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While the war for talent is an unprecedented and growing problem over the past decade, the big change over the past 18 months has sparked an agenda of digital and human capital transformation across all organizations, regardless of industry, industry. maturity and location. Hence the sudden increase in demand for similar skills in all industries and organizations.
This has been accompanied by a surge in talent, prioritizing their individual priorities, sometimes choosing to move towards more flexible work options. So how can organizations solve the new talent management equation to win this war?
In an exclusive interaction with us, Chaitali Mukherjee, Partner and Leader – People & Organization, PwC India, highlights critical imperatives for employers seeking to attract, retain and engage top talent and strategies that organizations can rely on to win the war for Talent.
Workers are leaving or changing jobs en masse, what some economists have dubbed the “big resignationâ€. In such a scenario, what are the critical imperatives for employers seeking to attract, retain and hire top talent?
Organizations should make some critical choices in order to manage the longer-term talent agenda. These could include the following:
Flexible talent model: To attract the right talent, organizations will need to innovate with their talent models and make room for different talent needs. This not only means flexibility offered, but also hybrid and flexibility. But above all, do not assume and draw a common goal for all, but create a unique plan, focused on an individualized experience
Building vs.Buying Talents: While most organizations talk about the challenges of attrition, this is a result of recruiting that will need to be a short-term program. The longer-term agenda will need to focus on developing talent for the future, which suits the organization and drives the purpose of the organization.
“Connect for life: Employees should be seen as brand ambassadors for life when they become alumni. “
Connect for a specific purpose: In an age where building engagement and connection has been the greatest challenge between employees and employers, employers may need to move beyond the transactional aspects of a role and demonstrate the purpose of the organization and what it means / how it is relevant to employees. All things being comparable (if not equal), the Living Organizational Goal is a differentiator that can be of use to good talent.
Hire for Alignment (Attitude, Culture and Purpose), Train for Skills / Capabilities for the Future and Deploy / Provide Experience for Career Growth: You can’t hire a candidate with the expectation that they will later adapt to the organizational culture. Compromise at the time of hiring is the greatest peril. Again, when hiring, disproportionate attention is paid to skills and abilities. The skills required are changing, however. Organizations need to ensure they hire talent who will have the right attitude and willingness to evolve and hone their skills as needed, to align culturally, and to connect with the purpose of the organization. These facets should be determined at the time of hiring as these facets are difficult to instill in a person at a later stage.
Once hired, it’s important to make sure there is as much conversation about career as there is performance. This ensures that it is a two way property that is being built. Finally, the skills and abilities of employees must be jointly owned by employees and employers. Employees can’t just search for out-of-the-box skills – that would be a very transactional approach. They will need to seek an attitude to learn and grow and provide opportunity, while the employee will need to focus on maintaining relevance and be comfortable going beyond the call of the job to ensure relevance.
What are these broken links in the current work structure that need to be mended by organizations in order to create sustainable work cultures?
In the past, sustainable work cultures have been built around experiences designed around the workplace. From raising awareness to celebrating and building engagement, it’s all been done by bringing people together and using office space. As organizations turn to virtual workplaces and the ability to bring all employees together and drive some of these factors seems increasingly difficult, organizations face the harsh reality of building engagement, relationships and joint success without creating personal bonds. The human mind has not been trained to do this over a short period of time with multiple people. The process of building trust becomes all the more difficult and a long and arduous process.
“To manage this, it may be necessary to seek new spaces of connection, beyond the workplaces and conduct the connection differently. It could also mean accepting that the kind of connection people had in the workplace in the past might never form or learn how global teams have focused on relationship building when they are. together and focused on discrete work when virtual.
In the past, the time and space needed to build trusting relationships was never taken into account. It just happened by meeting and being together. But in the future, it would be essential to recognize the importance of relationship building and conduct it with some thought.
The integration of newcomers is perhaps the most important connection companies need to think outside the box. Most newcomers focus on understanding the working methods covered by the processes. But the real ways of working (the informal processes) that explain the culture must be covered, and that experience must be brought to life.
A big challenge for organizations has been the process of working together to drive innovation. Innovation / idea generation and grassroots problem solving is about breaking norms / considerations that have been put into practice. It requires that a group of positively dissatisfied rebels come together and create the energy strong enough to think outside the box. To create this energy, organizations may need to design options for discussing positive dissatisfaction in an unstructured way.
Innovation may therefore need its space; this space where like-minded people come together and share their concerns and choose to innovate to solve them. Making this happen virtually will be the biggest challenge.
What should be the strategies to elevate the employee value proposition to reflect what employees are looking for in a changing work environment?
The starting point of an employee value proposition at work is to listen to the employee and try to respond to their voice, not just the process using technology. There is no such thing as good or bad technology. There is just the right experience that can be activated using technology. But more often than not, organizations take the technology too far and assume that will lead to the outcome of the experiment. The experience is delivered when the employee appreciates the real problem in the truest sense of the word, recognizes that he could not solve all the problems but that it is essential and that he has partners to solve it.
Experience change when employees choose to make it happen through adoption. It is perhaps the most difficult but the most critical lever to offer experience.
The employee value proposition in the truest sense lies in aligning goals, aligning experience, and activating growth / development. If we can focus on these three elements, perhaps we could enable the entire experience in a unique way for all employees.
In your opinion, what would be the two main differentiators for companies to win the war for talent?
“The war for talent will not be won on compensation. Compensation is going to be table stakes. Blatantly overpaying or underpaying both will be counterproductive. “
The three most important differentiators could be:
Your employer brand: what are you known for, what does your talent say about you outside the organization and how their family and friends perceive you as an employer
Your alumni brand: what do they say about their experience with you while they were with you? This may be one of the most underrated factors, but it can have a huge impact. There are hardly any potential employees who wouldn’t talk to a former employee to understand their experience. Keeping in touch with alumni and keeping them informed of the progress of the business is essential.
Your leading brand: it is a known fact that employees / individuals join brands and leaders. The leading brand is as important as the employer brand. The leader’s personal career path and confidence in the organization will be essential for success.
Your talent growth program: What are you leading and how are you leading the career and skills program of your staff? There are two categories of career conversations that organizations should have with their employees: career discussions for succession and career discussions for development. Both are essential, but the latter needs to start early, in a consistent manner, so that employees see a larger purpose and opportunity with the organization.
What do you think about how organizations should approach localization strategy redesign and role remodeling for more flexibility to retain top talent?
If the choice were left to the employees, the localization strategy of any organization could be as varied as the number of employees. Therefore, the need to think about a flexible localization strategy tailored to the company and the employees will be crucial. It must start by recognizing the roles and jobs that can and cannot be made virtual. At the same time, one needs to categorize which roles can be completely virtual and which ones can be designed for a hybrid layout.
“The important factor to consider in designing the workplace for the future is not only the hybrid factor, but also the criticality of the job and the availability of skills. “
For jobs that are at the heart of the business, with skills that are hard to find, organizations may want to design the construction of the workplace around talent. For skills that are readily available and / or non-essential to the business, organizations could experiment with not only the workplace model, but also the employment models. In short, if there is one strategy that could be a differentiator for organizations to activate their strategy, it will be this: having the strategy that best fits a role.
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