How do we attract and hire talent without destroying our culture?

The global talent crisis is real. Gallup ,?McKinsey ,?Korn Ferry ,?Manpower ,?and the?Brookings Institute ?have all released reports analyzing the tight labor market . It's mission-critical that talent acquisition professionals quickly identify a new sustainable sourcing mechanism.

Many high-growth companies invest heavily in their culture . Let's assume for a moment that your organization has developed shared values and shared purpose that motivates its existing team. People have bought in, and employee engagement is high across the organization. We're making a significant assumption, but we must isolate and understand the issues to adequately address them.

Whether we have a culture that will attract talent is a separate question from how we attract and hire talent.

Our goal is to be a talent magnet. We want our organization to be an employer of choice for our target recruits. Being a talent magnet lowers our employee acquisition costs. We need a culture that attracts talent and a mechanism for attracting them to reduce our employee acquisition costs.

Today, we're addressing the mechanism for attracting talent.

What does it cost to acquire employees?

Edie Goldberg, founder of Menlo Park, Calif.-based talent management and development company E.L. Goldberg & Associates, says the actual costs of hiring a new employee can be three to four times the salary.

What does that mean?

If you're a professional services firm hiring consultants, for example, and the consultant makes $100,000, then your total cost to hire for that role is $300,000 to $400,000.

Goldberg says, ?

"Of those costs, I would say 30 percent to 40 percent are hard costs, and the other 60 percent are soft costs."

Hard talent acquisition costs include advertising costs, in-house recruiter's salaries, outside recruiting fees, travel expenses, sign-on bonuses, and for some positions employee relocation expenses.

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) recently released a benchmarking report to help its members better understand the skyrocketing costs of talent acquisition.

In a tight labor market, these costs rise at an accelerated rate. Korn Ferry explains the global human talent shortage in their report titled, "The $8.5 Trillion Talent Shortage ." McKinsey analyzes structural labor supply constraints in their article, "The Great Attrition is making hiring harder. Are you searching in the right talent pools? " By addressing today's decades-long trends, talent acquisition professionals can add significant value to their organizations.

Is Technology Driving Costs Higher?

What is driving up employee acquisition costs?

McKinsey divides the potential talent pool into two groups to explain what is happening. The two categories are traditionalists and non-traditionalists. Traditionalists are the "career-oriented people who care about work-life balance but are willing to make trade-offs for the sake of their jobs," according to McKinsey. Most of these people have not quit their jobs for nontraditional reasons. Instead, they respond to job inquiries from recruiters, posted on job boards or LinkedIn, moving jobs for higher compensation. McKinsey explains that these traditional recruiting methods are reshuffling these traditionalists.

Workers are beginning to move across industries for positions exacerbating wage escalation.

Moves across industries are not a cyclical phenomenon. Instead, it is a fundamental change in the labor market that will intensify over time, increasing talent competition as business model innovation accelerates.

Tesla employs thousands of software engineers and factory workers. Is Tesla an energy company (e.g., batteries and solar panels), a transportation company (e.g., manufacturer of autonomous vehicles for transportation), or an automobile company (e.g., manufacturer of EV vehicles for consumers)? It's all of them. What happens when automobile manufacturers need as many software engineers as Microsoft? What happens when this phenomenon accelerates across the global economy? It doesn't only impact software engineers. Technology firms innovate by using technology to create value in a new way disrupting traditional firms. As they grow, they need subject matter experts from the industry to continue to take your market share so they hire your employees for more money.

Automation makes reshuffling easier for those who choose to play the game.

Whatever bad outcomes traditional sourcing methods generate, automation helps achieve them faster and more often. ?

The Real Danger – The Cost of the Rotten Apple

Reshuffling and its automation accelerant should strike fear into CEO hearts everywhere. Wage escalation is real. But what's worse is an employee who isn't engaged. A bad apple could damage our culture before recouping our employee acquisition costs. ???

Traditional employee value propositions and sourcing methods don't improve our ROI on our culture investments and increase the probability of a bad hire. There isn't anything wrong with traditionalists. But the only way to avoid wage escalation and the potential bad apple is to use a new sourcing method to access non-traditionalists.

Let's consider what McKinsey has said,

[The] Covid-19 pandemic has led more and more people to reevaluate what they what from a job---and from life—which is creating a large pool of active and potential workers who are shunning the traditionalist path. (Emphasis added)

So, why is that relevant? Why is that so important?

The people who would be most responsive to our investments in culture, well-being, belonging, etc., are not accessible via traditional methods.

