Since April of last year, over 4 million Americans have quit a job every month. Most have transitioned to other careers, while others have opened their own businesses. Some, however, have dropped out of the workforce entirely. What each of those employees had in common was the experience of dissatisfaction. Maybe their job was too stressful for the reward, or perhaps the corporate culture just wasn’t a good fit.
With the labor market historically tight worldwide, employee retention has become the most prominent issue among corporate leaders. Keeping good people begins with hiring, as it means matching the right people with the right role.
As a trio of McKinsey consultants wrote on the company’s blog several years ago, “To compete in today’s competitive, disruptive environment and drive business value requires focusing on talent to ensure that the right talent is matched to the right role that will ultimately create the most value.” They added that, based on their research, organizations that successfully practice “talent alignment” tend to outperform those that do not 2-to-1.
Competitive advantage is great, but keep in mind that your workers have significantly more options when it comes to working opportunities. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the percentage of unemployed Americans who voluntarily left their jobs and immediately began looking for new ones increased to 15.9 percent last month — the highest percentage of “job leavers” in 30 years. In other words, if you don’t figure out how to align your talent with your job, employees will leave, and replacing them will be very expensive.
Understand your culture
Companies with healthy cultures outperform those that don’t.” In order to create a culture of loyalty and job satisfaction, the organization must understand its values and ensure that they are being both communicated and practiced. This includes making sure that your practices remain “best” as markets shift.
Identify the opportunity
Alignment starts before you post the job ad. Your company’s leadership must be able to ask and answer the question, “How will candidates know that we have great opportunities for them?” The employment opportunity in the ad must match the lived experiences of your staff in order for new hires to understand their role in the company and see a long-term path forward with it.
The flip side of opportunity is expectation. Once you begin the interview process, you want to know what that candidate expects to achieve while working with you. This will give you better clarity on how the person would like to be guided and approached. Just as your company likely expects to acquire talent that is humble, hungry, and smart, candidates will want their expectations for the role to be met by the company.
Match the talent to the job
As an HR executive, I am immersed in the entire flow of a worker’s experience, from hiring to long-term personal development. In my experience, most companies hire people with experience because they assume that this will lessen training time and cost. The truth, although, is that efficiency has nothing to do with culture.
In order to match the talent to the job, you must first consider the character, values, and motivation of the individual. Skills can be learned, but the values of one person are more often innate, as the Great Resignation has proven; human nature trumps skill set. If, for example, a person has the right resume but is not a good personality fit for remote work, there’s no match. The same holds true for in-office work. Rather than make your hiring process as efficient as possible, you want to ensure that your workforce feels like they are using their time most effectively. Quality of life is essential to increased productivity and retention.
There are more challenges than ever these days, both for employers and the workforce. Aligning talent post-Covid is an ongoing process. For example, companies must develop different processes for remote and in-office staff, and training must be conducted continuously — including spot-checks and weekly coaching sessions. Most importantly, today’s corporate leaders must do more than just talk. They must constantly adapt to be the right match for their staff by investing in them professionally and personally.
About the Author: Em Rodriguez is Vice President of Careers at Cyberbacker, the leading provider of world-class administrative support and virtual assistant services from anywhere in the world to anyone in the world. Rodriguez has a demonstrated history of working in the internet industry with strong expertise in career coaching, talent acquisition, and community building.
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