2015 Warning – A Talent Shortage! Focus on Growing and Retaining Your Talent – Part 2 of 2

Are your competitors luring your best employees away to "greener pastures?"

Are your competitors luring your best employees away to “greener pastures?”

The premise of this two part series is that there is a major issue now facing US companies as the economy continues to improve and the record number of people retiring exceeds the supply of new qualified talent entering the work place.

In Part 1 (link) I focused on three top sources of bringing in new talent. But once you obtain the best talent, how do you keep them engaged and growing? And to make the issue worse, as the economy continues to improve, you competitors are going to come after your best people to lure them away to greener pastures. You need to actively show your employees that the company cares about their career growth and that great future possibilities are available within your enterprise.

The importance of providing a skills and career growth value proposition is highlighted in the SHRM (Society of Human Resource Management) January/February 2015 “HR Magazine” in a feature story called “What’s in Store for HR in 2015.” In fact, a majority, 5 of the 9 predictions, supports this theme of the importance of talent development:
• Culture, diversity, engagement and retention will be front-burner issues.
• Corporate learning will be transformed and will take on more importance
• Talent mobility and career management strategies will become necessary to complete
• Leaders will invest in talent analytics and workforce planning
• HR teams will get a new design and focus on professional development

When your best talent leaves to go somewhere else (and let’s face it, it normally is your best who are recruited and lured away by competitors), the replacement cost in terms of recruiting, hiring and onboarding is huge! The cost per employee can often range from 1 to 1.5 times annual salary. Yet to invest in some robust career development tools to excite and retain your employees may even cost less than replacing one employee! Get proactive and grow your people instead of spending millions of dollars on “employee replacement costs.”

A good talent growth strategy will involve engaging employees in growing skills within their current position as well as giving them tools to plan meaningful longer range careers within your enterprise (see my past blog on short range and longer range development.) On the career growth side, I offer an innovative yet proven approach based on career mapping that is tailored to your enterprise and engages employees enthusiastically in longer range career planning.

Check out the Total Engagement Career Mapping offering as well as reading this ZipRecruiter article about my process. In addition, here is another article that demonstrates how to calculate a business case for investment in employee career development, ideal for securing the necessary budget from your CFO. And then contact me today to request my two page offering spec sheet and / or to set up an appointment to discuss how Total Engagement Career Mapping can work within your company.

2015 Warning – A Talent Shortage! Part 1: Three Great Sources of New Employees

New EmployeesYes, though it may not be as fast or as robust as we would like, the economy continues to improve in 2015. What is one of the major issues now facing US companies? A talent shortage! One of the major contributing factors is that the record number of Baby Boomers (people born between 1946 – 1965) retiring exceeds the supply of new qualified talent entering the market place.

Part 1 of this two part series will look at 3 top sources of bringing in new talent. Part 2 will explore the importance of retaining your existing talent through better engagement and career development.

Let’s examine three great sources for bringing in new talent: Veterans, Older Workers and Millenials.

1) Veterans! Most indications are that the USA as a country will be deploying less troops overseas, resulting in additional veterans ending their tours of duty and entering the domestic job market. Yes, hiring veterans is a good thing to do to thank those who have served our country, but more importantly, the men and women of our Armed Services have received excellent training and have gained valuable skills required by most businesses. Do look for programs in your state promoting and providing connection tools for Veteran hiring. In North Carolina, we have an excellent effort being coordinated by the Governor’s Working Group on Veterans, Service Members and their Families in conjunction with our NC state SHRM (Society of Human Resource Mgt) group and major businesses. Veterans looking for work in NC and companies with job openings should check out the NC Military Pipeline website. And do read my blog about hiring veterans from last November.

2) Older workers! Even has record number of people in their late 50s and 60s are now retiring, many older workers want to keep working or perhaps re-enter the workforce because of continued good health, the desire to keep intellectually stimulated and for financial reasons. This excellent pool of talent can offer deep expertise in their fields or your industry, and can even include former employees who may want to return to work part time or on a contract basis. But a strong value proposition needs to be offered; these valuable workers are seeking flexibility in hours and having responsibilities that leverage their strengths and in which they feel valued. Check out the blog I published in 2013 on considerations for best engaging older workers.

3) The New Millenials! These are people born after 1982, and thus includes all the 20-something recent college graduates. Companies must really work hard to recruit enough of this emerging young talent to fill many positions left by a high retirement rate, realizing that the same things don’t drive this generation as past ones. These younger workers seek more work-life balance, to have their opinions and contributions valued, and companies that embrace diversity and more altruistic global world view. Also companies need to do more recruiting in “virtual space” instead of the old methods. (see my blog “Are your recruiting methodologies up-to-date?”)

Go out and hire some Veterans, older workers and new millennials! In Part 2, I will focus on how to develop and retain this important talent once you have recruited them onto your team.