Talent engagement is by far one of the most challenging puzzles to solve for HR teams. Retaining valuable talents is critical because it could be one of the best ways to maintain a company’s intellectual capital. Based on some surveys compiled by Smarp, more than 60 percent of 600 US businesses said retaining employees is actually more challenging than hiring them. Failing on the retention strategy, employers will end up spending more time and money looking for replacement workers. 

Smarp also cited that 71 percent of employers believed employee engagement is critical to their company’s success. Engagement does not only help retain employees – thus lowering the budget to hire a replacement – but also helping the overall company’s productivity that eventually generates revenues. 

Talent engagement is proven beneficial to companies in terms of productivity and profitability. Fulfilling just the right number of employees is not enough, especially if they lack the qualities that will help companies in their growth plans.

See also: Talent Management Complexity HR Must Solve

Employer’s efforts vs. talent’s wants 

Engaging employees need some strategies that include recognising team, providing better support and room for growth, providing better tools for success, giving meaning to employees in their responsibilities, allowing reward and benefits systems, etc. Although these efforts have a positive impact on a work culture that eventually helps boost employee engagement, are these really what employees want? 

Infographic published by Visually showed that there is some gap in understanding between what employers and employees want when it comes to workplace incentives. While employers think that ‘good wages’ is the number one driver for engagement, ‘full appreciation for work done’ becomes the employee’s number one reason why they stay longer with their employers. The second rank on what employees really want is ‘feeling in on things’, followed by ‘sympathetic help on personal problems’, ‘ job security’, and ‘good wages’ respectively. 

Apart from the aforementioned perks, one element that is equally important to those mentioned is ‘giving more importance in the way managers conduct talent recruitment’. Recruiting process is the gate for all employees to pass and is the first thing new hires will see before joining an organisation. When talents see the gate is tempting and awesome, employers can likely increase their chances of hiring the cream of the crop who not only stay longer in the company but also give the best they can. 

Polishing the gate of recruitment 

• Paint a picture of your ideal talent: Majority of the time, talents apply for a job based on the “job description” only and employers accept a candidate who has a good and positive resume, and those who perform well on interview sessions. But many of the hired candidates might not give a satisfactory or exceptional performance on their job. That is because a big part of an individual’s success lies underneath the persona, something that is not taught in school. Persevering nature, forward thinker, taking ownership of work responsibilities and being success-driven are just some of these positive qualities that make a real talent stand out. These qualities, along with the job description, must be part of the qualifying method during a hiring process. Giving real work tests to candidates, for example, can be a good determination to find an ideal talent. 
• Look for a talent that would be willing to proudly represent your brand: Hiring talents who are just after the “job” might not do well in representing the company in providing excellent customer service. Executive and team managers must deliver the message that each employee is required to be the face of the company. Do not be afraid to pass up a seemingly qualified talent if you cannot say to yourself about an applicant, “Yes, he’s fit to be a company representative”.
• Pass up on the bad apples: If you have invested long enough to establish a work culture that works effectively with everybody, then do your best not to let one bad apple rot your basket of best picks. If your employees are being highly productive at work, that is because they are happy in the environment they are in. Hiring a talent that might feel like he would have a hard time adjusting to the culture, even if he seems like the right one, is not well worth the risk.
• Improve the quality of the recruitment process: Hiring managers might be guilty for going through a recruitment process mindlessly. They might meet the metrics but if the quality of hire is not there then all recruitment resources are instantly put to waste. Create a unique and systematized hiring process that actually works on getting top talents and likewise can be easily duplicated.
• Improve the hiring manager’s ability to hire top talent: Not all hiring managers are confident in presenting themselves in front of the candidates. Let the hiring manager be first trained and mentored by an expert and allowed to practice the skills on-the-job at a safe pace.

One of the objectives of the ‘giving more importance’ stage is to make sure top talents are always hired to bring in significant benefits to the company. This is especially true when you want to improve employee performance, thus allowing these well-spent resources to create lower employee turnover.

Read also: 5 Actions to Emphasize in Developing Talent Management Strategy