By John Wright
One of the major topics of 2023 that seems to be carrying over to 2024 is today’s challenge of finding, assessing, recruiting and retaining the best talent. Whether it be at conferences or in daily conversations, leaders are dealing with issues around talent.
Regardless of the industry, agility and adaptability are necessary characteristics for transformational leadership in the face of today’s challenges and tomorrow’s opportunities. Identifying that need is only the first step, though.
Creating a workplace culture that encourages retention, developing compensation packages and career growth plans that entice candidates, leading diverse multigenerational teams … each of these critical components is reliant on the next for a business to truly thrive. So, what can organizations do to ensure they’re successful in these areas?
Encouraging Retention
Organizations should work to create a positive and inclusive workplace culture where employees feel respected and supported. Emphasizing key factors such as collaboration, transparency and accountability creates camaraderie among teams and across departments, further enhancing job satisfaction. Additionally, promoting employee wellness and work-life balance all feeds into a healthy company culture, which in turn encourages employee retention.
Enticing Candidates
Today’s candidates are seeking work that provides fulfillment and meaning. Although providing competitive salary and benefit packages remains critical, organizations should offer clear paths for career advancement and professional development if they want to entice top talent. Candidates are attracted to purpose-driven companies with values that match their personal ones, and a positive work environment impacts recruitment as much as it does retention. Investing time and resources to define and position the organization’s purpose is well worth it.
Leading Multigenerational Teams
Finally, it is incumbent on employers to understand the drivers and motivators of its employees in order to retain and develop the talent withing the organization. Successfully leading a multigenerational team involves leveraging the unique strengths of each generation and every individual while fostering an inclusive environment. Communicating effectively across all generations is a key success factor, and that includes the method of communication as some prefer face to face while others want an email. Being flexible and working towards common goals are crucial to achieving harmony and productivity in such a diverse setting.
Partnering with an executive search firm can help alleviate some of the challenges being faced by organizations across the value chain as they seek to recruit the top-level talent needed for growth. Organizations gain access to larger talent pools through a firm’s specialized expertise and extensive networks and reap the benefits of having a rigorous unbiased evaluation process that reduces the risk of bad hires, saving them time and resources.
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If you’re interested in discussing your leadership needs, contact me here or connect with me at one of these upcoming conferences: Fertilizer Latino Americano Conference in Miami from February 5-7 or The Fertilizer Institute Annual Business Conference in Orlando from February 26-28.
