The great return of talent

By Kevin Colleran On Dec 4, 2022

As the year comes to a close, how is your talent strategy shaping up?

We’ve witnessed how organizations responded to The Great Resignation boom. A tired, burnt out and overworked workforce sparked a modern-day revolution where essential perspectives are completely transformed especially with career and one’s life purpose. Well-being became a top priority, which further reinforced the concept of work-life balance.

Then comes the case of quiet quitting where employees are “not going above and beyond at work and just meeting their job description.” Most likely, employees are disengaged and prefer to dial down on the so-called “hustle” culture.

In a leader’s perspective, this may be concerning. One can’t help but ask: Are our efforts sufficient for the people? Are their needs actually met? How can we improve to make employees more engaged?

The Great Resignation and quiet quitting have ushered in a fierce competition for talent, and organizations are plowing their way to rebuild their workforce. There’s a need for us to look beyond the current pain of these issues and prepare for a vital journey toward talent recovery.

Breaking down the eight ‘great’ phases

Employee experience will be a key component for talent recovery. In this context, the “great” eight phases—inspired by this interesting article from SuperStaff—are the fundamental steps needed to be taken by organizations.

The Great Onboarding. The natural first step is introducing and engaging your potential talents to the company through a seamless onboarding experience. From the get-go, talents will get a feel of how their new employer works and how to accelerate into becoming a purpose-driven employee in the long run.

The Great Reshuffle. There’s no doubt that employees are now reprioritizing their lives, so this is where the reshuffle comes in. The best connection between onboarding and reshuffle is the changing work preference and employment dynamic. Employers should take this as an opportunity to undertake a reshuffle by looking at their options that would work best: getting permanent hires, engaging with part-timers, or even tapping the gig workers or freelancers.

The Great Relocation. The new workplace is not limited to just one geographical area. The idea here is work flexibility becomes very important in one’s work location. There is relocation where the workplace will be—whether from the office, the home or a hybrid setup.

The Great Hiring. As leaders, this is the most crucial anchoring perspective in the whole journey. What do you need to come up with your whole driving principle in the great hiring? Adapting to the changing trends will come in handy to be able to attract and hire the right talents. You need to look at the viewpoints of onboarding, reshuffling and relocating to drive talents in your radar.

The Great Retention. After getting the talents you need, retaining them would be essential. A foolproof way to do this is to always listen to what your employees need and become more proactive in improving the work culture and processes to help in their growth in the company.

The Great Attraction. Combining all of the first five phases, the next step would be coming up with a plan around the great attraction. It is built around having clear and effective communication between employees and employers. In the new hybrid dynamics, this will be pivotal in successfully hiring and retaining your people.

The Great Reevaluation. The penultimate point takes us through reassessing what works and what doesn’t work with your programs. This will be a recursive discussion as the landscape is constantly evolving, hence, work should be a constant reevaluation and should drive a point in aiming for greater work-life integration for employee satisfaction.

The Great Recovery. Lastly, this is where we find the right balance of employee engagement and personalized employee experience. A strategic recovery plan can enable the organization to thrive long-term and further motivate employees with the organization’s purpose, vision and values into play.

Moving forward in retaining the best talents

With a strong foundation from the eight great phases, we now move forward in retaining the best and brightest talents for your organization. How? By having a stronger and intense focus on employee engagement.

Given the challenges of the pandemic and pressures from personal and professional life, employers must devise a robust program around mental health. A constant focus and reminder on taking care of one’s mental health should be at the forefront to address issues of dissatisfaction, burnout and stress.

The implementation of a clear, sustainable strategy for a better workplace is also a compelling approach to make employees more engaged and valued. Exhibiting flexibility, adaptability and transparency promotes a comfortable atmosphere for both the employer and employees.

Moreover, advocating for total employee empowerment breaks the stereotype of working for the company, but working with the company. Coparticipation at work contributes to a proactive, happy and productive workplace.

Ensuring a strong employee engagement lies on how companies execute its initiatives. Streaming giant Netflix believes that excellent colleagues trump everything else and it focuses on the person’s character as much as skills or experience in the hiring process. They treat their people like trusted partners and constantly communicate to them that they are valued for more than just the profit they create.

Hospitality company Hyatt follows a people-centered philosophy, creating a thriving environment for its employees. Hyatt has integrated a well-planned retention initiative through an in-depth training program fueling employees’ internal advancement. They also offer support and security by recognizing its employees and treating them like family members.

For Viventis, we focused our efforts to enhance employees’ physical and emotional health while simultaneously enhancing productivity and engagement. Aside from the work-from-home setup, we ensured that there was always clear and consistent communication from Human Resources (HR) on how to stay safe during the pandemic. To celebrate the hard work of our employees, we always hold recognition events through our monthly town halls and even commemorated our 21st anniversary this year through a much-needed vacation trip for the entire company.

With these examples, it emphasized the powerful impact of employee engagement—if people are engaged, then it becomes a driver for success.

What to expect for the future of employee engagement and beyond

I believe that significant things will materialize in the future and in terms of the future of employee engagement, there’s a lot to anticipate. These are the things that we can expect to bolster the great return of talent.

Generation shift: Entry of Gen Zs in the labor market

We need to understand that there will be a huge generation shift. The so-called “woke generation,” an emphatic woke generation who will enter the workforce or have already entered the workforce will dominate the next years to come. This workforce will be important on how HR and the organization will need to understand them given the difference in dynamic and perspectives.

Establishment of a strong workforce segmentation to anticipate the new workforce

Having a good grasp of how you will need to segment your workforce will be necessary. Going back to the concept of the Great Reshuffle, the old notion that organizations are built around full-time employees has to be totally discarded because at present, you need to look at engaged employees in all forms—full-time, long-term contract, part-time and even gig workers. As long as you can create the right team structure and provide the right support, then you can achieve your most immediate goals.

Huge impact of automation

Next is all about how to go beyond automation. Aside from operational efficiency, looking closely at data analytics to fully understand how organizational and individual behaviors are shaped will be critical for sound decision-making. The use of relevant insights will allow leaders to come up with actionable solutions on how to lead effectively and better manage teams, the organization and its stakeholders.

Adoption of flexible and fair compensation strategies

With a very clear angle about Gen Zs for segmentation, there’s a need to rethink total rewards, performance management and recognition schemes to address the new workforce. How to compensate full-time, part-time, gig workers or freelancers will be different and will require a distinct approach. And with such adjustments to your strategy, it can help strengthen your employer brand as well.

Change in leadership

Leadership should consider a nonlinear way of solving problems. Linear solutions can only work with a single generation workforce, and take note that we are all managing a dynamic and diverse workforce. With the shift in the ecosystem, leaders should create long-lasting impact and drive positive change especially in a period of uncertainty.

Continuous proliferation of workplace and workforce flexibility

Expect workplace and workforce flexibility to dominate in the succeeding years. More people will consider hybrid ways of working, diversity and inclusivity will remain at the forefront, and employees will get countless opportunities to learn new skills at varying levels.

Shift in a healthier and positive company culture

Lastly, creating a more agile mindset is a key ingredient for a better company culture. We live in an analogue, physical world, hence, moving into a digital-first mindset can accelerate efficiency and customer-centricity. Practicing mindfulness and equality in the workplace plus focusing on development and growth opportunities will be indispensable to build a positive, thriving company culture.

No matter what angle you look at, people will always be at the core of every business. A lot will depend on how you drive human potential, build the right motivation, fail, learn and innovate for the greater good. Are you prepared to set yourself up for success toward talent recovery? The choice is yours on how you will turn the great resignation and quiet quitting into the great return of talent. —contributed INQ