With the latest ONS labour market data revealing that the UK once again reported record breaking vacancies numbers in the three months leading up to May, and with competition for talent fiercer than ever, businesses must place more emphasis on internal hiring strategies.
With the skills gap continuing to widen and available talent levels dwindling, new and innovative external hiring strategies are constantly being turned to as a means of beating the competition for the best staff. While this is certainly important, I’d argue that far too many firms are focusing the majority of their attention on outward candidate attraction and ignoring their current resources – which will only exacerbate the problem. With the ONS also reporting last month that open jobs had surpassed the number of people unemployed, staff are arguably ripe for the picking of competitors. Identifying where internal mobility opportunities lie in order to move staff across the business and boost retention rates will help alleviate some of the pressures on resourcing teams.
It’s important to also stress that reducing employee turnover should be a strategic focus for the boardroom, not just the HR leadership team. Employee turnover involves significant wage inflation as external hires will nearly always come at a premium unless companies are doing a good job of hiring for potential over job-readiness. And with employee turnover there will nearly always be a lag before a new person is in a role, leaving teams under-resourced and productivity declining. So, naturally, employers need to do a far better job of developing and retaining existing talent to both aid retention and help deliver against growing workloads – and encouraging a greater level of internal mobility is key to this aim.
While there is no quick fix for the UK’s skills shortage, opening positions up internally as well as implementing upskilling or reskilling programmes for current staff will boost retention rates in the long term.A lack of career opportunity is regularly cited as the reason that people leave their current employer so ensuring companies are looking at their internal employee population will have a swift impact on skills deficits.
What is certain is that, as it stands, employers aren’t doing all they can to maximise internal hiring opportunities and a new approach to internal hiring is needed, one that includes new technologies that give organisations a holistic view of the skills within the business and can proactively help to match existing talent to new internal opportunities. We need to change our corporate cultures so that managers are encouraged or rewarded to develop and progress their existing talent, not just look externally. And we need to allow talent acquisition teams to proactively approach internal talent for roles in the same way that we would do for external talent.
The UK employment rate increased by 0.2 percentage points on the quarter to 75.6% but is still below pre-coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic levels. The number of full-time employees increased over the quarter to a record high however, this was partially offset by a decrease in the number of part-time employees. The number of self-employed workers fell during the coronavirus pandemic and has remained low, although they have increased over the quarter.
Very interesting article written by the Chief People Officer (Christy Pambianchi) from Intel which is being discussed at the World Economic Forum right now. It is remarkable (and very encouraging) to think that nine out of ten employees would take a pay cut for more meaningful work (although how much of a cut is not detailed!).
It is certainly true that the workforces of today seem to be much more purpose-driven than ever before and the much heralded ESG revolution is real. Some great advice is given in the article, including the need to re-assess the purposeof your company and capitalise on the fact that employees whose company values are activated and aligned with them personally are far more loyal, engaged, and willing to advocate for their employer. Moreover, if you give your people a stake in purpose-building you can expect them to feel three times more fulfilled….. that is a strong business case to get hem involved.
Christy believes that with the higher calling of combatting climate change, there is a need to connect people, technology and purpose in all that we do, to engage a purpose-driven workforce to develop and in the process solve the challenges we face in the future. Personally I couldn’t agree more.
It looks like Intel have a strong strategy in place that is purpose-driven, and I would urge all organisations to think about how they can become more purpose-driven. It is certainly a way in which to attract and retain the best talent in a very competitive talent market.
Nine out of ten employees would take a pay cut for more meaningful work
I love the 5 simple points in this short article, that remind me how important self-development is if you want to be a good leader.
Leading teams today is complex, and in a hybrid working environment it’s really important to focus not only on skills for the job, but also on building relationships at all levels.
In summary, the 5 points are mentioned below.
When you know what makes you great at your job, share it with others
Understand how others see you (beware the shadow you cast!)
