A 2016 Talent Strategy. I’m not referring to your recruiting budget or how many openings you’re planning to fill. I’m talking about a real process that works to improve your company culture, connects your brand to the job seeking community, and incorporates your long-term business goals. A solid talent strategy addresses the entire staff (all levels and departments), not just senior leaders.
HR teams are not keeping up with business needs. In fact, business leaders and HR respondents themselves continue to give HR borderline failure/barely passing grades. At a time when talent is indisputably a CEO-level issue, this should be setting off alarms in every organization. HR organizations rated their teams the equivalent of a C-minus (an average of 1.65 on a five-point scale) while business leaders rated HR a D-plus (an average of 1.32 on a five-point scale), according to Deloitte’s Global Human Capital Trends 2015.
Since most leaders maintain outdated views of HR, there’s a lack of awareness about what their organizations really need to thrive. As I reflect on some of these issues I’ve seen unfold in the past year, there are definitive themes emerging.
- Lackluster training programs
The people that were once effective in their roles haven’t been properly coached or trained to evolve their careers in a way that brings their company to the next level of growth. The average budget for training in the U.S. is extremely low, only compensating for about one week per employee each year.
- Outdated talent acquisition practices
Companies are settling for mediocre talent because they’re dinosaur recruiting methods aren’t reeling in top performers.
- Those damn millennials
Tenured leaders are blaming high turnover rates on entitled, finicky millennials. Because the vast majority of organizations don’t understand what motivates this technology-driven generation, they’ve become the scapegoat for skill gaps and unengaged work cultures.
- Motivational posters instead of real culture codes
You know what I’m talking about – those cheap posters with cliché platitudes and photo-shopped images of distant landscapes. Employers love plastering them all over HQ but fail to incorporate them into a formalized culture code lived by all team members.
If any of these issues sound familiar, tune into my upcoming podcast with our strategic partner and host, TalentCulture. I’ll be discussing why most employers are falling behind on human capital trends, and what a successful talent brand looks like. What a symbolic time of year to open your mind to new strategies to strengthen your team.
This post was first published on the APA Solutions blog on January 13, 2016.
photo credit: go via photopin (license)
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