Beyond the Skills Checklist: Selecting the Right Talent

Every team is only as good as its players, so it only makes sense for organizations to reach for the cream of the crop when recruiting new members. On the other hand, many hiring managers may not understand just how much of an impact a few superstars can have especially when comparing productivity in the workplace. According to one report, high performers are up to 400 percent more productive than average performers. In other words, one superstar can be as productive as up to four average teammates. That’s enough of a difference to make finding these bright spots a high priority during the hiring process but we all know it’s not as easy to accomplish as it sounds.

High-Performers are Rare

In a perfect world, you would fill your ranks entirely with superstars and your organization would be well on its way to ruling the world. Of course, there are not enough A+ players to fill every vacancy, and there’s usually no need to, either. Top performers make the biggest impact in medium and high complexity positions, and they are unlikely to be satisfied with low-complexity positions that do not offer enough long-term challenges. Plus, B players are often reliable, talented, supportive individuals who also have an important role to fill in any organization and may find it easier to adapt to different cultures, environments, and sets of challenges. Still, acquiring skilled, quality talent remains one of the top recruiting challenges, and the struggle to avoid filling key positions with lackluster talent is drawing the time to fill a position to several weeks or more. Organizations that are serious about winning the competition for these superstars need to find an advantage, and there are several areas on which to focus.

Change Starts from Within

Before you can start sorting through applications and interviewing candidates, it’s critical to first identify what it is you are looking for. This may seem obvious, but too often the definition of good is limited to educational background, work experience, a handful of skills and compelling references. The trouble with this approach is that candidates can (and probably should) stack these in their favor. From puffed-up resume lines to a carefully refined list of supporters willing to provide an excellent reference, the standard list of good traits will, at best, provide you with a small pool of people who meet your basic requirements. However, are any of them the perfect fit for the pivotal roles in your company? How can hiring managers tell the difference between two candidates who tick all the boxes on paper?

No matter how driven, qualified, experienced, and brightly shining any candidate is, if he or she doesn’t find your company culture to be a good fit for their career and personal needs, that person will never be a star in your organization. The right candidate may be short a few skills or missing experience in a technical area, but time and training can take care of such deficiencies. Finding candidates whose energy, personal strengths and career goals align with your company’s objectives and workplace culture is far more important, as those characteristics tend to be inherent in the individual rather than acquired by experience.

For companies that already have a solid culture foundation, one that is defined, understood, accepted, and championed by the entire team there is a distinct advantage when competing for top talent as you’ll already have deep insight into some less-tangible qualities that you should be looking for in your top players. For organizations that do not have this foundation, that becomes the starting point. In the short term, look to your current roster and identify peak performers to create a profile: which qualities, characteristics, and strengths make them stand out from the crowd while also remaining perfectly matched for their position and your company? Then, set a long-term goal to tackle the project of defining your company’s culture.

How to Identify Top Talent

The first step is to develop a success profile that captures not only the skills and experience desired for a candidate and what the expectations of the position are, but also the contextual elements that will help identify candidates that will be a good fit rather than just qualified for the job. These contextual elements, the less-tangible and more personality-based factors are often the defining features of people who will make a good fit for your team. According to a report from the Harvard Business Review, a variety of personality types are required to make the team strong so there is no one right answer. Instead, organizations must identify and define what is necessary for the role, then find the person who meets that description. Beyond technical competencies, success profiles should include the following:

• Behaviors. What observable behaviors are required for success in the role? These actions and activities should result in effective performance and contain important competencies necessary for success in the role.
• Experiences. Which jobs, roles and situations should an individual have engaged in throughout their career? Look for specific accomplishments from the individual and don’t limit the scope to only things learned on the job.
• Traits. What are some tendencies that will influence the behavior and actions of the individual? This should essentially answer the question, Who are you? Some of these traits may include things like being results-oriented, relationship-focused, pragmatic, risk-tolerant (or averse), rule-following (or disruptive). Again, there is no right or wrong answer: it’s about what’s needed to fill the role.
• Motivators. Which values, purposes and aspirations will shape the career and life choices of the candidate? The common interview question of where a candidate sees themselves in 10 years scratches at the surface of this fundamental element of a good fit. Understanding the driving factors behind these aspirations will help you see if the goals of the individual align with those of the organization.

Hiring for Purpose

A baseline set of skills and experiences will always be an important component of the talent selection process as most organizations need candidates who can hit the ground running once hired. However, hiring managers must look beyond these lists and look for an alignment of goals, motivators and characteristics to find a shared purpose. Seek to find alignment behind your organization’s “why” and the candidates. In fact, one survey found that 89 percent of executives said a sense of collective purpose drives employee satisfaction. In other words, once the baseline competencies have been identified in a pool of candidates, look for the one who has just as much to gain in satisfaction as you do in productivity.