Mentor others to develop your leadership skills
Learn to work with personalities that you find difficult
Set healthy boundaries
Promotions Aren’t Just About Your Skills – They’re About Your Relationships
Increasing evidence points to the heightened “human” skills needed for great recruiters to close prospective employees looking for a new employer with strong purpose. Empathy being at the forefront.
With an energized focus on addressing mental health and other societal challenges, purpose-driven companies will likely continue to grow.
I love to talk and it’s quite easy for me, especially when I am passionate about a topic, to dominate a conversation.
It took the wise words of a former manager to point out that my habit of “holding court” was not only overshadowing other colleagues and deterring them from contributing to meetings, but any ideas I may have been putting across was getting lost in a melee of words.
Being a leader, it’s not all about you and the real value comes from talking less and listening more. It’s about making your messages more impactful and being inclusive and seeing the value of everyone’s thoughts and ideas. I had overlooked that.
I was lucky to have received this feedback and it stuck with me. Now, I make a conscious effort to take a step back, be quiet and listen to others. I try to be patient and not rush to make my point and don’t feel the need to talk for the sake of it. I wouldn’t say I have this balance right 100% of the time. The sometimes-uncomfortable silence at the beginning of a virtual meeting can be a trigger and I feel the need to fill the silence, but I am trying.
I found this article by Anne Sugar in Harvard Business Review really resonated with me. Anne outlines some practical tips for sharing the floor – by firstly reflecting on how much you might be talking, to deploying tactics such as consciously building in pauses or compressing your thoughts to ensure what you are saying is necessary and impactful.
While it’s important to share your point of view, it’s critical to know when and how
and to remember that you aren’t the only person with an idea or opinion so make sure you allow others to voice theirs.
Many leaders need to be coached to speak up. But what if you have the opposite problem — and you can’t seem to stop talking? This can lead to frustration all around — your team members become frustrated because they want to share their own ideas, and your manager grows frustrated because they want to hear other viewpoints.
With average organisations seeing 19% of their high-potential employees (HIPO) leave in the past year, the need to engage effectively with this cohort and develop great strategies for acceleration and retention are key.
According to recent Gartner research, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, HIPOs had a 7.2 times greater improvement in performance compared to non-HIPOs.
The value of experiential and exposure-based learning cannot be underestimated, and have been seen to be more effective than more traditional L&D methods such as group training sessions.
From the research, the top 5 strategies to accelerate are:
Special Projects (60%)
Career Moves (57%)
Job Rotations (45%)
Executive Sponsorship (40%)
Executive Coaching (38%)
Just 12% of the HR Leaders in this survey say that live, classroom-style training sessions are very effective in accelerating HIPO talent.
As we continue to focus on ways to retain teams in the face of the Great Resignation, developing strategies aimed at retaining high potential talent is also a key strategic HR priority, with promotions the method highest rated as being effective by HR leaders (57%). Clearly promotion is not always an option for every single HIPO, and other strategies include providing exposure to senior leaders, providing development support such as coaching and mentoring and offering exclusive development opportunities such as high visibility projects (all at 55%), .
Business leaders have a clear role to play in all of the above, however 64% of HR leaders noted that business leaders don’t always clearly understand their role in the development and retention of HIPO talent.
As turnover rises at record rates, organizations find it essential to develop and retain their high-potential (HIPO) employees. HIPOs are critical to an organizations’ productivity and success.
With 1 in 9 jobs vacant, open vacancies outstripping unemployment and employee turnover at exceptional levels, many managers and HR teams will be utilising counter-offers to retain valuable talent that is considering an external move. Counteroffers will typically mean pay increases, one-time bonuses or promotions. Given the challenges of hiring external talent and the inevitable lag between a leaver and a new joiner, are counteroffers a valuable tool to retain talent or a potentially costly gamble?
