There’s no denying that talent runs the corporate world today. And with the pandemic stressing the importance of talent management, the CHROs are under more pressure than ever to find the right talent during and post the COVID crisis. But are the HR leaders ready to reintroduce their talent management strategies? Talent management is one of the key responsibilities assigned to human resources. Albeit there are umpteen talents in the labor market, the HR professionals will have to reboot their talent management strategies to find, manage, train, and optimize the potential workforce to improve performance and productivity.
A lot has changed during the pandemic. The HR leaders will have to rethink their strategies and techniques to manage the existing and potential employees. The new normal has set in and is here to stay, and several employees might be doubting their returns to office depending on how the organization handled the COVID crisis. And with vaccine drives greenlighting the potential of people returning to work, the CHROs will have to reboot their talent management strategies to retain and attract new talent.
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What is talent management?
Talent management does not end at hiring the right people for the organization. It involves sourcing the right talent, managing, training, and optimizing these talents to meet the changing business demands over the years. The trends, competitiveness, market, and consumer demands are constantly changing and will be more than ever after the pandemic. And to meet these demands, the CHROs must continue to optimize the workforce to sustain high performance and productivity.
Now that people are anticipating their return to offices, here’s how HR professionals can sync new trends with their traditional hiring, managing, training, and optimizing strategies to reinforce their talent management strategies:
Hiring: Besides the economy, the COVID crisis disrupted the labor markets, with every sector witnessing repercussions to a great extent. More importantly, organizations discovered how lucrative the gig economy, remote working, and hybrid models turned out to be during the pandemic and are certainly looking forward to these trends to normalize. Therefore, recruitment processes and requirements will likely change post-COVID crisis. Also, post-pandemic, the employees will be in favor of flexibility and remote working. Freelancer markets will recover faster than others. Permanent hiring may witness a gradual fall with the incorporation of gig workers for small-term projects and monotonous tasks. Also, experts have prophesied the upcoming generation of employees to be job-hoppers who’d want to look out for a change every 2-3 years. Besides this, interviews will be virtual rather than on-campus or face-to-face. AI is more likely to have a substantial role to play while hiring new talents by eliminating biases and making way for diversity, equality, and inclusion.
Reskilling and training: The sudden surge for digital and other technological skills unmasked the lack of training, reskilling, and upskilling in the organizations. The HR leaders must invest in training programs and reskilling workshops to bridge these talent gaps. In addition, the growth of remote and flexible working has birthed the demand for a new kind of leadership. With flexibility working unfurling a new side of the corporate world, HRs will have to train the leaders to handle both on- and off-site workers simultaneously. Corporates will have to invest in technologies and social platforms to connect employees, manage operations, and maintain transparency. HRs will have to train the team leaders for potential crises by organizing workshops on agility, decision-making, and real-time problem-solving skills.
Evaluating, recognizing and rewarding: Regardless of the pandemic, it’s time to raise some vital questions. Do your employees feel valued and rewarded in the organization? Or is your organization evaluating, recognizing, and rewarding high performers diligently? Maintaining transparency in the evaluation of performance and rewarding the performers is imperative to boost morale and productivity. Let go of the traditional annual performance reviews. Ask team leaders to connect with their on- and off-site employees frequently to set expectations based on their weekly or monthly performances. Moreover, HR leaders must invest in technologies that will allow employees to track their performances and for leaders to reset their expectations from time to time.
Enhancing employee experience and wellbeing: Employees who stayed with their companies through the COVID crisis may rethink their stay post-pandemic depending on how their leaders handled the crisis. This is why HR leaders need to prioritize their employees above everything else and focus on enhancing their experience with new talent management strategies. Although remote working had reduced commuting and increased comfort during the pandemic, many employees complained of feeling isolated, burned out, and exhausted by the end of 2020. To prevent the same, the organization must focus on bridging the communication gaps and invest in technologies that will help the employees balance their work, mental and professional life effortlessly.
Focus on talent to improve workforce performance: In the impending future, talent will be the driving impetus in the corporate world. Given the chaotic web the virus has entangled the businesses into, HR leaders will have to sort the job roles by comprehending their core values. The troubling times saw employees take up more than one task to meet the desired performance and productivity. However, once the situation gets better, HRs will have to reassign these roles to balance employee work pressure. More importantly, these tasks during the pandemic unmasked multiple skills of the employees that the HRs will have to reinforce with training and workshops. AI-based programs will soon take over recruitment processes to find the right talent for the job roles, thus confirming that talent will run the corporate world.
COVID crisis emerged as an eye-opener for the corporate world. It unmasked several positives and minuses in the organization that needed attention and how essential talent management is to survive pandemic-like situations. To give credit where it’s due, HR professionals hit the ground running to concoct real-time strategies to prevent damages and sustain performance and productivity. And, with employees looking forward to coming back to work, the experts await how the HR leaders will rebuild the organizational resilience and core values with new talent management strategies.
References:
- HR says talent is crucial for performance—and the pandemic proves it | Mckinsey & Company |Bryan Hancock and Bill Schaninger | July 27, 2020
- Understanding the Basics: What Is Talent Management? | Workday |November 24, 2020
- The future of work after COVID-19 | Mckinsey & Company | Susan Lund, Anu Madgavkar, James Manyika, Sven Smit, Kweilin Ellingrud, Mary Meaney, and Olivia Robinson |February, 18, 2021
- How the Pandemic is Changing the Rules of Talent Management | LHH | Greg Simpson
- 15 Top Talent Management Trends for 2021 | Oracle Netsuite | Marc Holliday | December, 10 2020
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