Partner Article

How to create a pipeline of talent

It’s HR focus week on Bdaily. Here, Kevin Young, general manager, Skillsoft EMEA, outlines the need for a business to maintain a strong and capable workforce.

In order to continue to grow, businesses need a strong and capable workforce behind them.

Therefore every organisation should make sure that they are taking care of their talent pipeline. Not only will this help businesses to cultivate and foster a positive environment, but any employees that do decide to leave will be able to be replaced with minimum disturbance.

So how can you develop a pipeline of talent?

First of all, you must work to entice your market’s top talent. If you hope to be the employer of choice in your particular sector then you must be serious about wanting to make talent a key influencer in your company. It pays to create a great induction programme that turns interest in the organisation into deep respect and profound admiration.

The aim is to develop a constantly reinforced belief in the new recruit that they have made the right choice in coming on board and that all the talk and promises made at interviews are followed through and delivered.

It’s also worth bearing in mind that everyone has potential, so you should work to create an ethos where every employee is acknowledged as having potential. This means creating a broad talent philosophy that makes sure everyone is challenged and given the chance to work for promotions.

This can be encouraged by an in-house learning and development programme that is solely targeted at the individual employee’s career progression. By demonstrating to employees that they are valued for their future contributions as well as their current roles, businesses will fare better in competitive talent markets and reduce the likelihood of valuable employees moving on.

There are plenty of other things you should do in order to spread an unmistakable message that staff are valued, respected, and have a future in your organisation. For example, create personal development plans and build them in to appraisal systems; solicit regular performance feedback and offer staff regular secondments to other parts of the business.

Also provide staff with opportunities to take time out of their regular day-to-day chores to work on more strategic projects. These all have their place, and will certainly go a long way in helping to create a ‘learning organisation’.

The final piece of the puzzle is a fantastic talent manager. It takes an intuitive manager to value the talent; talk with other managers to know where opportunities lie and share those skills around the organisation. And it is the talent manager that needs to work with HR to drive the development of a learning organisation.

Never before have businesses faced so many challenges. However, by introducing these simple tips, organisations of all sectors and markets can realise the benefits of having a highly talented, loyal and productive workforce.

This, no doubt, will go a long way in helping your business to stay on top, overtake the competition and overcome the daily hurdles presented by today’s ever changing world.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Skillsoft .