We want people who invest in themselves. They contribute more (return) and are less susceptible to reshuffling (i.e., longer tenure in the organization increases the return on our hiring cost).

We desperately need people who work for meaning and purpose.

A New Approach

My colleague, Peter Laughter, discusses why traditional sourcing approaches are no longer practical and how we recommend organizations build their talent pipeline.

Now Imagine

Tomorrow I will show up at your office with the perfect candidate for your job.

Give me the job description and leave the rest up to me.

Whether the candidate is for marketing, human resources, accounting, or operations doesn't matter. Any candidate you need, I can bring them to you. I'm a wiz.

Now, I know you'll want to make a good impression, so give me a card key so we can come right up when I arrive.

The following day I arrive in the lobby of your building with my candidate.

We walk past security over to the elevators, and I press the button to go up so we can show her around. I'm sure there will be several people whom you'll want her to meet.

When we arrive, you're surprised to discover that you recognize my candidate. It's Janet. I don't need to introduce you because you've already met. You recall that Janet is a friend of Bob. Bob works in the digital transformation practice. They went to business school together. Bob and Janet even worked in the same firm after school. But their careers went in different directions when Janet started a family.

You first recall seeing Janet when Bob shared a photo celebrating a client win. You remembered thinking how great it was that Janet celebrated Bob's success. She congratulated him, saying, "what a great experience!" You liked the comment and wondered who she was.

You noticed the business school connection when you looked at her profile.

Janet's making a good living now as an independent consultant. She's not looking for a new job. Commuting to work daily with a young family is too much of a hassle. She's making a decent living.

She and Bob go way back, so whenever he posts celebrating a win or sharing his thought leadership, Janet shares her insights and engages in conversations.

I hadn't told Janet where we were going. She's thrilled. She knows the firm because of everything Bob has shared. Is this an interview?

You're already feeling great about Janet. You've listened to her conversations. She knows her stuff.

Let's walk around so she can meet a few more people.

Walking through your redesigned collaboration space, we walk by Kim and Marcus.

Kim recognizes Janet from Bob's posts too! Marcus says, "Hey Janet! What brings you here? Are you interviewing for the position in our group?"

It turns out that Bob had commented on an article written by Marcus on artificial intelligence. Janet saw the comment and had an extended conversation with Marcus and Bob. Marcus and Janet connected, and they've been sharing ideas ever since.

It looks like Janet's going to fit right in. You're thrilled because Janet wasn't looking for a job. There are no competing offers. There are no bidding wars.

Janet needs flexibility. The commute five days a week wouldn't work. ?

We haven't needed to talk about work experience or whether Janet has the skills to do the job. Because of her social connections, key leaders in the department know she's smart, they like her, and they know she can do the work.

Janet wasn't looking for a new position so she wouldn't have responded to an advertisement.

She makes a decent living. But the chance to work with Marcus and Bob is tempting.

If it weren't for her relationship with Bob, we'd have never known about Janet.

You arrive at Harriet's office, and your heart sinks because Harriet isn't there. She's the practice leader. Her calendar said she'd be in the office, and you confirmed with her. It happens all the time, right?

You want to make an offer to Janet quickly, but you can't move forward without Harriet's buy-in.

Harriet's down on human resources and the whole recruiting team because the last few candidates were expensive, and they didn't fit in. She can't grow the practice without more people soon.

At that moment, Janet notices Harriet's picture on her desk. She turns to you and says, "Is Harriet Jacobs the practice leader for this group?" You respond, "Yes. She is."

"I know Harriet," Janet says. "Harriet shared that touching photo (pointing to a picture on her desk), and everyone in the group liked it. That's her son, Caleb, who is autistic. My son is autistic too. Harriet and I discussed our kids. But, we haven't shared much about work yet."

I could go, but you should get the picture now.

Your employees are connected to tens of thousands of people with shared experiences.

They went to college together.

They went to business school together.

They worked together 5, 10, 15, and 20 years ago.

Many of these people are highly capable and have similar experiences to your existing workforce.

Many are among the nontraditional workforce and are only accessible through your employee's network. But they're not going to engage with corporate brochures and employee advocacy propaganda.

They will celebrate with their connections, support their thought leadership, and engage in conversations stimulated by people they know. ?

It is so powerful, so natural, and what you need to access nontraditional employees.

Traditional sourcing methods are unsustainable.

Now you can stop imaging. What I've described to you is social talent sourcing, and people power it.

At Accelery , we enable your employees to demonstrate their expertise and your culture, building trust and influence through social media. Referrals have always been the best way to find and hire candidates. We can help you create a new source of talent that acts like a magnet attracting exceptional candidates to you. ?