Dive Brief:
- Three out of 4 business leaders say their talent acquisition strategies are more about total value creation for the company than cost savings, nearly double the number since 2022, according to a survey by global talent solutions provider Randstad Enterprises, released Feb. 23.
- Overall, the more than 900 C-suite and human capital leaders who responded to the survey said they are investing in several areas to improve how they attract and retain talent. These include making diversity, equity and inclusion a central part of their strategy (74%); using technology to improve engagement (72%); creating talent communities and content plans to engage and nurture future talent (71%); or conducting internal audits to map the candidate experience (69%).
- The findings point to a “key trend: the need for businesses to differentiate by delivering an outstanding talent experience, spanning initial attraction and engagement, hiring, development, internal mobility, career transition and retirement,” Randstad said in a press release.
Dive Insight:
The hiring frenzy of the past two years may be over, but the challenge of finding critical talent hasn’t gone away; 42% of business leaders who responded to the Randstad survey — the highest percentage ever recorded by the company — said talent scarcity remains one of their biggest pain points, Randstad noted.
To overcome talent scarcity, three-quarters of the respondents plan to focus more on skilling and career development, while more than half plan to increase their spending on internal mobility platforms, according to the survey.
These strategies are consistent with what top performing companies are doing to maintain their edge in the midst of a talent shortage and hovering recession, recent research by McKinsey Global Institute showed. Companies with a dual focus on developing human capital and managing workers well rank among the most profitable firms in their industry, the research found.
Top companies have several practices in common, including making promotions and internal transfers readily available and creating opportunities for employees to keep learning and reinventing themselves, McKinsey said.
The research also found that employers with strong performance management start by clarifying employee expectations, which is critical to employee engagement, according to a recent Gallup survey.
Employee engagement has been trending downward over the past three years, Gallup said. Employee confusion about their expectations leads to feeling disrespected, particularly when their expectations about the job don’t match the reality, Gallup’s chief scientist explained. “People feel like they’re not getting what they signed up for,” he said.
Managers can prevent the disconnect by thinking about how their reports’ jobs are structured and having ongoing conversations about expectations, he added.
Strengthening the employee experience also means addressing employee well-being. While employees remain confident about their jobs, according to a Monster 2023 Work Watch Report, many are suffering from burnout, in some instances because they’re being asked to take on extra work due to job vacancies.
A company’s No. 1 job now is to retain employees and not get complacent about their existing workforce, an HR executive recently told HR Dive. It’s most cost-effective for a company to invest in employees they already have to prevent disengagement and quitting — quiet or otherwise, a VP of people said.
