What Makes a Talent Experience?

I can’t wait for my favorite team's first spring training game, the Atlanta Braves. It’s tomorrow and I will listen to it on the radio. As I wrote last week, this time of year is always exciting, as I have been waiting for the last 4ish months for baseball to resume. Now that it’s here, I find myself thinking about all of the ways the club, and other clubs around the league, do their best to attract the highest quality fan experience it possibly can. After all, roughly forty thousand or so fans use their hard-earned money nightly to show up and watch their team in person. They spend money on the tickets, parking, hoteling, all the food and drinks in the stadium, etc. I remember my first baseball game down at the old Tiger Stadium, I’ll never forget it.

Yes, fans come to watch their players play a kid's game at the highest level and that’s the main attraction, rightfully so. What about all the moving pieces that create the experience though? Like a baseball club, a workplace needs to attract its fans(employees) by creating an experience.?

What I have seen firsthand is employers excel in one area of their talent experience(Tx), but completely neglect the rest of it. I think of talent experience like a chain that spins on a gear, each link of the chain represents an area of the experience, recruiting, and onboarding, as two examples. Even if one link is damaged, or cracked, it can’t spin around the gear. This is where I come in as an advisor.?

I read recently that a great way to look into your potential employer's culture is to evaluate the recruiting process. Is the hiring team, HR being included, rolling out the red carpet for you? Are they flexible enough to accommodate your interviewing schedule? Are you going through 3 interviews or less? Are they transparent with the pay and flexible with where you show up to work every day? You get my point.?

So now you have landed the job and are feeling great, but onboarding is slow, the communication is sparse, and you’re not getting your equipment in time, etc. The bottom line, you feel unequipped to start your first day. This is why, a majority of people leave within their 90 days of employment, wasting time and costing employers thousands of dollars in lost resources.?

Connecting a talent experience, from hire to retire, as they say, is an art.? If you’re not analyzing every phase of your experience to improve and connect them, you’re going to lose your people, in more ways than one.

So, the next time you go watch your favorite team, no matter the sport, stop and think about all of the behind-the-scenes stuff that goes into making the fan experience. Now, owners - think about what you can be doing for your people.??