Creating a milieu that attracts and retain Top Talent

Why is it that certain organisations’ have people queuing up to secure employment with them, while others despite advertisements, open positions, promises of great benefits etc. still find it impossible to engage talented people for their vacant/open positions?

These are magnetic workplaces—that attract crème de la crème thanks to the sheer power of the reputation and word-to-mouth goodwill that they have generated due to being employee centric. These are places where employees love to work.

Today attracting and acquiring talent requires more than just dangling the olive leaf, candidates are very picky about who they choose to work for, vis-à-vis the company having their pick. Just posting job openings and promising monitory gains is no more a lucrative offer to ensure that the company gets top talent. Instead employers need to position themselves as a recognizable brand to grab the attention of potential talent. Researching their target markets for candidates and where these candidates look for jobs is the key to success.

Advertising employee stories that allow potential candidates to understand the work culture and ethos of the company, how the company treats its talent pool helps them envision working for the company. The company needs to have a clear strategy in place to know how to attract and retain their share of the talent pool.

Cultivating your brand goes a long way in attracting high-quality talent. Today job seekers can conduct a detailed research on any potential employer that they are looking to work with quite easily. The first contact these candidates often have with an employer’s brand is its website. This can be the all crucial point in a candidate’s decision to consider whether the company is even worth applying for or not.

The company website can give an insight into how it treats its employees, this can be achieved by posting genuine stories and feedback of the workers, giving a general insight on the work culture, ethics, and growth pattern and how the company treats its talent pool is paramount. Job seekers will compare your reputation with that of your competitors.
Companies should promote stories during talent attraction process of past or present cases of an employee rising through the ranks. They should also ensure that potential candidates engage with these stories early on during their job search, meaning promoting such success stories on their website and through social media.

Once you have employed top talent, the next big question is, how do you retain them?
Learn and understand what top talent seeks today, times have changed dramatically over the past few years. Workers are seeking more than just a job; they are looking for a complete package. They are looking for a speedy career growth and enhanced experience. Companies today need to think ahead and offer speedy growth opportunity.

Employees can be offered to rotate in and out of key positions throughout the organization from time to time. This not only eliminates stagnancy but offers employees the advantage to acquire new skills and growth opportunity. Indirectly it also adds value to the company. Taking personal interest in an employees’ life when required like helping out when they or a family member is not well etc., gestures like these go a long way in ensuring that employee retention is high.

The essence of a successful employer brand is a clear employee value proposition or EVP. To be truly successful, an employer brand needs to reflect who they are as an organisation and be imbibed into the very core of employee experience.
The EVP defines what attributes the company would most like to be associated with in relevance to its employees, basically what kind of batter system deal they would like to make with them. In terms of what is expected of the employees to contribute towards the growth of the organisation and what results they can expect back for there contribution.

The EVP development and delivery involves commitment in terms of time from across the business. A well formed and thought out EVP provides many plusses including attracting and retaining of talent, helps HR focus on key agendas and above all creates a strong employee brand.
To be successful one needs to ensure that EVP is unique to its employees and act as the key driving force to talent retention and attraction, which is what the company brand is aiming for.

But remember, an EVP must be unique, relevant and compelling if it is to act as a key driver of talent attraction, engagement and retention – which is ultimately what the Organisation Brand aims to do.

Look within; advertise career development opportunities internally before seeking talent from outside. In today’s fast paced world talented people will quickly move on to new roles and jobs if they feel their current situation is redundant or if they are denied an opportunity to gain new experiences.
Organizations need to improve career development options internally to hold on to talent. But, just as important is that organizations need to work on these options to continue to attract top talent.

The key to hiring and retaining top talent is very simple—create a magnetic workplace. Culture is the foundation that will help an organization become attractive to the kind of people it seeks to employ. Honesty in who and what you are, also plays a significant role in talented people looking to engage with you long term.

Take constructive steps to create a positive environment that helps people thrive. They will stay, as long as you treat them with respect and provide them with options to grow in their careers right where they are.