Attracting the best talent: All you need to know

Globalisation has led to talent becoming an upwardly mobile, more accessible prospect in any organisation. Our technologically advanced society, increasingly allows people to move internationally and domestically with ease, whilst still being able to maintain their connections to home and family. Talent is a bit of a buzz word, flung around far too often, with little real comprehension as to why it’s so highly coveted and how to attract the very best performers to your business. 

Statistics show us that high performers are on average 400 per cent more productive than average ones. (Herman Aguinis & Ernest O’Boyle Jr ‘The best and the rest: Revisiting the norm of normality in individual performance) These employees are highly experienced, effective and productive, usually being able to self-manage and adapt between strategic and operational tasks. Every organisation wants to recruit high performers, but many simply aren’t effective at retaining them. High performers or ‘talent’ know the immense value their experience brings to any organisation and expect their employer to come to the party on both the monetary, and experience fronts. Brands quickly gain a reputation, either positive or negative, from current staff and alumni, whose personal experiences of employment drive the brand reputation of that organisation. A well-perceived brand and desirable workplace is far more likely to attract and retain top talent.  

What is it that attracts people to a brand? A myriad of factors swirl into play, but fundamentally employees want to be associated with a brand which performs. Which treats their teams well. Which respects the thoughts and input from their employees. Which rewards employees not just for being part of the team, but for performance, for working smarter. It’s critically important to analyse the unique business propositions of your organisation, trying to look from the outside in, to view your business through the eyes of future talent and communicate this out. 

Our global workforce has expectations, this top layer of talent can actively shop around for prospective employers, who will not only fulfil their career advancement expectations but deliver on the compensation front too. It’s important for employers to recognise that they need to actively showcase the benefits on offer, to stand out from the competition, but also to realistically detail the demands of any particular role. Transparency and honesty are key to not just attracting the right candidate, but to ensuring you’re recruiting the person with the right skill set, to meet the challenge. Organisations downplay this element at their peril, the costs of lack of transparency can result in the need for re-recruitment or worse, the failure of a project. Whilst remuneration and benefits are important to attracting (and retaining) top talent, these physical motivators are by far the only elements which top talent will look for. 

Talent expects and desire to be around other colleagues who are similarly motivated, engaged and driven and as such, a reputation of a culture which supports and enables this high performance is likely to be an attractive one. Employers should seek to build this positive corporate culture, and the talent will follow. Research by Deloitte showed that 88% of employees believe a distinct corporate culture is important to an organisation’s success. It is in this type of environment that top talent is enabled to feel and perform at their best. 

The building, and retaining a high performing team isn’t accidental; it’s a strategic move which encompasses almost every element of people, culture and recruitment. In the words of Benjamin Franklin, those who fail to plan will plan to fail.