Introduction :
Superior talent will be tomorrow’s prime source of competitive advantage. Any company seeking to exploit it must instil a talent mindset throughout the organisation, starting at the top. It is no surprise that one of the hottest topics in business today is Talent Management – in attraction, retention and sourcing strategies.
Our recent research suggests, and is duly supported by a multitude of studies conducted over the last 10 or more years; it is increasingly common in organisations today to experience a shortage of capability at a range of levels. This is driven by a number of factors including rapid growth and change, a rise in retrenchments due to changing role requirements, key people being ‘poached’ by the competition and a difficulty in retaining talented people. The rise of the economy out of the GFC is a further factor that will continue to accelerate these challenges.
With these external realities in the employment market, organisations need to take care to examine its choices on how best to respond. Establishing the right mindset, crafting a powerful Employee Value Proposition (EVP), sourcing, developing and retaining talent all makes for an enormous challenge.
Key components:
There are different ways of getting started on this critical journey.
- A company undergoing a turnaround for example will need to bringin top talent fast to bring about a transformation in its EVP.
- Companies in less dire straits can work more gradually on refiningrecruitment, EVP development and compensation simultaneously.
The key is to start now. The impending war for talent post the GFC mayseem like a crisis, but like any crises, it’s also an opportunity to seizeor squander.
Our experience with Australian and global organisations suggests that the typical organisational responses to the Talent Management imperative fall into four major clusters, depending on which part of the talent supply chain is broken.
- Cluster 1: Acquiring new talent
- Cluster 2: Leveraging existing talent
- Cluster 3: Retaining talent
- Cluster 4: Graduation entry pipeline
Why consider Talent Management strategies?
Companies that manage their physical and financial assets with rigor and
sophistication have generally not made their people a priority in the same
way. A war once conducted as a sequence of setpiece recruiting battles is
transforming itself into an endless series of skirmishes as companies find
their best people, and in particular their future senior executives, under
constant attack.
Fundamentally, there are 3 main arguments in support of effective
Talent Management:
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Argument #1: Recurring costs are reduced
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Argument #2: Economic outputs improve
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Argument #3: Enterprise value is maximised
Outcome
- Simple, seamless and streamlined graduate programs
- A consistent candidate experience
- Selection and retention of the right talent for your business
- Reduced attrition from the graduate program
- Cost effective solution
- Positive perception of your business in the graduate marketplace