Prime Minister David Cameron predicts that 2012 will be another tough year for the UK economy.
With this in mind, employers should be considering the implications of financial austerity measures, particularly with regards to selecting and nurturing talent.
Selecting talent: In 2012, the ‘try before you buy’ trend will become increasingly prevalent due to two main drivers:
- Organisations will need to take a cautious approach to recruiting permanent employees, with many asking themselves the question ‘will the order book be better or worse than last year?’
- Employers cannot afford to make mistakes by recruiting and training staff who do not deliver the desired added value. There is definitely more focus on looking at each member of staff in terms of ‘are they an asset or a liability from a financial point of view?’
One way to circumvent these issues and continue taking on new talent is to offer short-term contracts to graduates who have already proved themselves within business. Going down this route enables employers to ‘see how things go’ by initially hiring people as contractors and associates.
Nurturing talent: Trying to improve staff engagement will be a big trend for 2012. While a significant number of organisations have started work on this, the results are still often patchy. The goal is to harness each team member’s efforts that go beyond the routine in order to generate successful business results.
In order to do this effectively, you will need to:
1. Communicate – Boost the quality of team briefings to ensure that all members are aware of the bigger picture. Each individual needs to understand what is happening in the company so that they can understand what is expected of their role.
2. Enhance your objective-setting process – Improve the process of creating and monitoring dynamic individual objectives, which support the overall business plan. A lot of organisations employ a SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timed) objectives framework when devising policies.
But it is important to invest sufficient time in training managers to ensure that they can apply it effectively and really engage team members in achieving stated aims.
3. Tackle performance gaps – If there are ways in which team members or managers could do something differently or more effectively in order to improve business performance, the situation should be confronted in a positive way sooner rather than later and the relevant support provided. Coaching can also be offered here, but requires taking a positive, upbeat approach.
To provide effective competency-based coaching, line managers should be encouraged to:
- Set aside time for it
- Agree clear objectives with individuals in line with priorities for developing their competencies
- Ask the person to be coached what they believe is working well at the moment and what could be done differently and better
- Provide them with feedback as to what you think they are doing well and what they could do differently in order to improve performance
- Agree next steps.
4. Celebrate success on a regular basis – The pressure to control costs means that activities to celebrate success have become lost in a number of organisations. But such celebrations do not need to be expensive – it is the act of recognition itself that leads to higher staff engagement.
Low-cost options include personal acknowledgements from senior managers by writing personal notes to individuals or attending team meetings where they congratulate the team for their achievements in person. Team pizzas and the usual calorific doughnuts and biscuits are also a greatly appreciated treat.
5. Show and support strong leadership – Strong leadership by everyone from the chief executive to supervisors is required to enable staff engagement. Because there is unlikely to be many significant pay increases during 2012, it will become even more important to use these leadership skills in order to retain the best talent.
While various organisations may have their own definition of strong leadership, some of the generic characteristics of effective leaders include being able to:
- Demonstrate a positive, engaging style
- Motivate and empower others, providing staff with development opportunities and coaching
- Deal promptly with poor performance
- Show agility by operating effectively in a changing environment, with constantly shifting targets and priorities
- Develop team members to ensure that the right people are in the right roles and that career progression opportunities are in place
- Take a caring approach and encourage a culture of openness, honesty and trust Think strategically, demonstrate vision and make appropriate decisions.
Managing change in an uncertain world can be tricky for many leaders, but senior HR people have a key role to play in supporting such change in the most dynamic, efficient and effective way possible.
A key challenge for HR directors during 2012, therefore, will be to ensure that they have credibility within the rest of the senior management team and are seen to influence the change process. And achieving this will mean developing the necessary facilitation skills in order to support line managers, while at the same time boosting wider staff engagement.
Rachel Blackburn is founder and director of management consultancy, Us2U Consulting.
