It is imperative that companies and organizations recognize and prepare for the impending changes in the workforce talent pool. Changes already under way will significantly increase the competition for high caliber talent. In this new environment, companies that are proficient in identifying and attracting candidates with the qualities that actually drive success in their organizations will command a powerful edge. "Most organizations now recognize that having great people is the only way to create a sustainable, competitive advantage," say the authors in their preface to On Staffing. "And yet staffing remains a core strategy for only a few notable organizations that have, not coincidentally, a reputation for acquiring top talent and delivering better return for their stakeholders."6
Organizations can make substantial improvements in their efforts to attract high quality talent by taking steps to:
- Closely involve hiring managers throughout the recruiting process
- Adopt processes and systems that facilitate effective communication and information sharing among hiring managers, recruiters, candidates, and talent communities, and
- Identify and focus on the attributes and metrics that enhance quality in job performance in addition to the traditional focus on efficiency in recruiting.
As Rueff and Stringer say in Talent Force, companies need to adopt the same rigor and discipline in their talent practices as they have in such areas as inventory management. Talent supply chains, they say, should also have well-defined methods and be viewed with the same-or greater-level of criticality. Sophisticated, easy-to-use and highly-integrated solutions, such as those developed by Authoria, can give enterprises the edge they need as the workforce continues its inexorable advance in a new, more challenging direction.
