What are the best practices today?
The days of depending on Monster to provide you with quality candidates are over. Those candidates are actually viewed as lazy job seekers today. The most innovative, creative people out there are on Facebook, Google+, Twitter and LinkedIn. Take advantage of the free age of the Internet and post positions on the various Social Networking sites.
Give your applicants a centralized location to apply for positions that holds all pertinent information about that applicant. This allows you and the applicant better control of the process from start to finish.
Do yourself and everyone involved a favor and get rid of those old paper performance appraisals.
Don’t make the mistake other organizations have made and lose good people by not paying them what they’re worth.
Work on initiatives that offer employees options that allow them to spend time outside of the office, while still feeling as though they are filling their obligations at work.
Invest in the growth and education of your employees. Consider tuition reimbursement programs and/or allow them to obtain certifications as they relate to a particular position or career path within the organization.
What Worst Practices should you steer away from?
Knowing the worst practices in anything you’re seeking to implement is just as important if not that more than knowing and understanding the best practices. Why? Knowing the worst practices helps you to avoid torrential mistakes that others have made in the past (or are currently being made).
Understanding what they’ve done and why it doesn’t work will give you a head start on your implementation and save you the time, effort, and headache you would have otherwise endured.
Take a look at some of the identified worst practices in Talent Management.
1. Not taking action.
You know something is broken. Don’t assume things will get better… they haven’t so far. Do something about it before it’s too late.
2. Using Ms Excel as a catch all.
Excel is a great tool…for some things. It shouldn’t be used to be build your Comp. structure or your performance appraisals. It leaves lots of room for error and there’s little to no intuitiveness.
3. Not paying people what they’re worth because…
“they already work from home” or “ we have such a casual environment and they wouldn’t get that treatment elsewhere”. Don’t hold company perks or incentives over your employees’ heads to a poor compensation structure. That’s not the purpose of incentives and is a good way to lose quality employees.
4. Giving a standard 2% raise across the board.
Companies often make the mistake of giving standard 2% raises because it’s easier and fair. Not really. It only promotes lack of engagement and decreased productivity. “Why should I work so hard if he barely works at all and gets the same raise?”
5. Leaving the employees in the dark.
Yes, you’re the final decision makers but don’t shove anything down your employees’ throats. Keep them informed in the happenings of the organization and allow for feedback. You never know how beneficial their input may be to you.
Approval of the Big Wigs
Planning the implementation of your Talent Management tool is all well and good if you’re in a position to make those higher level decisions, but what about the middle level person that needs to convince the “higherups” that it’s a good idea?
We all know that companies are cost cutting across the board, and it’s going to be difficult to prove the need for what may seemingly be a luxury to the uninformed executive.
Excuse the high school reference, but in this case it’s actually relevant. Think back to the days of writing persuasive essays. The idea was not to fib or misinform but to prove to your reader the point you are trying to convey. The point you are trying to make will be the need for a Talent Management tool. In keeping with the theme, revisit the structure of writing that persuasive essay:
establish your facts,
clarify relevant value,
address any possible resistance,
and form and state conclusions.
This is probably the best way to go about making your case to your Executive Team.
Establishing the Facts
What you will need to do here is to explain to the Executive members what a Talent Management tool is, how it works, and what it will do for your company… in other words, you basically need to answer the question “why do we need this?”
Go into detail with this analysis. Speak on the current turnover percentage and what it costs the company. Turnover is not only an administrative headache, but it costs the company quite a bit of money. There is the cost (time) of administering the exit exam, removal of various rights to systems/applications, separation or severance pay (if applicable), and possibly the increase in compensation costs. Then you have to look at what it costs the current staff while waiting to fill that vacancy. Duties/ responsibilities have to be shifted to accommodate the loss, which isn’t fair to your employees, and often leads to low morale. Then there is the cost of posting the position and the time it takes to interview. After which you need to drug test, background check, and then train that individual. It’s all very expensive.
Clarify relevant Value
Executives don’t have a lot of time and don’t want to hear any fluff. What you need to do is lay your main points on the table.
What are the main points?
1. Growing need to retain and attract quality candidates.
2. The exorbitant cost of continuing to hire/fire/replace employees.
3. The need to adequately manage the employees that are currently in place to include: performance appraisals, training, comp and benefits structure, etc…
4. Appropriate succession planning measures
Identifying these relevant points put things into business perspective, which gets the attention of those executives and their strong business acumen.
Addressing resistance
Even though you will have listed very strong points in pleading your case, there will most certainly be pushback. The key here is to address the issues before they can ask. What are some of the questions that you’ll be facing? The most obvious is the cost factor. You’ve already touched on the cost of turnover. Continue to reiterate that the cost of not having the tool is much greater than the cost of getting the system…this relates to money as well as time, addressing growing business needs, etc…