What Should be the Top Three Talent Priorities for all Leaders? 

Attract Talent  

If you’re relying on the age-old process of just posting an advertisement for a job opening to source qualified candidates, you’re depending on luck.  Recruiting is sales, but what comes before sales?  It’s marketing – building the large funnel necessary to drive your sales.  Does your company have a recruiting funnel, such as relationships with technical colleges or universities?  Do your preferred candidates know who you are?  Do your candidates find your company preferentially attractive versus your competition?  Are you engaging and interacting with the local communities? Are your leaders doing everything they can to promote their personal and company reputation so people outside the company think, “I want to work THERE?”

Retain Talent

Once people join, it’s a completely different battle to keep them, especially the best ones.  For example, how a new employee is treated within the first 48 hours of joining has a large impact on how long they stay.  Do you know if your new team members have positive onboarding experiences when starting?  Do your leaders understand how to motivate each individual in their team, and consistently treat their people professionally and respectfully, show appreciation, provide feedback, and communicate effectively?  Do your people feel appreciated and valued, and are all your leaders doing everything they can to inspire personal and organizational affinity and loyalty, and make your people think, “I want to stay HERE?”

Grow Talent

Proactive, ambitious, and driven people don’t like to be stagnant, and nothing is potentially more demotivating to these people than to see good positions consistently being given to new people recruited from outside the organization.  Has your company identified and documented who are your most effective and high-potential performers, know what their strengths and development areas are, understand their career aspirations or ambitions, and actively tailor opportunities for them to become better at what they do or prepare them for higher positions?  Some organizations still think, “Why should I develop people?  They’ll just go elsewhere for better jobs.”  The better way is develop people and give them opportunities in your organization.  Granted, you will never be able to retain everyone, but those you developed and helped grow while they were with you will become supporters and promotors outside your organization and spread the word on what a great experience they had with you, because they’ll be able to say, “I left BETTER than I came.”