Want to Attract and Retain Top Talent? Agile Leaders are Key.

Attracting and retaining top industry talent is both a priority and a challenge for businesses that strive for sustainable performance results. To be competitive, companies must position themselves as an employer of choice, a destination where best in the industry will not only contribute their skills, but also continue learning and growing lest they seek greener pastures elsewhere. How can employers cultivate the type of workplace that will attract top talent and keep them around for the long run?Agile leaders are the key.

What Top Talent is Looking For

Talented people want more than a competitive salary and robust benefits; they want a place where they can feel good about their contributions to the company. They want challenges, an opportunity for growth, and to work in an environment that is positive and supportive. They desire a company with purpose. In their annual Pulse of Talent report, Ceridian partners with Nielsen to find out what roadblocks are preventing top talent from being acquired and what’s driving them to leave a company once hired. One of the most telling facts to come from the 2017 report is that nearly 40 percent of high performers are actively job hunting. Whether that’s good for your company (you’re hiring) or not so good (your talent is trying to leave) is up to you to evaluate.

From the 2018 report, among the top five reasons given for leaving a current employer are a lack of interesting work, no opportunities for growth and poor relationships with managers. Thirty-nine percent of respondents said they were looking for a new position because they wanted to tackle new challenges; 32 percent reported changing jobs was necessary to advance their career. Salary is another top motivator, but one that’s easily resolved by employers committed to retaining the best in their industry.

Finding purpose played a major role in whether talented individuals chose to remain with their current employer or move on to another. Of those who said their company practices their stated values, 90 percent said they were satisfied with their current position. For those who said their companies did not practice stated values, only half were happy with their jobs. More telling is the fact that half of those surveyed could say they felt their work impacted business goals. Of those who could answer in the affirmative, 92 percent were satisfied with their job.

Once salary requirements are out of the way, the biggest roadblock to attracting and retaining top industry talent boils down to the culture of the workplace, and those who influence the culture the most are those in leadership positions.

How Agile Leaders Solve the Problem

Agility is defined as having the ability to move, think and understand quickly and easily, qualities that would be assets in just about any situation. Applied to leadership positions, agility describes those who develop healthy relationships, demonstrate an instinctive ability to coach others and bring a deep sense of integrity to a company. In other words, they hit all the points that talented individuals are looking for when selecting a position and deciding whether to stay there for the long run.

Let’s start with integrity, one of the most important qualities of an agile leader. Integrity demands that leaders operate with a commitment to a consistent ethical resolve, that office politics aren’t running the show and that responsibility for mistakes will be taken. For that 90 percent of employees surveyed above who were happy with their jobs and said their companies practiced what they preached, integrity is the core value that drives one to behave in accordance with his or her beliefs.

Next, there’s an instinct for coaching others, and with that, the innate desire to empower others while removing obstructions to their success. The ultimate goal for agile leaders is to advance others, not themselves, as agile leaders are keenly aware of the reflection upon themselves when their teams have a chance to shine. For those 39 percent of employees who want to change jobs in search of new challenges, their tenure at the company can be rescued by an agile leader who knows how to keep their teammates continuously learning, growing and advancing to new positions within the organization.

Then there’s relationship building, another core quality of agile leaders. Skilled relationship builders have the ability to influence their teams and not just lead but inspire others to follow. Agile leaders are naturally encouraging and compelling; they are a confidence catalyst for the hesitant and the uncertain. They are not in competition with their peers and subordinates; instead, they are driven to bring the entire organization to success together and motivate others to find joy in the accomplishments of their teammates. In short, agile leaders cultivate loyalty.

An Environment of Dedication

Leaders who demonstrate agility in their roles are adept at meeting business goals in their everyday tasks. But, more importantly, they create a workplace environment where people feel challenged and supported, where they are inspired to learn new things and share that knowledge with others. They cultivate satisfaction among individuals and demonstrate how to share in the achievements of the team. Agile leaders are the key to creating an environment where the best of the best not only stay on board but join in the quest for excellence for the entire organization.

Learn more about the qualities to look for and develop in your leadership team members by downloading our free white paper, The Six Qualities of Agile Leaders.

