Ask any Business Leader, HR, Line Manager or Recruiter. Their biggest and most pressing challenge is to find good and suitable talent. It has got more and more difficult. The world and future has become less predictive and survival of businesses purely depend on its leaders and workforce.
While we have access to great technology, fantastic social media and live in a globalized world, what causes difficulty in finding suitable talent? Why does it get more challenging? What is contributing to this situation?
In my opinion, the challenges of finding good candidates lie on both sides – Employer & Candidates and are influenced by several external factors.
Since this is a wide topic, i will cover it through a multi-part series and this is not a stand alone article. To clear off any potential misunderstanding for readers, this series is focused on all candidates and recruitment practices and not on MBAs.
In this part, we start with the macro reasons why Employers don’t find good candidates and intend to continue it along in the subsequent blogs.Let’s get started.
# 1. Change is all over the Business & Organizational Landscape
Earlier, things used to change and evolve over years. Now, it happens on a daily basis. Constant change is effected due to regulations, competition, technology, profitability, innovation, political and economic factors. Disruptive technologies and trends often blow a sweeping change. Change never sleeps. Change affects all businesses alike – right from startup to corporations that are in existence for centuries.
While things change constantly, very few organizations change / adopt their recruitment strategy, approach and efforts along with the changes.
Companies recruit for the present and future – while they do not have a clear vision for the future. Even if they have, it is not shared by many candidates. Often companies recruit for future roles without a good understanding of the role and are uncertain about how it will evolve
In order to hire good candidates, companies need to be clear of where they are, where they want to go and what kind of workforce they need to get there.
# 2. Companies do not take the Workforce along with the Changes
While every business is keenly focused on adopting to the technological changes, increasing profitability and strengthening their service/products, they do not prioritize equipping and training the workforce. Also, the organizational change is often put in the back burner. The organizational systems and processes do not move along with the growth. As a result the workforce, system and processes are not in sync with the developments. Hence, the gap starts to grow between the capability of the workforce and the needs of the organization. Sounds familiar?
In order to accommodate, absorb and assimilate these market changes, the workforce has to constantly evolve. Managements is exhausted and tired with delivering short term results. Your competitor struggles as well as you and hence their workforce isn’t perfect either
I have observed this across the globe and across all sectors and hence it is probably not to do with only certain cultures or companies. Of course, some companies are ahead of others in taking their workforce along. Usually, these are driven by visionary and great leaders, a rare phenomenon.
# 3. Your Hiring Strategy is Outdated
The 21 century recruitment has to be dynamic, creative, surgical, optimized and result oriented. Many companies just try to put the old wine in a new bottle which does not deliver results. Many organizations are clueless as to what their strategy is nor how it should be. HR is not skilled in developing hiring strategies. Even worse, some HR leaders carry on recruiting the way they did 10 years ago.
Formulating a strategy that is aligned to the marketplace and competitive enough to get results is very vital. Do you have a clear strategy and do you measure how you fare with it? Does your strategy have clarity as to what kind of workforce succeeds in your culture and how you attract that specific type of workforce? How do you beat your competitors in attracting premium talent? Is the strategy strictly implemented throughout your organization? Who is accountable for it? How do you know you are delivering on it?
No matter how many good candidates are out there in the market, if you do not have the right strategy in place, it is going to be difficult to attract them.
Summary
In summary, the reasons why Employers are not able to hire good candidates are
- Companies are bombarded with constant changes and do not fine tune their recruitment practices and approach as often they need to
- Companies do not take the workforce along with the rapid change. As a result, the workforce lags behind. This contributes to the gap between Employer expectations and the skills deficit of the workforce
- Employers work with outdated Recruitment Strategy and in many cases, without a strategy
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