Businesses work hard to attract, train, and retain top talent. Employees are expected to add value to the company so it can grow. The hiring process is the first step in building a strong workforce. Hiring authorities are faced with talent management challenges before, during, and after the hiring process.
Many times, businesses turn to recruiters for successful talent management and retention strategies. As a recruiter, you can provide guidance to help businesses tackle challenges in talent management.
Before learning how you can help combat issues, you need a full understanding of what talent management is.
What is talent management?
Talent management focuses on hiring, training, managing, and retaining employees to build a talented workforce. The company finds top candidates, then works toward improving employee development and satisfaction. Talent management is ongoing throughout an employee’s time with a company. It begins with hiring a candidate and only ends when the employee leaves the company.
Through talent management, a business makes sure its employees are functioning at their maximum potential and satisfied with their work. The whole company (specifically managers) comes together to improve employee development. HR is not solely responsible for employee satisfaction and growth.
Parts of talent management
Here are the basic steps of the talent management process for each employee, starting with hiring and ending with termination of employment:
- Planning: Determining what kind of employee the company needs and developing a detailed job description
- Sourcing: Looking for top talent through different channels like top job boards, social media sites, and recruiting software databases
- Reviewing: Reading over applicant resumes and narrowing down the candidate pool
- Screening/Interviewing: Determining which candidates should move on in the process
- Extending a job offer: Once a candidate is selected for the job, an offer is extended. If they accept, they become a new hire
- Onboarding: The new hire goes through orientation to get a feel for the company
- Training: Managers and other employees train the employee so they understand their job duties
- Relationship building: Managers provide feedback and work to develop the employee’s skills (performance reviews, day-to-day feedback, etc.)
- Changing employment status: The employee might receive promotions or new job duties
- Terminating employment: Talent management only ends when the employee leaves the company
Talent management challenges
Carrying out talent management isn’t always easy. Many problems can come up, like managers not being invested in helping employees, unmotivated/disgruntled employees, and an employee who is not a good fit for the company.
Take a look at some of the leading talent management issues and challenges a business could experience:
- Poor hiring strategies
- Inexperience with technology
- Ineffective leadership
- Employee turnover
Poor hiring strategies
Talent management starts with filling an open position with a high performer. Without a strong staffing management plan, a company might face difficulty with the rest of the talent management process.
Many times, businesses don’t know where to start with hiring. They don’t know where to begin sourcing candidates or how to attract talent, and the business might have difficulty getting a candidate to accept their job offer.
Top Echelon’s 2016/2017 State of the Recruiting Industry report found that one of the top reasons most candidates turn down a job offer was because the hiring process took too long.
With an ineffective hiring strategy, a company might have trouble sourcing top talent. And, if top talent is sourced, the candidate won’t want to wait around forever for an offer.
Inexperience with technology
Automation is important for streamlining and simplifying business operations. Businesses might use an applicant tracking system (ATS), payroll, and accounting software. Using software saves businesses time so they can work on growing their company.
For the hiring portion of talent management, a good technology to use is an applicant tracking system. What is an ATS going to do for your agency? With ATS recruitment, hiring managers can post jobs, send emails to multiple people, and organize candidate resumes. And, an ATS tracks candidates so hiring authorities can hang onto candidate information even after one job is filled.
Using payroll and accounting software solutions helps automate other business processes. By using these, the company could have more time to devote to talent management.
If a hiring manager is unsure of how to make the most of their software, they could end up crippling talent management and putting a hold on business processes.
Ineffective leadership
Strong leadership throughout the company is the basis of talent management. Managers and other top employees take on an important role in developing and retaining employees.
If there is ineffective leadership within the company, employees won’t have guidance in developing their talent. The company as a whole needs to come together to train and keep employees. Without strong leaders, there won’t be anyone to carry out talent management.
Employee turnover
Talent management focuses on developing an employee from start to finish. This can help employees feel valued, challenged, and satisfied with their jobs.
Without successfully implementing talent management, a business could experience high employee turnover rates. High employee turnover rates happen when an employee feels like their job is stagnant and their pay won’t increase.
An employee doesn’t want to do the same tasks day after day. Instead, they want to grow in their abilities, get promoted, and take on new responsibilities. If employees leave, the business needs to start over in the talent management process.
It’s especially challenging if managers or high-level employees leave the company. Then, the business needs to find replacements quickly. Without managers, the talent management process could fall apart.
How recruiters can help solve talent management problems
As a recruiter, you won’t be able to solve all of a company’s talent management problems. But, you can definitely help the hiring portion of talent management.
Take a look at how a recruiter can tackle the talent management challenges:
- Smart hiring strategies
- Experience with technology
- Work with effective leadership
- Prevent employee turnover
Smart hiring strategies
Your sole job as a recruiter is to find the best candidates for your clients. You can afford to spend more time on sourcing candidates who can add to the business. And, you can take the burden of screening candidates off HR. Following best hiring practices means devoting more time to attracting talent and convincing them to work for your client.
Experience with technology
The majority of recruiters (75%) use recruiting or applicant tracking software. If you regularly use technology in your recruiting processes, it could speed up the process.
Instead of wasting time on resume screening, typing out individual emails to dozens of people, and organizing candidates, you can automate these processes with software and speed up the recruiting process.
Work with effective leadership
Though you can’t improve the current leadership in a company, you can find talented managers to hire.
If the company has good leaders, work with managers to find out what kind of employee would be a good fit for the company. Managers can help paint a good picture of necessary qualities they would like to see in their department.
Lower employee turnover
Employee turnover starts with whether the new hire is a good fit at the company or not. You are trained to source the best candidates for a company. Through your thorough screenings, you can ascertain who would mesh with the company culture.
Lowering employee turnover starts with putting more time and effort into the hiring process. As a recruiter, you work to make sure your client and candidate are satisfied. By spending more time asking questions about each candidate’s goals (i.e., where they see themselves in five years) and qualifications, you can prevent employee turnover.
Takeaway
The talent management process depends on the entire workforce. Each placement needs to be successful since each employee has a role in talent management.
Using recruiters can help ensure that everyone, from managers to entry-level employees, works together to train and retain their fellow workers.
Successful recruiting strategies include following up with the new hire throughout their first months at your client’s company. Though HR departments also do this, you can devote more time to talking with the hire. And, the new hire might feel more comfortable addressing any issues with you versus their employer since you are technically a third party. Plus, you have communicated with them throughout the process.
