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The concept of talent management has come a long way, where not only have the demands and expectations of employees changed, but also corporate cultures have also changed, deeming old traditional approaches inapt. Employers who don’t adapt will be faced with unmotivated and dissatisfied employees with very low productivity.

But, how has it changed? And are the new strategies effective? Experts at Bayt.com are here to help answer that.

How has Talent management evolved?

If you take a step back in time and look at how talent management used to look like, you probably won’t even be able to recognize it. Back in the day, the scope of talent management was much narrower than what it is today, where employers now take a whole host of factors into account when dealing with today’s increasingly demanding workforce such as engagement, culture, empowerment, leadership, and the overall environment of the workplace. Rather than just focusing on providing employees with a workspace and the typical list of benefits like employers used to previously.  

Nowadays, with the so-called “war on talent”, the whole talent management process has reformed, where talent is at the heart of the equation. What can you as an employer do for the employee? Why should they be loyal to you? What do you have to offer them that others don’t?

Employing talent and giving them a solid salary just doesn’t cut it anymore, skilled and qualified people know exactly what they are worth now and are asking for more than ever before. They don’t just want a job for the sake of getting employed; they want you to want them. They want to be a true part of a company. They want to feel valued and appreciated. They want a healthy work environment where they can have the right to freedom of speech and conscience, the ability to learn, develop and grow. They want an experience.

What went wrong?

According to the Bayt.com Infographic: Employee Retention in the MENA Workplace, 60% of respondents state that employee retention rate is lower than what is used to be in previous generations. And 44.7% state that the turnover rate in their company is “very high” and 54.7% state that they want to leave their current job immediately.

Also, 41% of respondents to the 2018 Bayt.com Job Seeker Confidence Index state that they are dissatisfied with the current career growth opportunities, and  50% claim to be unsatisfied with the training and professional development.

When one looks at this kind of data, it’s only fair to wonder what went wrong. Where is talent management headed? Are the new strategies of talent management any good?

Well, in order to diagnose the issues with talent management they need to be broken down into different dimensions to get a better understanding.

If you want to successfully manage your talent, you need to understand these dimensions first:

• People Are Different

People prefer to befriend and deal with like-minded individuals and form groups with people they feel relaxed around and enjoy their company. These groups employees form definitely play a role in setting the common ground of how employees operate and function. These groups can be seen in all levels of seniority within an organization, even at the upmost senior levels, where managers and directors can be seen to hire and promote employees according to familiarity rather than raw expertise.

Firstly, employers need to acknowledge components to talent management like this and that their involvement in it is crippling their talent management efforts. Then they can appropriately form strategies that can increase involvement and engagement of all employees together, and reduce biased decisions, especially when it comes to recruiting and promoting talent.

• Compliance Kills Originality

When employers start leading their organizations according to the norms and narrative of their groups, and start prioritizing employees that have similar traits, that’s when the situation just gets worse and worse. This is when talent selection turns into drafting carbon copies of people with common quality traits, and that work within certain set guidelines that coincide with the group.

Essentially, when it comes to talent management in this day and age, organizations, in a way or another, tend to tame and pacify their employees to become what they want them to be. To make them “fit” their social society.

They place them on an already set path with set rules, with endless dos and don’ts, which ultimately perpetuates a “fake it till you make it” culture, where employees have to work and operate in a certain way to fit in.

They call this “compliance.” This can turn an organization’s professional culture into a fear culture, where employees are afraid of being themselves and expressing how they really feel, which can have a huge toll on their morale as well as their creativity and innovation, as they’re basically being told how to act and how to think.

What You Can Do

• Employer Branding

According to the Bayt.com Poll: Employer Branding in the MENA, 93% of MENA jobseekers research a company online before applying for a job. This study can emphasize the extent to which employer branding can make an impact on attracting the right kind of candidates when hiring.

It is already established that top talent know their value and worth and aren’t interested in working at a place where they can’t have a sense of meaning. By having a solid employer brand that portrays your organization as a place where people can belong and grow, be appreciated, and live the employee experience to the fullest, that’s when top talent start flocking in.

In addition, According to the same Poll, 9 in every 10 respondents claim that online employer branding helps “increase talent retention rates.” This study by Bayt.com can help shed light on how much of an influence employer branding can have on your current existing employees. Employees of an organization with a sound employer brand tend to be prouder and validated to work at a reputable organization, and thus are more motivated and engaged.

Thankfully, Bayt.com is able to offer employers with an effective online Employer Branding Platform, where they can create their own personalized company profiles and show off their company culture and brand.

• On Boarding

Paving the way for new hires to adjust to their new jobs and integrating them with your organization’s work environment can be a difficult task, especially with the high demands of today’s workforce.

Having a solid onboarding program is arguably one of the most important factors that can influence talent productivity and retention. On the other hand, having an ineffective onboarding program can cripple your new talent’s productivity and increase turnover rates.

Onboarding is becoming increasingly important now more than ever with the rise of employee demands, where candidates often have set expectations for a job they apply for that aren’t met once employed, which can hinder the whole onboarding process.

Employers should clearly specify job responsibilities, objectives, and timeframes during the interviewing process in somewhat of a pre-boarding program. It should also include exposing the candidate to general work environment of your organization as to give them a taste of your corporate culture and how things go around, which is proven to reduce new employee anxiety.

Also, you should provide your new hires with the ideal conditions and tools that they need with real-time feedback through a comprehensive onboarding platform such as AfterHire.