The talent your company employs is simultaneously your most important and most expensive asset. This is why optimizing talent management is key.
Mismanaging talent costs organizations more than money. It leads to loss of engagement, morale, and lower retention.
Talent management mistakes can happen at any stage of recruiting, from onboarding and throughout their time at your organization. Even a mishandled transition or termination can be incredibly costly.
So what’s a company to do?
Below are some of the most common talent management errors and how to avoid them.
Not Prioritizing Diversity
Failing to prioritize diversity in your workforce can cut your talent ROI significantly.
A whopping 70% of job seekers say they look at potential employers’ commitment to inclusivity and diversity as an important factor when making career decisions. Inclusive companies foster a sense of community, and as a result, have higher levels of employee engagement and talent retention, and workplace diversity improves company morale and increases employee loyalty.
Studies show that diverse teams are 35% more profitable and 1.7 times more innovative than teams that lack diversity. Racially diverse teams outperform non-diverse teams by 35%, and making gender equality a priority in recruiting and hiring can raise revenues by as much as 41%.
Not Upskilling your Workforce
The future of work is changing. So is the talent required to run companies effectively.
Failing to upskill and futureproof your workforce can lead to significant skills gaps, and these will be hard to fill as companies fight for emerging talent in the shrinking pool of qualified candidates. Failure to predict and plan for future talent needs could leave your company fighting to survive.
Part of digital transformation for your company is retraining and reskilling existing talent to improve retention and maximize results from the team you already have. Upskilling can significantly increase employee loyalty and reduce workforce turnover. This method is being used increasingly by Fortune 500 companies, which we’ve detailed in our Future of Talent report.
Not Creating Internal Opportunities
Not including your existing employees in your potential talent pool is a mistake. In fact, a lack of internal career opportunities costs the average-sized organization nearly $50 million every year.
Employees who see opportunities for advancement are more likely to stay with their employer. More than four out of five who see no potential for career advancement are likely to leave to find a job where they think they can have upward mobility.
But a lack of internal mobility won’t just cost you your best players. It will cost you, applicants, too. One major red flag for job applicants and possible recruits is a pattern of hiring externally rather than internally.
So if you’re looking for the best, you’ll want to look both inside and outside of your company.
Not Working to Engage Your Team
Failure to engage your employees leads to active disengagement.
Not working to engage your team leads to lower productivity and morale and increases the likelihood of employee churn. Only 13% of employees worldwide say they are positively engaged at work, and this number keeps dropping.
This can also impact talent recruitment. Current employees’ engagement influences the quality of potential job candidates, according to Gallup. More than 71% of employees use or have used referrals from an organization’s current employees to learn about job opportunities.
How Censia Can Help Improve Talent Management
Censia’s Talent Intelligence Platform can transform the way you manage your talent pipeline, and help you avoid costly talent management mistakes, from helping you triple diversity across your candidate pool to identifying high-value talent that is already employed within your organization.
