One of the greatest challenges for employers the world over is locating, hiring, and retaining employees who bring highly productive value to their companies and organizations. Such employees are, of course, the lifeblood of any successful workforce. The employer who establishes the means of recruiting and properly managing the right talent represents quality leadership within a winning enterprise.
For the most part, there is a broad and deep talent pool to fill many job positions. If anything, the Recession has added available workforce capacity eager to be found and employed. The industry areas that seem most deficient in expertise are engineering and intermediate to advanced levels of IT. Even in recent years, these have been under resourced areas. This lack of strength probably will not improve until we do a better job of attracting and educating more young people to STEM careers or Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. However, outside of STEM careers vast talent shortages do not appear to be the case. Nevertheless, matching skills with where they are needed continues to be a perennial and daunting challenge.
The best recruiters know where to go to find the most competent. They are well-connected, expertly networked, and a constant presence at tried-and-true feeder sources, such as schools and certain businesses. Getting and paying for high caliber recruiting and staffing services is certainly an option for companies seeking candidates for open positions. But the question emerges, can employers do more for themselves internally and procedurally to keep the flow of talent inbound and the loss of talent minimized?
Yes, employers can do more. Now, rather than present the readers with a bulleted list of techniques, I would like to focus an answer to the above question toward a more fundamental management and human virtue…kindness. Anecdotally, I hear it all the time from smart, experienced, hard-working, people — the single biggest reason why people do not like their jobs is because of poor management. I am not talking about managerial weaknesses that can be simply remedied with some training. This issue is much larger. It involves management’s use of intimidation, fear, inflexibility, weak ability to communication, and overall poor soft or people skills.
Nothing will drive talent away more effectively than by having in place leadership that either practices, encourages, or allows for an abusive work environment. In fact, there is a Healthy Workplace Bill, which has been introduced into twenty state legislatures since 2003. In New Hampshire, this bill known as HB 1403 was introduced and let die in committee in 2010.
In this day of interactive social media does anyone really think that word is not getting out loud and clear about where employees should not work if they want respect from their boss? Talent will be drawn to companies and organizations where smart and self-motivated employees can develop as professionals. Places with vision that encourage exploration and innovation, where decision-making results from a collaborative process. But at their core, those companies that establish as a cultural foundation respect and kindness will find talent wanting to stay. Consequently, by noticing the strengths and benefits each person can bring to the job and actively cultivating them yields positive results for any business.
Effective leadership can bring about the kind of work climate which attracts and retains talent. Unfortunately, talented leaders are hard to find. Peter Drucker, the godfather of modern management theory, said that the two most important attributes of leadership are self-awareness and honesty. Practicing those virtues in combination with a basic decency for fellow colleagues would seem to be a good place to start.
The best and brightest employees are not interested in heavy-handed rules, imposed methodologies, and stay-in-line-or-else tactics. Developing a talented workforce begins with collegial trust and a humane attitude.
