The One Thing #2: Be a Talent Magnet

Finding, developing and hanging onto enough of the qualified, quality people you need to keep your company thriving in an increasingly competitive, global economy may be something you’re dealing with today. If not, it’s a good bet you’ll be dealing with it at some point in the not-too distant future, as a recent survey found that 61 per cent of Indian organizations couldn’t hire people with the right skills due to talent shortages.

Talent shortage or not, there’s no shortage of advice floating around about the best systems, software and social media tools for finding top prospects and those ever-elusive passive candidates.

None of it’s going to do any good if you’re basing your workforce-building strategies on salaries and stock options alone. Winning over prospective new hires and making full use of their skills and experience to help your company succeed takes more than money. Instead, it’s about your values and mission, and the opportunities you provide for people to learn, and to work with smart and innovative colleagues. In short, if you’re concerned about talent you have to be concerned about your culture.

If there’s one thing that HR can do to boost company operations in 2014, it’s shifting to a more people-centered culture, starting at the top.

Studies have shown that a people-focused corporate culture isn’t just a plus for hiring, developing and retaining good workers. It’s also a boon to the bottom line. Publicly traded companies in India that have been recognized as best workplaces according to the Great Place to Work Institute framework outperform the BSE Sensex 30 and other Indian market indices by a factor of three, according to a June 2013 study conducted for GPTWI by RSM Astute Consulting.

A separate Great Place to Work Institute analysis of U.S. companies that were determined to be best workplaces saw as much as 50 per cent less voluntary turnover than the average for their industries. Those numbers include 7.1 per cent voluntary turnover for best workplaces in the information technology industry compared with a 15.5 per cent industry average, and 6.8 per cent for best workplaces in manufacturing and production, compared with a 10.6 per cent industry average.

Best workplaces, as we identify them, are companies where employees trust management, enjoy what they do and appreciate their co-workers. Delving into that concept a little more, the 2013 India’s Best Companies to Work For study, which surveyed close to 100,000 employees at 550 organizations in 22 industries, found that the top 50 best workplaces differentiate themselves from other companies in certain key areas. Some of them include:

A workplace with those characteristics doesn’t just happen. Getting there means getting buy-in from the top, the C-suite. As people management experts, it’s HR’s job to help facilitate that transformation. The first step is talking about trust and increasing the level of trust that employees have in their leaders, and how that’s manifested in how senior executives talk and behave. As Great Place to Work Institute co-founder Amy Lyman writes in her 2012 book, The Trustworthy Leader, trustworthiness is based on sharing information, and honoring, including and developing others, among other things. She writes:

They are masters at guiding, directing, encouraging, and challenging people to contribute their best, in part because they ask the same of themselves. Trustworthy Leaders know that their relationships with others throughout the organization are keys to their success - however success is measured.

While it is attractive to borrow from the practices at the best workplaces, becoming a talent magnet requires a more genuine focus on developing, appreciating, and rewarding employees because leaders understand the role employees play in their overall success. Still, the measurements of success for companies with people-first cultures are clear, and the successes continue to grow, suggesting this endeavor is worth the effort. HR leaders who have the ear of the CEO and CFO should build the business case for an investing in a culture that helps employees to thrive.