The iconic business book by Jim Collins, ‘From Good to Great', provides the perfect analogy for today's talent shortage and what smart CEOs need to be doing to attract top talent ahead of the competition.
The book follows a group of companies over a period of many years and examines the characteristics of those companies that went from good to great.
The key concept and take away when it comes to talent, is "first who ... then what". It is here that Jim Collins brings into the play the idea of getting the right people on the bus, and the wrong people off the bus.
When ‘From Good to Great' was written, businesses had the luxury of being selective about who they wanted to let on their bus, they held the power.
In today's market however, the power has largely shifted to the job seeker, who is now looking around the bus depot at all the various bus ride options. There is so much choice, that in-fact it, is difficult for many of the buses to even be seen by the job seeker amongst the competition.
Assuming they have even found your bus, before they even consider getting on, today's job seekers rightly want to know who is driving the bus, who else is on the bus, what will the trip be like, what are the benefits offered during the trip, maybe even where is it headed, particularly if they are not so sure about the driver! For executives and senior staff this is the number one driver for attracting and retaining talent.
Look at your business from a prospective job seeker's point of view, someone who is standing at a bus depot and assessing their options.
If your business was one of those buses lined up at the depot with thousands of other buses, would you get on? If yes, why? If no, why not? Because chances are, there are talented job seekers doing just that with your business.
I am going to take the bus analogy just one step further. Think of HR as the ticketing booth who has the first interaction with job seekers who connect with your business.
How do they come across? Are they friendly, knowledgeable about the bus service and history? Do they take questions and provide answers? Do they engage or come across as unprofessional, bored and automated?
When the customer arrives at the window, is there an 'out to lunch' sign up, or when they go to pay and require change, does your ticket person tell them to go to the next counter? Some customers will still choose to get on the bus, however most will walk away and likely go to your competitor who treats them as an important customer, rather than a nuisance.
This may sound trivial, however, for most job seekers today the first contact they have with your business is with HR. Interestingly some of the poor service displayed at the ticket booth can be readily translated into what currently occurs when a job seeker has the first connection with your business.
It could start with a poorly written job ad, an application they submit and never hear back from, a phone call they make with a simple query to be told this information is not available, or even worse, there is no contact name or number to speak with before you submit your application because it is all automated.
Below are 6 key questions every CEO should be regularly asking their HR department and working with them to address if deficiencies are found:
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Is your HR team focussed on attracting top talent or on building up databases of resumes?
It is very hard to develop relationships when businesses are focussed on, and staff are measured on, volume. Some businesses and HR departments have identified this issue and are working towards having resources focussed on communicating with potential and past applicants, particularly when a new role comes up.
If your HR department is not developing relationships with those applicants whose resumes your database holds, chances are your business has spent thousands on building up a database of people who once wanted to work for your business, but now have no interest due to neglect.
They most likely endured a lengthy and inconvenient application process, which might have been nicely automated for your business yet would have also lost many good applicants along the way.
Your system may not have "matched" their resume against a job description at that point in time, and chances are they may never come up in a system match, so as such, your businesses will never benefit from their talent.
The age of mass and volume is over, we have entered a stage where talent is going to become increasingly harder to attract and the service and approach by businesses to lure them will become increasingly more complex and personalised.
Asking your HR staff what they see as their fundamental role will give you many clues as to if they are the right person to be in charge of your talent attraction and retention.
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Does your business have a clearly defined and consistently communicated employer value proposition?
According to a recent survey by Chandler Macleod, only 29% of organisations have developed a formal Employment Value Proposition (EVP), and are therefore able to consistently and effectively communicate a message for both current employees and job seekers considering working for them.
Can you imagine a business not having a brand value proposition for a product or service? i.e. not being able to consistently articulate why people should pay for their products or services?
If the HR or recruitment staff who are communicating with potential job seekers in your business are sending out different messages of what your business has to offer, or worse still, cannot say why anyone should work in your business, there are some concerns.
Again I encourage you to do a survey and ask those responsible for hiring what the EVP of your business is. The responses will be startling, however will enable you to move forward and ensure you have a more unified and authentic EVP.
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Are your best HR people in the front line to interact with top talent when it wants to connect with your business?
First impressions count! They say that in the interview process that the interviewer decides within the first few minutes if they'll hire a prospective job seeker.
Today, job seekers are just as likely to be assessing your business from their first point of contact with you, so if the HR people are not at the top of their game, it is unlikely that the top talent is going to be too excited about working for your business. Alternatively, the hiring manager will have to do an exceptional job to make up for the less than positive first impression.
There are some fantastic HR people out there and we hope that your business has some of these gems. Where possible, be sure to put your best and brightest in front of talent you are looking to win over and bring onboard.
Relegating the task to the most junior HR person may be a money saver in the short-term, however will cost you in long-term.
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Does your business outsource the majority of its recruitment to external agencies?
When it comes to recruitment, the majority of HR departments outsource this function at some time or another. Over 90% outsource hiring to agencies as a contingency. Engaging recruitment agencies or a Recruitment Provider Outsourcer (RPO) may or may not make sense for your business. It may also make sense for some segments of your business and not others.
Again, with recruitment being one of the most challenging yet important functions of HR, businesses and Boards need to be playing a more active role in what is most suitable for the business.
Today, an increasingly large number of people, particularly at the senior end, want to be sure that they are communicating with someone who is intelligent and knowledgeable about your business and the career opportunities on offer before they are willing to go to the next stage.
Many businesses still have a one-size-all when it comes to attracting talent and wonder why the talent is not biting! The talent is indeed out there, it is just that businesses need to adopt a more progressive and targeted approach to lure them.
Do you have an internal HR and or recruitment team? What are their key functions? Is attracting and retaining top talent their number one priority? How is talent attraction and retention measured and rewarded? Is it on long or short-term results?
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How innovative and progressive is your HR department?
The Chandler Macleod survey confirmed that the majority of HR departments engage in traditional and outdated hiring approaches. They go with what they know and have done before as opposed to trying new things.
In an age where change is a constant and the demographics of the workforce are so varied, businesses that are not keeping up with the times will not attract the top talent they inevitably are after.
How open is your HR team to new technology and new ways of doing things? Are they supported by the business both resource wise and financially to try new things? What have they implemented or introduced lately that is progressive and bringing about real value add results for your business? Is your HR team focussed and measured on attracting quality of applicants or volume?
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How much time and money is spent on employer branding?
Today businesses need to be marketing their employer brand and their employee value proposition 24/7, be that in print, online, radio, through stories and anecdotes, PR and so on.
Not only do businesses need to be marketing their products and services, time and money needs to be spent on marketing your employer brand. Now here is the interesting part; your employer brand may be perceived differently by the marketplace to what you think it is.
Today your employer brand is what job seekers in the market define it as. What is your business doing differently to influence your employer brand? What time, money and resources are dedicated to understanding and promoting your employer brand?
Using the bus analogy, in the past, businesses perhaps had the luxury of being selective about who they wanted to let on their bus; they held the power. In today's market the power has largely shifted to the job seeker.
There is so much choice that in fact it is difficult for many of the buses to even be seen by the job seekers amongst all the competition. Ask yourself, what is your business doing different to get noticed by the best? How are you servicing potential job seekers that connect with your business?
Mystery-shop your business or have someone go through your hiring process and assess if this is something your business can be improving upon. Survey recent hires to how they found the hiring and on-boarding experience.
I encourage you to look at your business and how you attract and retain top talent. Is your business doing enough of the right things to entice talent to come onboard, or are you just going through the motions and wondering why you are not getting the results?