Talent is the most critical resource for any company, and as such, it’s crucial that companies find ways to attract and retain the best talents available. With most workplaces radically disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the ‘Great Resignation’ breaking demand-supply equilibrium, attracting and retaining top talent has never been more challenging. In addition, the new generation of talent is different from what we have seen in the past. And that makes talent management an immense challenge for more organizations, especially in the IT and Tech space. This blog post will cover some of the ways organizations can attract and retain talents in today’s turbulent job market.

Key Challenges

The following are the key challenges that are being faced by organizations across the world when it comes to talent management.

• Retaining top performers as the working mode shifts back to in-person collaboration and shared workspaces from working from home.
• Identifying and attracting skilled talent in a competitive job market full of candidates who have been influenced by a couple of years of improvisational workdays and flexible work arrangements (i.e., hybrid, remote, etc.).

Here are five strategies that can help organizations in overcoming the above challenges.

1.   Learning and skill growth

One of the pivotal factors assessed by the technical talents first while considering the role is how the organization would empower them to grow and continually improve their skillsets. They expect their desire to learn new technologies, tools, and frameworks and expand their capabilities to be addressed by the organization. By cultivating a culture of continuous learning in the workplace, organizations can demonstrate that they care about their employees as individuals and contribute to their skill growth.

2.   Competitive benefits

While organizations need to be market-competitive in terms of employee remunerations, they must understand that a high salary alone is adequate to attract and retain talents. Recent studies have indicated that employees are no longer solely motivated by monetary compensation and fringe benefits. They also want a sense of purpose in their work, feel acknowledged and appreciated by their peers and bosses, and have a sound work-life balance. One of the best ways to attract and retain talent is to get collective feedback from the employees on their expectations and match the same.

3.   Adopt to the new normal

In the current scenario flexible work environment is no longer an exception but a norm. In the existing challenging labor market, the most competitive talents demand flexibility, as the same gives them a better work-life balance by cutting down time-consuming commutes. Now it’s imperative for organizations to reimagine the physical office as a digital one. They must also lay down programs, training, and frameworks to ensure that remote working is scalable and sustainable to attract and retain talents.

4.   Employer Branding

Over the past couple of years, there has been a radical shift in how employer brand impacts talent acquisition and retention. With abundant opportunities and high demand, organizations need strong and unique employee-focused branding, just as they do with the customers. Gartner recommends organizations define their Employee Value Proposition (MVP) that clearly describe what makes the organization unique to its employees. The following are the five key attributes of MVP.

• Deeper Connection
• Radical Flexibility
• Personal Growth
• Holistic Wellbeing
• Shared Purpose

5.   Strong Mission & Vision

With an intention to make a difference, the preference of today’s talents is clearly skewed toward organizations that are positively contributing to the world. A clear and positive mission aligns employees to a particular goal and promotes loyalty.  It also increases employee engagement and encourages them to work effectively together to help the organization achieve its goals.

Though hiring talents gives complete control to the organization, the risks are also entirely borne by the organization. One of the better strategies to mitigate this would be engaging with a specialized resource augmentation partner such as TekIntelligence. TekIntelligence would help bridge the talent demand-supply gap through an efficient hiring and retention process.