to add to their standard time-off base.
Purpose. Value and community impact are top of mind for many workers, so make it part of your organizational fabric. Quantify your corporate impact and invite employees to participate in meaningful ways. Any consideration to giving beyond the typical role and shift can be a gain for them, you and the community.

3. Engaging Retention

Investing in your people exemplifies and amplifies their value to the organization. Professional development can position the employee for greater growth and gratitude, both of which have a positive correlation to loyalty and productivity. Consider ways to:

Encourage self-learning and peer education. Growth begins with learning, so find productive ways to foster self-investment. Cultivate engaging ways for employees to share their passion and learning with other team members. Teaching fine-tunes a person’s own learning and encourages innovative ideas. It likely will be evident which employees display a positive and eager attitude toward learning and advancing their skills.
Develop a mentorship program. Whether formal or informal, pairing employees with mentors can create a collaborative, generous and connected environment. Having a leader to follow with relevant experience and insight can be a strong contributor to individual and collective success.
Offer external resources. Learning resources are virtually limitless. Provide opportunities outside of the organization for continued education and development. Use online courses, advisory boards, networking events, seminars and conferences to cater to most every learning style and skills need.
Show appreciation. Acknowledge and celebrate your workers’ progress and advancement. Small wins matter and can accelerate focus and unity toward larger team goals. When people feel valued, they become more valuable.

Developing Talent, Careers and the Organization

Progress likely comes from acting and moving intentionally. As you construct and revise your hiring strategy, spend time documenting, educating and training on the program, and be ready to adapt and evolve. Process steps likely will include:

Defining success. Establish what a successful human capital strategy looks like and create metrics that foster that outcome.
Doing your research. Know the market and adapt to candidate and employee feedback.
Piloting the process. Try new strategies on single roles or within certain teams before you roll out a corporate-wide change.
Embodying continuous improvement. Assess and adapt. As you note areas of success and challenge, get to the root of each and find a thoughtful way to repeat and scale or mitigate and resolve.

As you and your organization continue to navigate an ever-changing talent landscape, focus on what it takes to foster unique career development pathways. An employee’s connection, the value they feel and contribute, and their internal career path work to bolster retention and the ability to continue to attract new talent.

By revising your approaches in these areas, you strengthen your ability to capture and develop the right talent that can evolve with your organization.

Editor’s Note: Additional Content

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