How to be Prepared for When Top Talent Leaves
By Ian Brady
Top talent is hard to find and can be even harder to keep. No matter how effective you are at retaining your talent however, you’re never going to be able to keep every single person. The reality is some people will leave – it’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when.
People can leave for a variety of reasons that aren’t necessarily a reflection of your ability to engage and retain employees – reasons like travel, further education, or to pursue other interests. Regardless of the reason though, the bottom line is that you’ll be faced with vacancies at various times and charged with the task of filling them. How fast you’re able to fill them and the quality of hire you’re able to find are both of paramount importance. The more you accept this and prepare for it, the better the chance you’ll be able to fill your vacancy with a great person rather than with a “suitable” person.
The 'Always-On' Talent Search
We constantly advocate what we call the ‘always-on’ job search to candidates – that is for them to always keep an eye out for other opportunities, even if they’re presently employed, so they’re prepared when the time comes to move on. That same approach can and should be used by companies when it comes to scouting talent. Organizations that are interested in maintaining a consistently high-performing team need to always be on the lookout for top talent whether they have a current hiring need or not.
Truly great people are hard to find and there WILL be hiring needs down the road. By starting to look when a need arises instead of beforehand, there can be added pressure to find someone quickly which can result in concessions or sacrifices being made in the quality of hire.
You need to recognize that every encounter and interaction represents an opportunity to evaluate people as a potential fit for your company. By getting into the habit of doing this, it will eventually become second-nature so whenever you meet someone new, one of the things you think about is if they have the potential to be a good fit for your company.
Build a Virtual Bench
Further to the notion of the ‘always-on’ talent search is going one step further and starting to qualify a group of people that you identify as strong potential candidates for roles in your company. This allows you to build a ‘virtual bench’ of talent that you can call upon should a specific need arise. It doesn’t involve taking them through the entire hiring process, but it does go beyond simply ‘scouting’ talent and opening up a dialogue with the person – what their priorities and career goals are, and if there’s a reciprocal interest on their end.
By doing this, if someone in your company leaves, you then have 3-5 people that you’ve already met with who could potentially be a great fit for that role. You’ve already gone through the first stages of screening with them and have identified them as top performers who could potentially be a fit for your company. This is much easier and faster than starting from scratch, and is likely to produce a stronger person in a shorter amount of time.
If you work with recruiters, make it clear that you’re open to seeing any great people they come across regardless of if you have any open opportunities or not. Even if you’re not currently looking to fill any specific roles, it’s important and advantageous to continue to meet as many great people as you can.
Succession Planning
Those who want to be way ahead of the curve can also engage in formal succession planning. Succession Planning involves identifying people currently within your company who are top performers and that would be suited to move into more senior roles when they become vacant.
The tricky part with succession planning is it’s sometimes difficult to get the timing right. Sometimes you don’t know exactly how long the more senior person will stay in their role for, and most top performers won’t be interested in waiting an indefinite amount of time for it to vacate and could potentially move on or into a different role.
Employment Branding
Research shows that top performers go about seeking out new jobs in different ways than most people - top talent in the marketplace is unlikely to apply to a traditional job posting. The best people go about career changes in a different way, and if you want to even have a hope of them being interested in applying to your company, you need to engage them and get on their radar before they begin looking or decide it’s time for a career change. The best way to go about doing this is with effective employment branding.
Similar to the brand message you present and communicate to consumers, it’s also important to communicate a message to the talent market around what your company is all about and what it’s like to work there. To be successful, it’s important to have a compelling story to tell and also to make sure everyone in the company knows what it is and is motivated to spread it themselves. Your own employees should always be your biggest advocates and play a big role in your employment branding efforts. Consistency and repetition is key here - there’s an old adage that says you’re not repeating your story often enough until your employees are making fun of you for it.
Use various aspects of your website for employment branding efforts along with PR, employer award nominations, social media, any face-to-face and networking functions, and whatever other ways you can think of to spread your story.
Preparation Increases Quality of Hire
Of course it’s important to do everything you can to continually engage your employees - reward them, recognize them, and give them challenging work that they enjoy doing. Hanging onto those great people you already have is the best way to build a strong team. That said, people will leave no matter what you do and to maintain a roster of top performers you need to be prepared for that.
As with most things, being re-active takes more time and will usually yield a lesser result than if you adopt a pro-active approach. The same can be said for hiring. If you’re rushing trying to fill a gap, the quality of that hire is likely to be of lesser quality. Keeping recruitment top of mind even when there are no immediate hiring needs will make it that much easier when the time to hire does come, and the quality of hire in the end is likely to be much greater.
-
As Partner, Ian Brady works in partnership with some of the brightest minds in the technology industry.
[Full bio]
|
IQ
Insight is published by IQ
PARTNERS Inc.
IQ
PARTNERS helps intelligent companies hire better,
hire less and retain more. Our services include
Executive Search & Recruitment, Qualification
& Assessment, Employee Retention, Career
Management and Contract HR Services. We specialize
in Marketing, Communications, Online, Media, CPG, Sales, Technology,
Legal and Financial Services, and operate at
the mid-to-senior management level. IQ PARTNERS' head office is in Toronto with partner offices across Canada, and internationally
via the Aravati
Global Search Network.
|
