Finding Talent

(in a labour shortage)

As I have pointed out on many occasions, the current labour shortage is going to get worse. That means finding talent is harder than ever, which is not to neglect that in some fields finding talent has been a problem for decades. The really talented people are always hard to get. But now even the ‘good enough’ are getting to be in short supply.


The underlying dynamic is simple—retirement is pulling millions of experienced, skilled, and talented people out of the workforce. There are few underemployed to step up and replace them. Further, the number of educated, potentially skilled, and possibly talented is inadequate. No company can keep up with what is a widening gap talent gap.


However, while that is true for the economy as a whole, it does not need to be true for any specific company. Good companies will continue to find the talent they need. Here’s how they do it:

1. Good management


Management is tough and good management is tougher. It requires experience, thoughtfulness, a certain level of sensitivity to staff, consistency of approach, a superb understanding of resources, the ability to manipulate systems, good environmental awareness, and excellent communication skills. It takes time and hard work to become a good manager. But once you are a good manager, you find that your staff stick with you (improved retention!), work hard to succeed together, and create good team camaraderie. Those are all good things.

The good news is that when it comes to hiring, good management provides a real boost. Good people want to work for good managers. Your staff will be out there singing your praises, marketing your strengths, and creating a welcoming atmosphere. That creates a good feel in the industry. The talented folk are listening for those signs and will be much faster to apply. You can find them coming over from your competition in order to join your highly rated teams.

Your staff will also be a key source of new folk. When you need new people there is a good chance they will have recommendations and their recommendations are usually excellent. They want more competent people to join their team. They want to build. Their recommendations might not have the talent you want, but you can expect competence and that might be a very good stop-gap while you continue to look for talent.


2. Good training


Some talent is born. Most of it is made. Experience, skill, mastery, and competence are all built on the deliberate or implicit training that comes from the workplace. That means you have a pool of potential talent sitting there, just waiting to be trained.

Some talent is born. Most of it is made. Experience, skill, mastery, and competence are all built on the deliberate or implicit training that comes from the workplace. That means you have a pool of potential talent sitting there, just waiting to be trained.

Training your staff means investing in them. It means providing skills training. At the very least everyone should be cross-trained across a team. That provides a significant level of resilience if you lose core staff for any reason. However, good training goes much further. It means letting staff determine what they want to learn and providing them the resources to get the training. It also means providing opportunities to expand their experiences in the workplace. Let people transfer internally, encourage broad understanding through co-working, and push out job description boundaries

 Finally, it means increasing your tolerance for risk and failure. Failure is the best educator and that only happens when risk is rewarded. The more failures and faster they are accomplished the more quickly your staff will make the real progress toward being the talent you want.

There has been a lot of resistance to training over the last decades in many companies. The cost and the risk are the primary factors. Especially hard to take is the cost of training your staff and seeing them walk off to your competitors. That is fully understandable and makes sense of the resistance to training going on in many places. However, the labour market has changed and this is one of the areas where higher costs are going to exist. The survivors of the current transition will be those who train as if their life depends upon it. If your company is talent dependent, then that is literally the case. So train well.


Also, note that the departure of some folk is inevitable, but in the context of a real commitment to training and a high commitment to good management, your retention rate will be far higher than your competitors. It’s always tough to keep people. Now it’s evolution in action and survival comes down to facing facts and building a more competent workforce at every level. Good managers and good training are essential to survive the future. It’s not going to get easier for a long time.

Return to top