Updating Your Business to Attract More Talented Employees

Keeping talent has become kind of a multi-player video game every business has started playing. The newest trend — talents — have been the focus of a lively debate among the top brass across industries.

Originally, these people were linked with start-ups due to obvious differences in their business models, business agility, and overall company culture.

However, with traditional businesses desperately trying to keep up with digitalization and rushing to apply new methodologies in an attempt to remain competitive in the rapidly changing world, talents have become a desirable asset left, right, and center.

Just exactly what talents are you’ll have a difficult time discovering. In recent years leading to now, businesses have been using this term abundantly only to be unable to define its meaning when asked to.

Let’s try to solve this conundrum!

Defining Talents

In their book “First, Break All the Rules,” Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman recognize three types of models: skills, knowledge, and talents.

“Skills” encompass the usual how-to of the role; “knowledge refers” to qualifications; “talents” are defined as “recurring patterns of thought, feeling, and behavior.”

Let’s stick to this explanation for clarity’s sake.

It also makes it easier to compare “talents” to terms businesses are familiar with, which usually equal what is known today as soft skills.

E.g., to qualify as a talent, a person is required to possess some of the following soft skills: conflict resolution, adaptability, decision-making, communication skills, innovation, execution, and the ability to manage others.

Of all these skills, innovation is what makes a talent stand out from the rest. Coincidentally, this troublesome term is also the first stumbling block that makes business transition all the more complicated. Developing agile leadership has proven a good approach, but it’s just a starting point.

Back to talents, a rather burning question is: how to attract such incredible people and keep them loyal to a business?

Provide Ultimate Job Flexibility

It’s difficult to ignore the fact that more and more people are turning to remote work, some of them even going freelance or digital nomads.

The hype is real and businesses would best take this trend that’s spreading like wildfire into account.

The probability that your next wunderkind may be an expat in Singapore is equal to that that they may be freelancing in Cambodia. Needless to say, they are unlikely to get back to the office in the States no matter the offer, as they’re driven by a completely different type of motivation businesses are versed in.

Hence, the first obvious tip would be to apply a hybrid work model and offer different contract types.

There are multiple options when it comes to hybrid work. The usual six work models include:

•         Partially remote work, with flexible office space

•         Almost entirely on premises

•         Partially remote work, multiple hubs

•         Partially remote work, large office space

•         Almost entirely off premises

•         Multiple microhubs

As for contracts, consider flexible contract types. Some remote workers may run a business of their own or benefit from lower taxes for freelancers somewhere in the wide world striving to attract capital by any means possible.

Provide Seamless Technology

No article about business can go by without mentioning new tech and that should be indicative on its own.

While volumes have been written about team management tools, project management apps, and online communication, some other crucial tools that can make or break a business remain obscured for no obvious reason.

It’s also important to keep an eye on the trending tools, which presently include:

The current trends include the use of following tools and approaches:

•         IoT for asset management

•         Cloud-based software for remote work

•         Artificial intelligence for business automation

•         Inventory management software for supply chains

Other tools may also come to mind. Consider your business goals and needs in detail when choosing the apps for your employees, talents included.

Look Into Continued Learning and Upskilling

Rolling out new employee apps should be coupled with adequate training. On top of that, additional skill training is one of the chief perks talents are interested in. 

eLearning has been around for a while and it seems to be getting more popular by the second. Offering specific training programs will be appreciated, so consider exact skill shortages to define the best learning plan.

Implementing microlearning will help you train your teams effortlessly while not causing burnout. Gamification is another option employees simply love.

Increase Your Knowledge Sharing Efforts

Finally, pursuing knowledge is one thing but sharing is quite different. For a business to keep employees engaged and happy, efficient knowledge-sharing options simply need to be considered.

Encourage and foster a knowledge-sharing culture and deploy a formalized knowledge management process. What’s important is that knowledge is available to everyone within the organization at a moment’s notice.