The talent pool has never been choppier. The Great Reshuffle impacts every industry as the workforce reevaluates their life and career goals. And hiring new talent is only a small part of the battle now facing companies of all sizes. Retention and internal mobility are even more important as competitors gear up to go poaching.
How can you empower your HR department to attract new talent, and create an engaged workforce at the same time?
Start by figuring out what employees want, then make HR investments that facilitate meeting those needs. Then go one step further and empower your HR department itself with tools to save time, resources, and money.
Don’t forget to achieve buy-in from your HR department before making big investments and changes. Deloitte notes that “technology implementations fail rarely because the technology did not work but rather because people are not willing, or find it too difficult, to use them.”
Making investments in technology is only half the solution. You must also invest in the people using the technology to ensure they understand its value.
HR Investment #1: Invest in Retention
The number one thing employees want when it comes to their job is flexibility. This includes means location, work hours, or both. True work-life balance means being able to take the curve balls life throws without worrying about losing your job. Enabling your employees to do their best, on their terms, goes a long way towards stopping employee churn.
According to research by Health Equity, 71% of employees cite schedule flexibility as a top three priority, and 75% say they have no wish to work onsite full time. Balancing the needs and wants of your workforce has to be a priority, and this can only be accomplished by robust HR support.
Making investments in technology that will allow HR to support work location and schedule flexibility without sacrificing productivity can go a long way towards attracting and retaining high-value employees who have set these conditions for themselves.
Look for HR solutions that facilitate accountability and track productivity to start, to make handling varying schedules easier from the administrative side, and ensure remote workers have the same support they were accustomed to when on-site.
HR Investment #2: Invest in Upskilling
According to the Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends Survey 2019, nearly two out of three respondents listed finding quality experienced hires as a chief obstacle to recruitment. It also noted that reskilling an internal candidate can cost a sixth of what hiring an external candidate does.
If you can’t fill skills gaps in your organization through hiring, consider filling it using underutilized talent from your own organization. Identify the employees with the closest match for the skills you need (adjacent skills), then find out if they are open to upskilling into the vacant role. Doing so saves money and boosts productivity.
Investing in HR to provide employees career advancement opportunities builds loyalty. It increases the value of your employees and helps you build a future-proof workforce. Seek a solution that drives internal talent sources, helping you build pipelines and identify high-value members of your team.
HR Investment #3: Invest in Recruitment
The average amount of time a recruiter or HR professional looks at a resume is only 6-7 seconds. Often they don’t have time for more than a cursory scan, and that opens up the floor for unconscious bias.
CNA-IT points out that the hours your own HR staff spends posting a job, reviewing applications, setting up interviews, conducting interviews, and chasing down references accounts for a large part of the cost per hire you incur for every new employee.
Investing in tools that make HR’s job easier while removing unconscious bias keeps your staff from burning out. It also improves the talent you’re bringing into your organization.
How Censia Can Help
Censia provides robust Workforce Planning to help identify skills gaps that could be filled internally by upskilling or reskilling candidates with adjacent skills.
The Talent Intelligence Platform makes it easier to find new hires in a competitive workforce market by building profiles that look like the perfect employee, then scanning vast databases for matches.
By implementing these and other AI-powered tools, you can empower your entire team to be more productive and engaged. And what’s more, your HR will regain precious time to invest in strengthening your workforce from within.
To learn more, schedule a free demo today.
