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A talent philosophy can help businesses increase productivity, reduce turnover, and improve employee engagement. BambooHR, an industry leader in HR software based in Lindon, has outlined everything you need to create a talent philosophy from scratch or adjust your current strategy to better align with your business.
What is a talent philosophy?
A talent philosophy is the rules or guidelines you have in place to manage your talent—both existing talent and potential hires. A talent philosophy should include your leadership team's preferences for managing talent and should align with your company's mission, vision, and values.
If you're ready to define or refine your talent philosophy, start by asking questions about what your organization's goals are and the role your employees play in helping you achieve those goals. For example, if your company's vision is to be the best in your industry, what does it mean to be the best? What are the skills and capabilities you need to be the best? Once you have those answers, you can build a profile and strategy around attracting the right type of talent to your organization.
To begin developing your talent philosophy, you need to determine what you're trying to accomplish and how you can build a team of people to help achieve that dream. It doesn't have to be complex, it can be simple. Just by starting, you'll be ahead of most organizations.
In an article about the importance of talent philosophy, Marc Effron president of Talent Strategy Group wrote that only 30% of companies have company-wide guidelines for how talent should be managed, and that's not nearly enough.
Actionable Tip:
Whether you have a talent philosophy or not, take some time to sit down with a group of leaders in your business (e.g. head of customer service, head of sales, etc.). Ask these leaders what gaps they see in the organization and build a strategy to fill those gaps.
How to build a talent philosophy that works?
In order to build a talent philosophy that works, you need to establish company objectives and your timeline. If your plan includes growth, define how you'll achieve that growth. Will you expand your current base of customers with new products or services? Acquire new customers? Expand your target market?
If your revenue goals are to stay flat, ensure you ask the right questions to understand what you really need from your talent. Questions may include:
- If I could clone someone in my organization with a specific skill, who would it be and why?
- If I could have more of something in my business, what would it be?
- If I could have less of something in my business, what would it be?
This is a great exercise to reconnect with the business leaders in your organization. Take the opportunity to start learning from your team and hearing their answers.
Actionable Tip:
An article for Harvard Business Review explains, "We need to be better at securing and finding the people that just want to come in and do their job. They want to be respected and have fun—they don't want to grow in their organization, etc."
Top 3 reasons you need a talent philosophy
Decrease Turnover: Over 60% of companies fail to have regular discussions with their employees about career growth and aspirations, writes Rose Nowak for Redbranchmedia. If you don't have transparency written into your talent philosophy and your employees can't see where they're headed in your organization, they'll leave. You can reduce turnover by being thoughtful about who you want to hire,and helping employees with career growth once they're in your organization.
Increase Employee Engagement: If you have a clear strategy on how you want to manage current employees—how much managers are responsible for engagement vs. how much HR can assist—your talent philosophy can help increase employee engagement. This goes back to accountability and making sure it's clear who owns what in the talent management process. The Redbranchmedia article reports this is a huge benefit because companies with highly engaged employees outperform their rivals by as much as 21% for profitability.
Close Capability Gaps: With a talent philosophy, managers and HR can work together to build out the quality and depth of talent your organization truly needs to meet company goals. This can help avoid hiring to fill a role simply because the work is piling up and you need a warm body. An important question you need to ask is this – can the talent you have today deliver on the business results you need tomorrow? If yes, keep doing what you're doing. If not, it's time to dig in.
Building a successful talent philosophy can be game-changing when it comes to recruitment, retention, and the overall employee experience.
This story is sponsored by BambooHR, a Lindon-based software company for HR to ensure employees have the best experience.
