June, 2000
How to Attract and Keep Talent
Whoever has the Best Talent Wins
Companies skilled at attracting, developing, and retaining talented have the competitive advantage in the marketplace. As the demand for superior talent increases, companies in the US and Canada are finding it increasingly difficult to attract and retain good people.In Canada there has been an extended outcry over the brain drain to the US. While our government gets most of the blame for overtaxing the population, business is also at fault. According to the Conference Board of Canada, our country's level of business innovation is "dismal." This affects our ability to create wealth.
"By almost any measurable aggregate economic standard — tax to gross domestic product, real per-capita income, real disposable income — Canada has been falling behind the United States by almost every economic aggregate measure, except income inequality, since the late 1970s."- U.S. economist Lester C. Thurow at the Business Council on National Issues, Toronto (April 6, 2000)
Thurow's advice:
* Set a national target, that, say, Canada's per-capita income will be the same as that of the United States in 15 years, instead of being 25 per cent lower.
* Choose a strategy — lower taxes, developing human talent, investment in research— and go for it. Singapore has done it. So could Canada.
Strategies for Attracting Top Talent
* The most important strategies for attracting top talent include: augmenting student programs; providing a learning environment; using anticipatory hiring practices; and, involving employees in the hiring process.
* The most successful strategies for keeping employees include: holding managers accountable for retention; having a mechanism for identifying high-potential employees; having a clear understanding of the needs and values of employees; and having effective succession management systems.
* Education institutions are critical to managing scarce skills. Survey respondents said they want colleges and universities to focus on: preparing students with better interpersonal skills; introducing or expanding co-op programs; and being more responsive to the needs of industry.
(Source: The Conference Board of Canada Report: What to Do Before the Well Runs Dry: Managing Scarce Skills. April 2000)
Talent Search should start at Home
In their quest for talent, managers sometimes forget one important source. Their staff. "Workplaces are usually filled with talented people whose skills are either underused or misused entirely.""How can you be a world class company if your people are intimidated about speaking freely? At the end of the day my employees may be the only sustainable competitive advantage we have." Michael Bonsignore, chairman and CEO of Honeywell Int'l.
Mr. Bonsignore makes a point of visiting employees at all levels to engage in meaningful conversation, without having other managers around.He believes this is a crucial way to keep employees motivated and these meetings provide him with a perspective he would not get otherwise. He also asks employees to tell him about their immediate bosses, what contributions they want to make and how they want to advance.
Mitchell Fromstein, chairman emeritus and former CEO of Manpower Inc. says you can maximize talent by taking calculated risks with employees. "Have managers take inventory on the talent of employees and give them a shot at trying new things. Add some responsibility to the task and see how they run with it. Through working with people, observing them, and talking to them in their work environment rather than in your office, you get a sense of not only what they are doing in the present but what they are capable of doing. You see things that are ingredients needed in other areas of the company" — The Wall Street Journal, May 2000
Money isn't everything
A work/life balance is the number one concern of employees at all levels, in Canada and the U.S. The ability to achieve this balance is the top determinant in whether they are happy on the job, and whether they stay or leave. — Report on Business Magazine
The ART of work at Deloitte and Touche (Canada)
"Talented people need an environment that encourages their growth and satisfaction inside --and outside -- the workplace. ART (the Advancement and Retention of Talented People) is becoming a positive point of differentiation for people who are looking for both job challenges and life balance.
"Work/Life Harmony, a key component of ART, helps employees balance the demands of client expectations, family needs, personal development and social commitments. It is a driving force that is challenging the company's assumptions about how work is done. The ability to meet targets and goals is more important than how many hours you've worked. Employees can choose to work flexible hours or even reduced hours. They can even take a summer off to attend to children or aging parents.
Work/Life Harmony is integral to the firm's success in attracting and retaining employees."If we are going to keep these people, we need to offer them alternatives. It's far better to have these talented folks with us 80 per cent of the time or 75 per cent of the time than zero percent of the time." Peter Bowie, chairman Deloitte & Touche (Canada).
Talent needs to be nurtured
*One our great cravings as human beings is to be recognized. Let people know they are valued and highly regarded. Show appreciation when someone goes the extra mile on a project. Give positive feedback often.
* Start by giving people a sense of belonging. As John Doe of Arrow Electronics points out, "It's harder to quit if you are having lunch every quarter with your mentor."
* Wherever possible, give people a great boss.
* Talent loves a compelling mission and an opportunity to grow.
Dr. Robert Lockhart shares his story; "Five years ago I was approached by BC Research Inc. with an offer to join that company to work in the area of environmental and health and safety consulting. As owner of a successful consulting firm already working in this area, I did not immediately jump at the offer. However, on further discussion, I learned about the other aspects of BC Research, namely the company goals in technical innovation and new business development. This potential move now became an opportunity to transfer my consulting and management skills to an organization that offered the additional benefits of financial and professional growth in an organization building new businesses. (two since I joined the company). Lockhart Risk Management Ltd. merged with BC Research in 1996, and the work since has been both rewarding and exciting."
Leadership
The job of leadership today is not just to make money. It's to make meaning.
When it comes to attracting, keeping, and making teams out of talented people, money alone won't do it. Talented people want to be part of something that they can believe in, something that confers meaning on their work and on their lives - something that involves a mission. And they don't want that mission to turn into the kind of predictable "mission statement" that plasters many a corporate-boardroom wall. Rather, they want spiritual goals that energize an organization by resonating with the personal values of the people who work there - the kind of mission that offers people a chance to do work that makes a difference.
Along with the traditional bottom line, great enterprises have a second bottom line: a return on human investment that advances a larger purpose. A powerful mission is both a magnet and a motivator.
~ Xerox Parc guru, John Seely Brown (Fast Company Magazine)
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Increasingly, performance in knowledge-based industries will come to depend on running the institution so as to attract, hold, and motivate knowledge workers. When this can no longer be done by satisfying knowledge workers' greed, as we are now trying to do, it will have to be done by satisfying their values, and by giving them social recognition and social power. It will have to be done by turning them from subordinates into fellow executives, and from employees, however well paid, into partners.
~ Peter Drucker, (The Atlantic Monthly Oct. 99)
Happy creating!
Linda Naiman
