​Hot topic alert …

To deliver accelerated business growth, talent acquisition (TA) needs to make rapid impact. Hiring velocity, sustainable talent pools & hire quality are all critical to achieving strategic business goals.

Hiring the right people at the right time is imperative for any business, however many of the HR & Talent Leaders I’ve spoken with recently feel they’re facing tradeoffs in TA; too much focus on hiring velocity can impact hire quality, and when quality becomes a foremost goal, there’s a risk to time-to-fill.  

They find themselves asking: what’s worse for our company – the cost of a swift but bad hiring decision, or the impact of an empty seat on revenue/growth!?

Through my experience in designing acceleration programs for clients, I know first-hand that businesses and TA teams don’t need to compromise.  Material impact comes down to alignment, forward planning and a multifaceted mobilization strategy.

Preparation!

Any accelerated TA program needs upfront preparation to help define exactly what’s required.  Reflecting on previous success stories, I’ve identified that accelerated impact was realized quicker as a result of structured due diligence; ‘Assess’ > ‘Plan’ > ‘Listen’ > ‘Evaluate’.

So, you’re on the back foot, how can you easily pivot to adopt a more strategic approach to talent acquisition?

The answer is, dedicate resource to this agenda!  Investing in the right resource and developing a focused acceleration strategy that you can later evaluate/dovetail BAU activities into, ensures you strike that balance between current/future hiring velocity and hire quality, without causing operational disruption.

If hiring budgets hinder your ability to leverage any of these 5 steps, you can still keep pace with an accelerated business growth plan by just shifting your talent acquisition approach (and mindset);

• Identify and clarify mission critical roles for achieving business strategy and articulate essential requirements for future success – forecast & talent pool against this,
• Further strengthen by aligning capability needs across all talent segments to help shape a proactive and holistic talent pipelining strategy,
• Offer differentiating value-add services geared towards competitive impact and local market responsiveness,
• Look holistically and adopt intentional approaches that target required capability – international, cross sector, feeder positions, early career programs,
• Look internally and identify upward/lateral potential,
• Protect talent you bring into your organization and close the back door!

Next post; ways to ‘Modernize’ talent acquisition for commercial impact.

In-mail or email me if you would like to explore the ‘art of the possible’ for your organization.

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