Walking The Talent Tightrope
ByIs your company walking the talent tightrope?
It is if you’ve not developed a robust talent management plan (TMP) that addresses the following key risk elements as follows:
Aging Workforce - The demographic composition of your workforce is a major risk factor. Here’s the issue: A sputtering economy and under-performing 401(k)s, have caused many valuable employees in the 50+ demographic to defer retirement. If they represent a large segment of your workforce, know this, as financial conditions improve, many of these employees will want to leave or work shorter schedules. The solution: Assessing your workforce make-up will allow you to evaluate your risk and prepare contingencies to reduce your exposure.
Employee Disengagement - Is another major element of risk. Here’s the issue: Workforce reductions, stressed survivors, inattentive management all contribute to a lack of commitment on the part of employees and lower productivity. Employee disengagement has a multiplier effect in that it amplifies other risk factors. The solution: Assessing the degree of risk and converting disengagement to engagement by improved internal communication and rewarding effort, both individual and team, is an imperative.
Skills Shortages - Here’s the issue: Skills inventories of existing/prospective employees have been neglected due to management’s preoccupation with weathering the recession. The erosion of the value of human capital and the lack of awareness of this fact is a common circumstance. The solution: Preparing a skills inventory and maintaining its currency over time is an essential component in managing this risk and for establishing a foundation for addressing identified problems and exploiting opportunities.
Talent Poaching - Here’s the issue: The advent of social media venues such as LinkedIn are exposing your employees to talent acquisition campaigns of your competitors. The solution: Evaluating the level of risk and countering it through actively managed retention initiatives is highly recommended. Social media can be a core component of this. You can even turn the tables on your competition by exploiting social outreach to capture your share of their talent.
Keeping your balance as you progress across the talent tightrope will help you cross safely to the other side and show that your talent plan is working and contributing to your company’s marketplace competitiveness.
