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Five Reasons to Fuss over Talent (Like You Do Customers)

Author and Chairman & CEO of the Gallup Organization offered the following insight in his recent book The Coming Jobs War: “What the whole world wants is a good job.” Commitment to talent often goes hand-in-hand with business success. Get the picture? You must make talent attraction, selection, development and retention a top strategic priority. Full stop.

Here’s a five-step framework you can use to get started or to refine your current approach to talent development:

  1. Establish clear roles in your organization. What roles most impact your success? Whose increased performance disproportionately impacts productivity and overall output? Invest first and foremost here — it’s a sound business decision that will positively affect your whole company.
  2. Learn what behaviors and skill-sets lead to increased success. You should view talent development like any other value-added work across the supply chain. Seek out feedback from customers and coworkers to discover what separates a great leader from a not-so-great leader.
  3. Integrate success indicators into your hiring process. If there are skills a new hire must have to be effective, spell it out in the job posting and focus on them throughout the hiring process. Once you’ve hired, focus on continuous improvement and provide both development and performance-based coaching during the on-boarding process.
  4. Remember that retention is the top priority! Hiring costs can be as much as 10 times the cost of retention. It just makes sense to keep your team happy and motivated once they are there. Provide them with a purpose and show them respect.
  5. Whenever possible, make it a priority to develop future leaders from within. There will always be a need to find external help, but the best options for your future leaders may already be there, working hard for you each day. Create clear routes for career advancement and always be looking for the worker who can become the next leader.

Each step requires focus, commitment and follow-thru. It will often be challenging. If you’re looking for advice or for others who have been where you are, those resources exist.

Join manufacturers and educators from your region and across Michigan in Battle Creek this October for the MFG Talent Summit. The resources, tools and best practices are all out there — you just need to plug them in at your own facility.

Don’t wait for a solution to be handed to you — get proactive and begin addressing your talent needs today.

About the Author

Darryl WahlstromDarryl Wahlstrom is president of D.A.W. Organization Consulting Services. He may be reached at 269-353-1898 or darryl@daw-consultingsolutions.com.