The Talent Advantage: Winning the War for Talent in a Dismal Economy

Top talent is your greatest source of competitive advantage, but attracting, retaining and developing talented employees are challenges that face every organization. According to CEO guru Jack Welch in his book, Winning, hiring and keeping the right people even one-third of the time is well above the average. That's a scary statistic when you consider the cost of losing and replacing your best people. What's a leader to do?

Many make HR responsible for developing and executing the company retention strategy. Other companies lack explicit accountability for top talent. Another common omission is not knowing which jobs are the most strategic in terms of leadership development and retention.

Here are six tips for creating people practices that provide the edge in the talent pool.

1. Create a leadership style that builds trust and candor. Great people are inspired by great leaders and great leaders are honest and trustworthy. Know the potential successors to all direct reports and make positive connections as frequently as possible.  
2. Create accountability for talent creation and retention down the line. Identifying and retaining your best employees should be within the mandate of your entire management team (in fact, all your HR strategies should be well integrated throughout the organization). Hold people accountable for hiring well and for succession plan execution.  
3. Marry career development and succession planning. Make sure that your top talent know who they are and then work with them to develop their careers. Invest more heavily in the growth of top talent and extraordinary leadership, not in remedial work, for the greatest return. 
4. Become the leading advocate for top talent acquisition. Many CEOs attract top talent from other organizations by developing their personal brand. People want to work for them. As a leader, be personally accountable for attracting a few key people regularly and serve as a mentor to some of them.  
5. View your talent holistically, embracing the needs of all generations. Your organization includes talent from at least three different generations. Develop retention strategies that individually address the life balance, career strategies and technology needs of each group. 
6. Accept nothing less than extraordinary leadership and talent. Establish tough standards for new talent, and cut your losses when some don't measure up. The worst position is to allow good people to "coast." more... 

Read more with our latest book recommendation

Workplace 2020 by Jeanne Meister and Karie Willyerd. The workplace of the future is being shaped today by Web 2.0 - a collection of breakthrough social media technologies - and by the Millennial Generation. The convergence of these emerging workplace trends has created a generation of hyperconnected workers who are placing increased pressure on employers to overhaul their approach to talent management.

In The 2020 Workplace, human resources experts Jeanne C. Meister and Karie Willyerd offer a practical game plan companies can use to attract and keep these employees, and, in doing so, transform their organizations; achieve compelling business results, such as increased innovation and improved customer connectedness; and compete more effectively in the global marketplace.

 

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The Talent Advantage describes, in Nancy's no-nonsense manner, how top organizations are attracting and retaining top talent. Read more...