Nurturing a thriving Human Resources talent lifecycle is an ongoing challenge for many organizations. However, it must be met head-on with enthusiasm, introspection, and adaptability if a business is to achieve sustainable success. The eight pillars of talent strategy can serve as a guide along the way.
As you begin your process of introspectively analyzing your talent lifecycle, we encourage you to consider which of these pillars you currently exemplify and which could use some ongoing improvement.
The Eight Pillars of Talent Strategy
Operational Excellence
The delivery of consistently excellent results is the goal, and the means to that goal is the continuous development, adaptation, and improvement in services provided. It starts with fostering a culture of excellence: keeping pace with new technology and looking for every chance to improve through data-driven analytics.
Perfection should always be the goal, and striving towards that is a sure way to foster a culture of excellence.
Strategic Alignment
Large and small companies have different parts, and though everyone is working towards a common goal, those different parts can be slightly out of sync, and friction can develop. All parties must share the same strategic vision and communicate their objectives and methods for reaching them.
When everyone is consistently on the same page, you can achieve strategic alignment and reduce inter-company friction. The result is higher performance and competitiveness across the board.
Workforce Development
A successful workforce drives a successful company. Developing your team of professionals is essential. When employees gain new skills and competencies, they drive retention, engagement, and overall competitiveness.
When employees know that you appreciate and invest in them, they stay longer and are more productive.
Internal Mobility
Current employees will have a proven track record of reliability and competency. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be employed any longer. Hiring from within this pool of available talent is essential to avoid hiring the wrong person for the job.
Developing effective managers, fostering a culture of listening to and acting on employee ideas, and developing skills are sure ways to make internal mobility a reality.
Diversity
This core pillar is more important than ever. Employees are aligned in the company’s strategic mission but are bringing their wealth of diverse life experiences to the table at the same time. The result is a positive effect on retention, overall profitability, and corporate morale.
The challenges of fostering a meaningful sense of diversity are many, but more solutions are coming to the forefront all the time. There are both technology and human-based approaches to increasing diversity, and it’s essential to stay up-to-date on the latest best practices and trends.
Talent Quality
Attracting superior talent is one of the biggest challenges human resources managers face. Despite the challenge, the benefits of attracting superior talent are stunning. High-performing talent is up to 800% more effective in complex occupations.
Even for jobs requiring low skills, the performance of superior employees can be three to twelve times more effective. Taking advantage of cutting-edge technology and automating the hiring process can improve results when searching for outstanding talent.
Employee Engagement
It’s plain to see: disengaged workers are absent more often, create safety issues, and cause increased customer complaints. This, in turn, lowers productivity and profitability. When your employees are engaged, these issues are minimized or eliminated.
Highly engaged employees boost competitiveness by up to 147%. When you follow the best human resources practices, investing in your employees, encouraging internal mobility, and regularly providing valuable and meaningful reviews, you’ll keep your employees engaged.
Talent Experience
While compensation is still an essential driver of workforce loyalty, overall employment experience is a growing and valuable factor to a healthy talent lifecycle. When employees have a good experience, they are more likely to have a sense of belonging, innovate, outperform and adapt.
Taking our simple quiz is a significant step to see which pillars your company ranks highly on and which ones you need to improve on. Striving for excellence on all these pillars will put you on a path to increased profitability, competitiveness, and overall success.
