At Work Newswire

By D. Quinn Mills

Having effective employees is central to business success. Some executives say that the winning play every time is having the right person in the job.

But good people are not easy to get. A company must find a qualified person, identify her out of many candidates, and persuade her to accept a job offer. Once the person has been hired, it is important to retain his or her services. American employees are free to quit a job for a better one whenever they choose, so retaining good people is as important as finding them.

In our economy today several factors are creating what we can call “talent wars” – a contest among employers to attract and retain the best employees.

First, the economy has been growing for many years and unemployment rates are low. Many people have several job opportunities.

Second, the baby boomers, a large generation of employees, are now beginning to exit the work place. The generations that follow are much smaller – so that competition for this smaller pool of workers will be intense.

Also, the new generations have different attitudes, expectation and behavior – so a company must not only seek to attract and retain them, but must adapt to them.

Third, as our economy changes from manufacturing and goods producing activities to increasingly professional services, knowledge workers are in great demand, and they again are different from previous employee groups. Employers must not only attract and retain these knowledge workers, but adapt to them in order to get and keep them.

Competing successfully for talent

These three factors make competition for the most desirable employees intense today. How can employers “win the talent wars”? What are talent management strategies for these new conditions? Here are three approaches organizations should follow:

1. Don’t neglect employees you already have. Often, they can they can be retrained and given knowledge-worker assignments. Internal candidates already know the company and how it works and so save the company time and money bringing outsiders up to speed. In many instances it is far cheaper to retrain and redeploy existing employees than to hire new ones.

2. Look not only for skills that fit a job opening, but also for personal qualities that fit the organization. Large organizations can often provide skill training, but it’s much more difficult to train people in the attitudes and behaviors that cause them to fit well into an organization.

   In the hiring process look for candidates with an indication of greatness, those with high standards in either work or outside of work; a candidate’s resume should show some area where the applicant has excelled - this can even be a hobby or sport or other activity. A new employee’s personal standard of excellence will be a bit contagious within our organization — it will help motivate others.

   Look also for candidates with valuable qualities who are smart and capable and work well with others. Those who can interact well with others will improve the functioning of your organization.

3. Make adjustments in jobs, supervision, compensation, benefits and working conditions that will attract the best talent. Don’t try to fit the new workers into the forms created for the old. Be flexible. Don’t assume the new people are like you or like their parents. The children of baby boomers are any more like their parents than baby boomers were like their parents. Do focus groups with potential employees; talk with them yourself; seek to find out what drives them, and be prepared to try to provide it.

Employing these strategies in the talent wars can help an organization turn the talent challenge into a human resources opportunity. Those organizations that are prepared for the changing talent environment will be best suited to thrive and prosper.

D. Quinn Mills is the Alfred J. Weatherhead Jr. Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. He consults with major corporations and teaches at Harvard on subjects of leadership, strategy, and financial investments.

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Copyright © 2007 D. Quinn Mills

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