We all know at least one John, who was a great fit for the job posting published by the organization last week, but the talent manager never knew about John. The talent manager failed to recognize the talent within the organization and hired a new employee with a much higher salary. Often the organization is the biggest loser in such situations because they not only paid higher to the new hire but also spent a considerable amount of energy in inducting the new hire into his new organization. This doesn't stop here, because soon John comes to know about the new hire and senses that he is being paid much higher. As a result, John loses his interest in his current job and eventually walks out of the organization. Now the talent manager has to hunt for another John and spend time, energy, and money in inducting another new hire who will replace john. Wait, this still doesn't stop here because now Geeta realizes that she was competent to take up John's role. Thanks to the talent management practices within her organization, she cannot grab the opportunity which she valued a lot! So, Geeta moves out with a heavy heart too! The vicious circle continues forever.
Have you noticed this vicious circle in your organization? How does your organization deal with it? Many organizations have the system of posting internal job opportunities to all the employees, while this is an appreciable practice, the organizations forget that the process doesn't stop here. All the employees are given a stipulated timeframe to apply to the internal job posting but all the job applications cannot be thoroughly scrutinized manually by the talent manager. This is a common scenario in large organizations with >10,000 employees, isn't it? In such a scenario, the talent manager moves on to a third party recruitment platform to screen talent outside the company and this is where the vicious circle begins.
All of us want to be useful and want to contribute to building amazing products or services for our respective organizations. The reason for this want is job satisfaction. Employees may have much more to offer than what they are originally hired for. Over a period of time, the employees may get bored of performing repetitive work patterns. They may also acquire new skills externally while they are employed and may want to use those skills in their existing job roles. It is unfortunate that with traditional talent management practices it would be tough for them to get the job role which they desire the most.
"When people are financially invested, they want a return.
When people are emotionally invested, they want to contribute."
Simon Sinek, thought leader and motivational speaker
You would say, ‘who wants to lose good employees but this is inevitable’. I would say, this is certainly not inevitable because ‘Scilife's Competence Module’ is built exactly to handle such scenarios. The competence Module allows you to store CVs of all your employees and also keep a record of their competences for which the organization may want to use them in the future. The best part about the Module is that a competence list can be customized based on the organization’s requirement. It is also possible to assign skill levels to indicate expertise in specific competence. And last but not the least, the Module also enables the talent management personnel to apply search filters to identify employees skilled in specific competence in demand. This makes the whole process of talent management very easy. Employees can keep updating their profile as and when they acquire new skills. The organization can also send reminders and encourage the employees to keep their competence profile up to date so that they don’t lose out on interesting opportunities. Employees feel more enthusiastic about continuing in the same organization as they know they would soon get an opportunity of Job Rotation as and when a suitable opportunity arises. Inefficient use of human resources is also considered as a waste in ‘Lean’ philosophy. Hence, if your organization follows Lean philosophy then you would certainly want to make use of Competence Module for efficient engagement of the human resources.
"Employees who believe that management is concerned
about them as a whole person -not just an employee-
are more productive, more satisfied, more fulfilled.
Satisfied employees mean satisfied customers,
which leads to profitability."
Anne M. Mulcahy, CEO of Xerox Corporation
To sum it up, efficient utilization of human resources is just one aspect of using the Competence Module. The larger goal is not only to utilize the employees but also to keep them engaged. If the employees are engaged in work which they enjoy most, then they give rise to an awesome workplace. Sybil F. Stershic has pointed it well in her book ‘Taking Care of the People Who Matter Most: A Guide to Employee-Customer Care’. She says:
“The way your employees feel
is the way your customers will feel.
And if your employees don’t feel valued,
neither will your customers.”
If we think of her statement in the context of the vicious circle, we realize that, if customers start seeing new faces handling their queries every time they land up in trouble, then they might get annoyed about having to repeatedly explain their issue history. Employee stability is an absolute indicator of an organization's work culture and good financial health. The customers would trust an organization with strong employee retention policies over an organization with an unstable employee workforce. The impact of customer satisfaction is directly linked with the organization's value in the eyes of investors in the capital market too. All in all, a small step towards better employee engagement can create a huge impact in terms of creating a reputable brand image of the organization.
