Our value added information for clients!
Hiring and retaining top talent for your organization is the single most important strategy for a successful talent powered organization.
Hiring and retaining top talent for your organization is an integral part of any successful business plan. That’s because the people you employ and grow within your organization represent your company to the public and partners; and they’re the ones who will create your success. If you can get the right people onto your team, and if you then give them the freedom to think and be creative, they can work magic. Yet good people are in short supply. Although universities and business schools around the world are churning out MBAs every year, the competition for the top talent remains intense. Whether the person you’re hiring is a junior software developer or a senior project manager, an accountant or a controller, a country manager or a CEO, getting top talent to notice your company and the position you want to fill, to come in and talk to you, and to choose you over other companies demands an increasing focus on hiring.
Companies need to develop a diverse workforce to benefit from the competitive edge that results when diverse approaches to problems and diverse points of view are adopted. Having invested so much time in developing talent pools, smart managers will need to figure out how to bring these top talent in house and grow them within the organization. They’ll need to respond quickly to applicants with relevant feedback, run intelligent interviews, and learn to sell the candidate on their company. Searches can be expensive, both in time and money, not to mention the productivity lost while a job sits vacant or needs to be filled again. So companies need to do whatever it takes to make their hiring process more streamlined and effective. And to develop a progressive hiring process to not only bring top talent on board but to grow and retain them within your organization. It’s simply good business.
The journey from deciding to bring the best possible people on board to actually making the hire can be challenging. It involves several key factors: writing a clear job description, developing and implementing a hiring strategy and communicating this closely with your recruiter so that it appeals to the kind of individual you hope to find. Although some people wait until they have a job opening to pursue candidates, it’s a good idea to be on the lookout year-round and to discuss any future hiring plans you might have with your recruiter so that he can be on the lookout continously for top talent that might be of interest to you.
“No organization can do better than the people it has.”
—Peter Drucker, management guru and author (1909–2005)
HOW TO CHOOSE TOP TALENT:
When trying to fill a position, companies tend to look for a candidate whose last job, or next-to-last job, was an
exact copy of the one they’re trying to fill. However, some of the best minds in global business today don’t agree with this method. Instead, they advise focusing not only on a candidate’s past job skills and experience but also on their character qualities and communucation ability. Ask yourself, does the job call for a great deal of problem solving? Will the employee have lots of autonomy? Are the things your people learn on the job more important than the things they bring to the job? Must they be able to learn and adapt quickly? How best can they add value to our organization? Will they fit our company culture?
When the answer to all these questions is “yes,” companies can also consider hiring someone with the right attitude—whether or not that individual has the "exact" matching experience. “Proven initiative” is also valuable - people with ingenuity and resilience, excellent communication skills, as well as a track record of overcoming challenges can add tremendous value to a company. Most importantly can they adapt and excel in your company culture? Granted skills and experience are highly important and valuable in any hiring decision however the bigger picture can be lost when the focus is only on this.
The Big Picture.
PERSONALITY AND PASSION ARE A PLUS:
When reviewing the basic requirements for a job, remember that character traits and personality matter as much as skills. Every hiring manager emphasizes a different set of attributes that he or she values.
Jack Welch, who led General Electric as CEO for 21 years and spent about half his time hiring and coaching his
staff, valued integrity above all else. To him, it was essential that the people around him could be relied upon to tell the truth and to keep their word. Next, he looked for intelligence, curiosity, breadth of knowledge, maturity, and the ability to handle success as well as stress and setbacks with aplomb. Also important to him were people with positive energy, people who “thrive on action and relish change.” He prized the capacity to motivate and energize others, “to inspire them to take on the impossible.” He wanted people who could get a job done and people with what he called “edge”—that is, the courage to make challenging decisions. Finally, he sought passion—“a heartfelt, deep, and authentic excitement about work.”Consider your company’s mission and goals, and determine what personal qualities are necessary to help you work toward them. Then tailor your hiring process to uncover people with those qualities.
Source: Winning by Jack Welch (Collins, 2005).
WHY EMPLOYESS LEAVE?
More than 85% of managers believe employees leave because they have been pulled away by "more pay" or "better opportunity." Yet, more than 80 percent of employees say it was "push" factors related to poor management practices or toxic cultures that drove them out. This huge disparity between belief and reality keeps organizations from addressing the costly problems of employee disengagement and regrettable turnover with on-target solutions. Again this cost both time and money. With a comprehensive and diligent hiring approach organizations can learn to identify, prevent, and correct the root causes of these problems.
By focusing on the big picture companies can learn how to avoid job-person mismatches, how to align employee expectations with the realities of the position and the company, how to provide constructive feedback and coaching that breeds employee confidence and growth, and much much more!
Orion International is more than happy to meet and consult with clients on how best to maximize your hiring and employee potential. Please dont hesitate to contact us with any questions or comments you might have.
“I am convinced that nothing we do is more important than hiring and developing people.
At the end of the day, you bet on people, not on strategies.”
—Larry Bossidy, author of Execution