So three months into slowdown now, have you started getting brilliant people easily in your company. I am not surprised if your answer is no. If I ask, have you seen clear sign on better performance from new, improved employees who are joining now and your answer is no, I am not surprised again.
There's something so fundamental about attracting & engaging talent that market conditions seldom play significant role here. You have to answer one simple question, "why should someone join your company" and this question remains valid as long as the number of workplaces in the world do not shrink down to one.
So in absence of this answer, it would remain a challenge to attract & engage talent. Do not mistake attracting & engaging talent with hiring, so may still be able to hire. But its highly expensive to run the company with just hired employees and not the "attracted & engaged" ones. The behavior of engaged employees is very very different from the hired ones and most of the time when you are complaining about your employees its this difference that you are talking about.
So lemme add a few pointers about how you can try to build attraction:
1. Its a no brainer that if you can contruct a clear strong core purpose around your business existence, nothing attracts better. NGOs, Revolutionaries use this always.
2. You can be bigger than your competitor thus can offer people learning, training, handholding, bigger team, clear growth path....or you can be smallere than your competitor thus can offer them flexibility, multitasking opportunity, nearness to top management, less hierarchy etc.
3. You can be easy to reach office, fewer day's work office, no-office, fun office, open office, food at office, green-office, garage-office, but it must be attractive for one reason or other.
4. Again a no-brainer, talented people would expect you to know your numbers right and if your numbers seem too less for even their ambitions, they may not get attracted. When was the last time you got excited because someone was a chasing a business idea that could get as big as Rs.10 Lakh.
These are just thought triggers, point is, you must find answer to "why should someone work for you" to be able to attract talent. Is that enough? I am not sure, but its the essential. Till then keep hiring :)
3 comments:
With agreement to the fact that hiring neither equals attracting & engaging talent nor does it equals talent acquisition. Not many organizations realize the difference. Those who do "Make a Difference". There is a difference in a satisfied employee and an engaged employee and organizations who believe in the fact have better attraction and retention mechanism. The risk of making mistakes in appointing an employee is minimized.
While I second from the pointers you mentioned which can build attraction. I did a small survey to find out the CSR initiatives/importance/seriousness in organizations. There are not many organizations which are dedicated and there is much to be done in this field. I am not sure there is any organization where people join taking this as a motivation; yes they might appreciate the efforts.
Point 2 is something most of the organizations do, but the seriousness/dedicated effort in all these initiatives is yet to be determined.
Point 3 is about the facilities available in most of the companies - Cab facility, cafeteria, flexi work hours, recreation activities. Not too sure how can a talent are attracted by telling him about these extra facilities.
Point 3, I could understand it to be more inclined towards innovation, now here I can make a person think about my organization.
I agree with your idea that organizations should find out -"Why should someone join and work for your company"? - "why should someone join and work for your company".
I believe it should be a simple but robust strategy to understand the talent and be flexible and keep on innovating and changing the company policies to match up with the market standards and the expectations of your talent. Treat them like a family where you care for everyone, but at the same time don't pamper and spoil them.
With agreement to the fact that hiring neither equals attracting & engaging talent nor does it equals talent acquisition. Not many organizations realize the difference. Those who do "Make a Difference". There is a difference in a satisfied employee and an engaged employee and organizations who believe in the fact have better attraction and retention mechanism. The risk of making mistakes in appointing an employee is minimized.
While I second from the pointers you mentioned which can build attraction. I did a small survey to find out the CSR initiatives/importance/seriousness in organizations. There are not many organizations which are dedicated and there is much to be done in this field. I am not sure there is any organization where people join taking this as a motivation; yes they might appreciate the efforts.
Point 2 is something most of the organizations do, but the seriousness/dedicated effort in all these initiatives is yet to be determined.
Point 3 is about the facilities available in most of the companies - Cab facility, cafeteria, flexi work hours, recreation activities. Not too sure how can a talent are attracted by telling him about these extra facilities.
Point 3, I could understand it to be more inclined towards innovation, now here I can make a person think about my organization.
I agree with your idea that organizations should find out -"Why should someone join and work for your company"? - "why should someone join and work for your company".
I believe it should be a simple but robust strategy to understand the talent and be flexible and keep on innovating and changing the company policies to match up with the market standards and the expectations of your talent. Treat them like a family where you care for everyone, but at the same time don't pamper and spoil them.
You are righ Vibhuti, there needs to be crisp value pack that answers the question. In point 3, I meant to highlight the fact that facilities do matter, ofcourse better facilities matter more. Just to share with you, plugHR started a facility in its client accounts where managers have access to Tennis courts with coaches to teach them during morning hours. To our surprise this facility got very enthusiastic response from managers. Now managers can make a CEO run on the courts and they feel far more connected.
Keep writing....
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