A Sustainable Talent Acquisition Strategy – Learning and Development at the Core of your Hiring and Company Culture

I don’t think there is anything more exciting than when you have signed an employment contract with a candidate, who is excited to join the team, and when the hiring manager is also super happy about the new team member joining the team. But there is also something that’s more fulfilling, and that’s when you see that the person hired is succeeding well in their position and on top of that gets opportunities to advance and develop within the company. You have not only offered a role in a team, but also offered a career development path.

There is of course the reality, that not everyone can advance within the company to for example leadership positions, and in my opinion, career development shouldn’t be seen as vertical. Too often we overlook the opportunities to learn, grow and develop as professionals on a much broader perspective.

One of the main reasons why people leave their current position is due to lack of career advancement or development opportunities. Often current employees feel that they are overlooked at when companies are filling open positions, and quite often the new roles are filled with external hires. One reason for this is that companies are moving on such a fast pace that they in reality don’t have the time or resources to train and develop their current employees, which is typical for at least start-ups and scale-ups.

Another reason why people leave their current role, which I have noticed, is that quite many also want to advance to team leader positions. But, as far as the organisational development trends goes, more and more companies are transitioning to a non-manager organisation, which means, that there will be less team leader opportunities in the future, as the number of middle managers will slowly but steadily become smaller. So, as employers we have to be able to think of multiple other ways how to define career success and career advancement in our organisations. We need to re-think career advancement as a whole.

As Deloitte’s 2020 Global Human Capital Trends Report states, organisations are identified as the most important entity responsible for their workforce’s development. In the report, organisations also stated that reskilling is very important for their success for the next 12–18 months. As we know, everything is in constant change, which means that a learned skill is most likely relevant only up to 5 years (and that’s an optimistic number). This in other words means, that learning and development as well as long-term career development are inevitable, not only for the company’s survival, but also for the workforces’ relevance in the future — and this is something that has to be present in all talent acquisition and talent development strategies.

What can companies do?

In my opinion, companies should have learning and development at the core of the culture. You can train for example curiosity, grit and problem-solving, which are at the core of any learning and development. You can train your employees to be curious and to continuously learn in the job. You do not have to organise several day’s trainings for the entire organisation, which at the end won’t be effective anyways, but you can plant for example curiosity in your company culture — live by the value and encourage such behaviour — and eventually, curiosity will become part of your culture and it’s seen in how the team solves problems and continuously improves current practices.

If you have learning and development at the core of your culture, and you support your employees to be curious and offer them opportunities to learn, you can retain your employees and also build long-lasting talent relationships. You should also develop long-term talent strategies, and here the existing employees are a core talent group. When you nurture a culture, where your existing employees can and want to learn and develop, you will first of all have happy employees and secondly, career development and continuous learning, becomes a natural part of your culture. Reskilling becomes a natural part of your company culture.

If you as an employer do not support learning and career development, then those who feel that they can’t develop in their current job, will find a place where they can and where they are offered a transparent career development path (and by career development I mean both vertical and horisontal growth).

As a summary, there should be a balance between internal and external hires, and we should offer existing employee’s opportunities for growth as well as to make sure we acquire new insights and knowledge by also hiring externally.

When people join your company, there is a reason, why they have joined, and we should think of everyone we hire as a long-term investment. There is a reason why people leave their employer, and most often the reason is that they cannot advance, learn or develop in their current position or company, and that’s why they are interested in other opportunities. It’s no longer a secret that reskilling and continuous learning is a necessity for the future. Therefore, as Talent professionals, this is something that I think we should invest more time in and make more sustainable talent strategy decisions.

Sources:

Your Approach to Hiring Is All Wrong, https://hbr.org/2019/05/recruiting

These 3 Industries Have the Highest Talent Turnover Rates, https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/blog/trends-and-research/2018/the-3-industries-with-the-highest-turnover-rates

Beyond reskilling — Investing in resilience for uncertain futures, https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/focus/human-capital-trends/2020/reskilling-the-workforce-to-be-resilient.html