How to Build a Sustainable Talent Pipeline

Being prepared to fill vacancies in top leadership positions is a critical priority for the future success of any organization, as retirement and executives who leave to pursue other opportunities are inevitable. A sustainable talent pipeline is one that is ready to produce candidates for open positions quickly, as top talent is continually being identified and prepared to take the next steps. Rather than scrambling to accommodate last-minute notice or even having a few weeks for a planned departure, successful organizations are focusing on succession planning by creating a talent pipeline that starts with middle management and continues through to the executive level.

The Capacity for Leadership

The purpose of succession planning is to eliminate the irreplaceable. In the event of a surprise resignation, organizations that are unprepared can suffer from a domino effect caused by the immediate need to fill a high-level leadership position, and the cascading gaps down the succession line as individuals are shifted up. Companies should also not be rushing to create a succession plan on the fly or relying on a single promising individual to fill any positions, as the future is always filled with the unexpected.

Along with future considerations, a company that is focused on employee growth and development is more competitive in terms of recruitment and retention. By creating a workplace that attracts top industry talent and investing in ways to keep that talent around for the long run, organizations will expand their overall capacity for leadership and possess an engaged workforce that feels valuable to the business and is committed to its long-term success.

Building a Sustainable Pipeline

The first step in building a sustainable talent pipeline is to identify the key roles in your organization and define what success looks like in each of these roles. This list should extend well beyond the executive suites and include all levels of management in the company. Including as much detail as possible is important to both identify individuals within the organization that meet the criteria already and to develop promising talent with the right skill sets to achieve readiness. It will also help identify areas of crossover from one position to another so high potential people can be prepared with a range of competencies.

Once you know what you are working toward, the following steps should be taken to build a strong pipeline:

• Aligning Organization Expectations. Succession planning should be part of the broader business plan and focus on the company’s current and future needs. When the succession process is aligned with the long-term needs of the business, then it will be flexible and robust enough to withstand the changing nature of today’s business climate.
• Performance Calibration. Employees need consistency in terms of evaluating their individual progress and in understanding the expectations for roles of increasing responsibility. Performance calibration has the goal of improving the fairness of performance reviews by defining a standard set of criteria with which to measure employees to achieve greater satisfaction among the ranks with compensation scales, promotions, and succession decisions. The calibration process should also standardize the definition of high performance, so managers can optimally justify ratings and identify high potential candidates for development plans.
• Talent Reviews. This process should be distinct from individual performance reviews and engage a specific model for defining and recognizing high potential individuals who may be ready to join the succession pipeline. Those identified should have a record of high performance across many challenges, and this performance should go beyond technical competencies. Talent reviews should seek those who are resilient, agile, and ambitious, along with being a good personal fit for the company’s mission, not just it’s goals.
• Experiential Development. The only way to ensure that a talent pipeline is sustainable for the long term is to incorporate development into the process, and leadership development must be present for all management positions, not just the c-suite. Once high potential individuals are identified, action plans should be created to boost their skills and experience in preparation for positions of higher responsibility. Plus, as people are moved into middle management positions that are on track for higher placement, they should also be equipped with the skills they need to support their teams and to develop the newest team members to keep the pipeline full. Experiential learning is vital here, as classrooms and seminars have low retention rates while a hands-on method not only has better information retention, but also helps individuals build skill sets faster, more accurately and with greater engagement.
• Measure Impact. The best succession plans are continuously monitored and improved to ensure that goals are being met. The ability to quantify the results of succession planning will not only ensure better results but will also provide the justification for budget managers to continue devoting company resources to the talent pipeline. Each organization will have its own metrics that are based on specific goals. However, factors such as tenure, readiness and engagement can help to gauge abstract concepts, and concrete numbers such as production rates and revenue can give financial perspective. A big-picture look is necessary to see how the pipeline is functioning overall, but a detailed examination of an individual’s progress or a team’s progression can also be a source of demonstrating the impact of development actions and how the activities have driven success rates overall.

The Rewards of Preparation

Succession planning and the development of a talent pipeline have clear implications for unavoidable circumstances such as retirement and resignation. What’s more, when employees are given development opportunities with clear paths for promotion within the company, the company will also benefit from a more engaged, productive, and profitable workforce. In other words, in preparing for the future, companies will yield visible gains every step of the way.

If your organization doesn’t currently have a sustainable talent pipeline, or if you’re unsure whether your current process is strong enough to safeguard your company through an everchanging business landscape, we’re here to help. Contact Michael Grubich at 262-786-9200 or via email at mgrubich@lak-group.com, if you have questions or to schedule a consultation.

