Attracting the Right Talent: The Right People in the Right Seats

Employers are struggling to find the right people for the right seat. Recovery from the pandemic has made it difficult for companies to attract the right talent for their open positions. As a result, there has been a shift in the way that employees look at potential jobs.

Hiring the right talent has meant employing out-of-state workers for many companies.

We’re in a weird state this year because unemployment remains high. Between May and June 2021, unemployment has hovered around 5.8% and 5.9%. Positions are open at some of the country’s most promising businesses, but there’s a trend of:

• People leaving positions
• Companies struggling to retain talent
• Businesses not being able to fill positions
• Employee demands rising

Strategic staffing, or hiring the right talent at the right time and for the correct position, can go a long way in breaking out of the vicious cycle businesses are in.

Attracting the Right Talent With Strategic Staffing

Businesses often hire staff reactively. Human resource departments take a reactive approach only when a vacancy exists. A crucial lead role leaves the company, and filling the open position is suddenly a priority.

Strategic staffing is taking a proactive approach to staffing that requires:

• Determining skills the company is lacking and will need
• Analyzing the competencies required to meet your business strategy

When an industry grows rapidly, talent remains short, and hiring the right employees becomes difficult. In today’s business climate, the best talent has a lot of options. Companies across the country are hiring, with a lot of remote positions available.

Finding the right people for the right seats requires a well-planned strategy that includes:

Creating a Desirable Work Environment

Potential hires are researching your business before they apply for an open position. If the work culture is subpar or there are many complaints of being overworked or underappreciated, you’ll be the last resort for job seekers.

Survey people inside and outside of your organization to understand how your business is perceived.

Create a better message and work environment to help attract and retain the right employees. Employees, or those looking for jobs, know that they have options and prefer a strong, appreciative work environment.

In addition, 69% of employees state that they’ll work harder for a company that appreciates them.

Knowing Where Top Talent is Looking for Jobs

Hiring the right talent is a long process, and it’s not just as easy as posting on a job board with the hope that the right person will apply for your opening. Instead, your hiring process must start with you tapping into the right resources, including:

• Industry conferences
• Alumni networks
• Associations relating to your industry
• Etc.

Building long-term relationships with individuals in your industry is a proactive approach to hiring that can rapidly fill positions with the right talent. 

Close Talent Gaps

The right talent may already exist within your workplace. Reskilling is one of the ways that corporations are helping close talent gaps in their employee base. Cost-effective training is helping many businesses fill vital positions in their workforce and includes:

• Training employees on leadership development
• Upskilling to help employees understand a changing work environment
• Broad training in essential skills to keep employees engaged

Closing talent gaps can help businesses fill roles or buy time when hiring to focus on finding the right talent without worrying only about filling an open position.

Take Responsibility When Hiring

Applicant-tracking software and outsourcing the hiring process is standard for large companies. Artificial intelligence filters through applicants and tries weeding out people that are not a good fit for openings.

But the applicant that is the perfect fit may be eliminated from the application pool.

Hiring managers need to start taking on a more significant role in the hiring process by:

• Reviewing all applications so that you don’t overlook the right person
• Creating job listings with realistic requirements
• Leveraging multiple candidate sourcing platforms, including social media

There has been a rapid shift in the hiring process that focuses on hiring employees fast and at the lowest cost possible for the business. Of course, you should streamline the hiring process, but in today’s market, where employee turnover is high, more resources should be allocated to hiring.

Hiring managers can also use planning tools for their workforce that help match people for jobs and actively seek out prospects. 

Build a Strong Post-Hire Process

An applicant may have the right skills and experience, but your work shouldn’t stop at hiring. You can help mold an employee to be a perfect fit for the position in numerous ways, and this includes:

• Strong onboarding process
• Employee training
• Mentoring

A “whole person” approach ensures that the employee is happy in their position and understands their role. Training and support are essential because they ensure that the employee remains happy, engaged and committed to your company.

Retain Employees With Employee Engagement

Attracting the right talent takes time and money, and retaining workers is difficult when more than 33% are looking for another job. One way to retain the employees that you hire is to engage them.

Employee engagement is difficult to define because everyone seems to have their own definition of the term. However, engagement can mean that employees:

• Feel an emotional and mental connection to a workplace
• Have a willingness to contribute to company success
• Want to invest in their employer’s success

Your business can help improve employee engagement by providing training and coaching, giving individuals the attention and recognition they deserve, listening to employee ideas, complaints and concerns and supplying the right tools to employees.

If you boost employee engagement, the talent you hire will be more productive and will last longer.

Attracting the right talent in today’s business environment may be more difficult, but it is possible. If you follow the tips above, you’ll stand out from the crowd of employers and, hopefully, be able to hire top-tier talent.

If you’re not sure how to plan for hiring new talent, check out our post on cash flow planning for hiring.

Hiring has changed, and once you find the right employees, you’ll want to do your best to retain them.

Looking for additional help on determining when you should hire or how to grow your business?  Schedule a call with us today.