How to Become a Magnet for the Best Talent

How to Become a Magnet for the Best Talent
Ever noticed that the organizations you admire for their culture and success seem to know how to become a magnet for the best talent?  It’s not a coincidence.

Some firms have cracked the code on aligning their strategy with their culture and their talent — this is their recipe for success.  Indeed, we see talent as one-third of the recipe for sustainable growth.

When Aligned, Strategy + Culture + Talent = Business Success
Here’s our proven alignment philosophy and the steps you can take to attract, develop, engage and retain the top talent that makes sense for your specific business strategy and unique organizational culture.

Our organizational alignment research found:

• Strategic clarity accounts for 31%
• Corporate culture accounts for 40%
• Talent accounts for 29%

of the difference between high and low performing organizations in terms of revenue growth, profitability, customer loyalty, leadership effectiveness, and employee engagement.

Six Talent Management Tips
Much has been written about strategy and culture. If you want to know how to become a magnet for the best talent, these talent management tips will keep your team firing on all cylinders.

1. Get Leadership Support and Commitment
   Leadership must be on board. Company leaders set the tone and direction of the organization. For a talent management program to succeed, leaders need to buy into and fully support the strategies and investments to attract, develop, engage and retain talent at every stage.
2. Selectively Target and Recruit
   Know what attributes and behavioral competencies you need in your employees and where to find them. Recruit them by sharing your company values, culture and purpose. The closer your culture matches the culture they want, the more likely they will thrive and stay.
3. Ensure High Performance Standards
   Top talent wants to know that excellence is valued and that substandard performance is not tolerated. They want to work with the best. This is the kind of high performance environment that challenges, energizes and inspires top talent.
4. Be Clear About Desired Behaviors
   “A” players appreciate clear expectations. Employees want to know what behaviors are most valued so they can be guided by company principles and act in a manner that brings them recognition, promotion and success.
5. Have Career Development Opportunities
   To retain top talent, you need to provide a clear path ahead and opportunities for learning and growth. The fastest way to disengage and drive away your best and most ambitious employees is to keep them in a dead-end job. Give your high potentials the chance to thrive.
6. Conduct Frequent Reviews
   Many managers make the mistake of spending the bulk of their coaching time on their underperforming team members. Instead, they should stay in closer touch with their high performers who often crave feedback and recognition. Let your high performers know what they can do to get better and prune your team of unproductive and unwilling-to-change workers.

The Bottom Line
If you want to outperform your peers, keep talent management as high of a priority as your strategy and your culture. Invest wisely in employee selection, engagement and development. With more and more companies competing for scarce talent, you cannot afford to underemphasize the people component of your business.

To learn more about how to become a magnet for the best talent, download Why Talent Is Only 1/3rd of the Talent Management Recipe for Success

by Tristam Brown: CEO

Tristam Brown is an executive business consultant and organizational development expert with more than three decades of experience helping organizations accelerate performance, build high-impact teams, and turn strategy into execution. As CEO of LSA Global, he works with leaders to get and stay aligned™ through research-backed strategy, culture, and talent solutions that produce measurable, business-critical results. See full bio.