Integrated Talent Reviews: How to Achieve High Results for the Company & Employees

Establishing a strong, effective, and scalable leadership pipeline is complicated, but organizations that achieve this are better able to stay steady in a rapidly changing economy. According to one survey, more than half of the respondents said their company uses a succession management process for only the most senior executive positions. What’s more, only 12 percent said these programs were integrated with other talent management initiatives such as performance management and employee development. 

If the cliché that employees are a company’s greatest asset is true, then talent review and succession planning must be considered critical activities for any organization. Senior-level executives use these sessions as a high-level analysis of both business and employee performance with the focus being on the growth of the organization and current or future positions that individuals within the company may be ready to fill.

Sounds simple, but companies that get this process right not only have a strategic advantage over their competitors, but also have employees who are more engaged and productive.

Improving the Effectiveness of Talent Reviews

While individual performance reviews should inform the talent review process, every company needs to have a specific model for defining and recognizing potential that is distinct from performance. For example, high-potential individuals should have a record of high performance across many different challenges rather than just high levels of competency in some areas as you’re looking for people who are smart, resilient, and ambitious along with technically competent. 

Key identifiers of an individual’s overall fit should be defined as well. An individual’s personality and capability should match the company’s unique requirements and goals. Ability matters, but when the person is also a good fit for the company, a higher degree of satisfaction and commitment is often achieved which leads to better retention rates overall.

Employee reviews are an activity that should be done frequently so the person feels continuously informed on his or her growth. Talent Reviews and succession planning do not necessarily need to happen as often or as consistently. In many cases, an annual process is sufficient, as long as the action plans developed from such meetings are regularly reviewed to make sure progress is being made.

Performance Calibration is Key

Taking steps to ensure that managers are consistent and fair when evaluating performance is critical. If the objective is to differentiate high performers and high potential individuals from those who are average or poor, then the process of assessing and rating employees must be calibrated so your organization is using accurate data during talent reviews and succession planning activities.

Performance calibration also helps to standardize the definition of high performance for the entire management team. By creating a set of common guidelines and language with which to evaluate employees, managers will be better able to justify their ratings as well as identify development plans for the future. 

Calibration also helps improve the overall fairness of the process. Employees should feel as if they have been evaluated using a standard set of criteria, so they are more satisfied with compensation scales, promotions, and succession decisions. When employees feel they are being treated fairly, greater satisfaction and retention can be achieved, and complex legal challenges stemming from potentially inequitable decisions can be avoided.

The Importance of Aligning Succession & Development

Ideally, an integrated succession management process that includes leadership development and emerging talent development would be present for all management positions–not just executives. Succession management should also be aligned with the business strategy and in line with talent management goals and activities.

When viewed from this broader perspective, it becomes clear that aligning development with succession planning is the only way to proceed. Once high potential individuals are identified, action plans can be put in place to be sure the employee improves his or her skills and experience in order to be ready to fill future positions as well as remain aligned with the future plans for the company.

Measuring the Impact

Being able to quantify the results of talent development and succession planning is more than just being able to recognize improvements or results. These activities use important company resources and therefore a measurable ROI is necessary.

Choose which metrics mean the most to your organization. Factors such as tenure, readiness for promotion, and employee engagement levels can help quantify more abstract ideas, and production rates and revenue will put dollar values in perspective. A big-picture evaluation is often necessary, but it can also be helpful to take a micro view and evaluate the impact that development activities for an individual manager or that manager’s group have had for the company overall in terms of production or revenue.

Leveraging Outside Facilitation

It is human nature to make connections with the people we work with and organizational politics are an inevitable part of every company, even those that work hard to achieve neutral environments. Internal human resources departments may struggle to overcome some of these factors; bringing in a neutral third-party facilitator can have clear benefits.

For example, a neutral facilitator isn’t going to be worried about challenging the ideas of senior leadership if it will benefit the long-term outcome of the company while managers may back down from such confrontations. Others may have difficulty maintaining calibration standards or may lean toward including people on a succession list even if that person does not honestly have the potential to advance in the company. 

A fresh, data-informed approach from a third party will ensure that your high standards are being met, that decisions are being made based on achieving business goals, and that the right individuals are selected for development opportunities and succession plans.

Finding Success with Better Talent Reviews

Integrating talent management systems such as performance, assessment, development, and succession planning is what leads to the greatest success in achieving high-impact talent management. The significance is clear for employees who have higher job satisfaction and upward mobility, and for the organization that can meet or exceed its goals through increased retention and productivity.

If you have any questions surrounding talent reviews, or you would like to review your current process to ensure your company and employees are best positioned for success, please contact Michael Grubich at 262-786-9200 or via email at mgrubich@lak-group.com.