This article from HBR explores the potential pitfalls – the risk that a counteroffer will fail to address the underlying reason for an employee resigning, that the line manager may appear to be undermined or that team morale may be impacted if the team learns that the threat of resignation can be used to negotiate better terms. Most insightful is the assertion that ‘50% of candidates who accept a counteroffer are back in the marketplace looking again in two months’. So as well as the potential pitfalls of counteroffering it seems that it’s a 50/50 bet whether the retained employee will remain.
We have all heard the adage that employees don’t leave companies they leave managers. If this is the case should we assume that the manager has failed at the point that an employee threatens to resign? Presumably had the manager better developed and valued the employee then they wouldn’t be considering leaving in the first case? I think there may be some truth in that statement although we should recognise that managers can’t be wholly accountable for developing and retaining employees, companies and HR specialists certainly have a role to play.
As I wrote in a previous article (we need a new approach to internal hiring), internal hiring methodologies are woefully inadequate if we wish to proactively retain, develop and progress existing talent. In that article I shared research that showed that only 40% of those leaving jobs claimed that it was easy to find internal opportunities and only 17% felt that their organization encouraged them to move internally. So should we blame employees when they are tempted by external opportunities given that they’re far more likely to be approached for an external opportunity than an internal one? In a job market as hot as it is today we shouldn’t be in the least bit surprised.
In the current market and with inflation and the cost of living soaring it’s no wonder workers are tempted by higher salaries, particularly given that an external job offer is likely to offer a salary increase significantly higher than an annual pay increase for a retained employee. So should we utilise counter-offers as a retention tool? I would argue that we should do so sparingly and with due consideration to the risks highlighted by the HBR article. And understanding that half of all employees that accept counteroffers subsequently leave, I would strongly suggest that Hiring Managers, when utilising counter-offers, begin searching proactively for a long-term replacement as soon as possible.
In the meantime let’s focus our efforts on how we better value, develop and progress internal talent to negate the need to counteroffer.
“If they accept the counteroffer, it’s very likely they will resign again in the future. Research shows that 50% of candidates who accept a counteroffer are back in the marketplace looking again in two months. The novelty of this solution can wear off and they can be a flight risk. And then you are back in the same spot looking for talent again.”
2022 has presented all of us with fierce competition for talent acquisition professionals. We are investing time, energy and money into bringing recruiters into our organisations to support one of the most challenging labour markets in decades.
Yet many organisations have failed to invest to enable their recruitment teams to do their jobs effectively and efficiently. Archaic systems and clunky processes are weighing down recruitment teams and keeping them from adding real value to their stakeholders and candidates. Aptitude Research’s study found that 50 percent of recruiters would join another organisation if it had better TA technology.
If you, like many, are talking to your business stakeholders about the candidate experience then you should also look inwards and ask your recruitment teams about their experience and then act on that feedback. A happy, engaged recruitment team with the right tools and processes will always drive better results.
A better recruiter experience = a better candidate and stakeholder experience.
One of the most important factors of the recruiter experience is facilitating efficient workflows so recruiters can focus on building relationships with candidates instead of being bogged down with administrative tasks or doing work that artificial intelligence tools can perform much more quickly.
This is an interesting read, tackling different aspects of hybrid working. We talk a lot about the positive aspects of flexibility, mental well-being and work-life balance, but equally we should look at the areas that might be negatively impacted, ensuring that we have adequate strategies in place to address and minimise the impacts.
For workplaces already challenged to diversify and retain employees, adopting ill-conceived hybrid work models could instead speed departures, decrease inclusion, and harm performance
Post the pandemic, we’ve seen an incredibly buoyant market, with open job requisitions at an all-time high, and significant movement in the market. I’ve asked myself numerous times if this is sustainable; wage inflation has been on the up, and at some point something has to give.
What should employers do? This is certainly a time to reflect on the value proposition that you offer to your candidates, the experience that you provide, and how you manage your internal market place. Some useful food for thought in Josh Bersin’s article.
As the economy slows (which is clearly coming soon), lots of great employees are going to stop jumping into new jobs. So the sooner you “upgrade your workforce” the better you’ll be prepared for the next few years.
