The Post Pandemic Hiring Dilemma

By Bill Kica on June 9, 2022

3 Ways to Gain an Edge in Today’s Recruiting Wars

“Train people well enough so they can leave,

treat them well enough so they don’t want to.” – Richard Branson

If you thought the real estate market was tight, just try hiring top talent for your firm right now.

Finding and onboarding the right talent has never been harder for growth-minded businesses. Recent job opening data reported by The Bureau of Labor Statistics only underscores the reality that a full-blown war for talent is underway.

• “Demand for workers remains white-hot,” “Even though we’ve almost recovered all of the jobs lost in the pandemic, the labor market just keeps getting tighter and tighter.” source: Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter

• College hiring is on fire! College hiring continues to surge as employers responding to NACE’s Job Outlook 2022 survey report that they plan to hire almost one-third (31.6%) more new college graduates from the Class of 2022 than they hired from the Class of 2021.

Human Capital: Our Most Valuable Asset

Elite businesses have learned that essential human capital is priceless in optimizing enterprise value. But, building a high-performing, client-centric team is hard work. It doesn’t happen overnight. There may even be some “false starts” along the way should our team add new members for the wrong reasons, in the wrong ways, or in the wrong roles. 

Too often, I have seen advisory teams making expedient choices merely to “plug a hole” in their practice when an opening occurs. Taking a longer-term view is critical to avoiding potential pitfalls such as un-timely turnover, disruptions in service and lost revenue opportunities.

Here are three basic steps that can go a long way in ensuring a productive transition when the opportunity arises to onboard new talent onto our teams:

1. Create “Depth Charts”: Many of us follow some sport wherein the announcers and analysts are constantly assessing and reporting on a team’s depth chart (aka “talent readiness”) at each key position on the team. For example, If Tom Brady or Aaron Rodgers go down, who will be ready to step in to replace them? In fairness, likely no one can completely replace them, but who is prepared enough to fill the void or perhaps take the team higher?

Some proactive leaders of businesses I have coached go beyond creating org charts and developing Personal Development Plans (PDPs) using a Readiness Assessment to intentionally prepare team talent for planned or unplanned openings. They design progressive career development pathways using a system akin to a “red, yellow, green” readiness planner. This is meant to ensure they have the depth of talent on the bench to keep the practice progressing forward without missing a beat.

Suggestion: Consider onboarding the next key talent addition to your team at least 6 months or a year before you actually need them. This can go a long way to ensure a seamless integration into new roles and your overall client standard of care. In that period, consider over-weighting access to key mentors and hands-on education such as “shadowing” team members to imprint on their best practices, work ethic, core values and belief systems.

• Focus On “Intrinsic” Motivators: The post-pandemic “Work from Anywhere” movement may have altered expectations of top talent for some time. Recent research makes a compelling case for going beyond traditional rewards systems to seek opportunities for our team members to fulfill prime intrinsic motivators such as autonomy, mastery and purpose.

While external motivators such as compensation and upward mobility will always be present, the need to fulfill higher order internal needs are coming to the fore. It can be the leading differentiator in a candidate’s job selection criteria.

Suggestion: Best-seller author and leading Ted Talk Speaker Daniel Pink makes the case to re-engineer jobs away from the traditional “carrot vs. stick” incentive systems. He shares that what really motivates us to play at our highest level is to return our focus to our prime “intrinsic” motivators. These include:

• an expanded sense of autonomy or self-directed work
• opportunity to achieve mastery in a desired skill or discipline
• a path to link one’s purpose with that of the mission of the organization for which they work

In addition, teams should seek to provide a personal development plan for each team member. These plans should allow for achieving “mastery” or expertise and higher-order skills in their role. And teams that align their team purpose or mission with the individual team member’s purpose can generate loyalty seldom seen in practices which rely merely on the founders or leader’s vision.

• Consider “Acqui-hiring”: “Homegrown” talent is highly desirable. It is gratifying when a firm can see the fruits of their internal talent development programs. However, sometimes we do not possess the depth of talent we need within the team. In those situations, external talent acquisition may create a “leapfrog” competitive advantage.

Thus, to complement our own internal development efforts, one way of adding the right mix of new skills, perspectives and competencies is to consider talent additions through the acquisition of another firm. Acqui-hiring is the process of acquiring another firm primarily to recruit its employees and their competencies rather than to merely gain access to additional AUM, products, or services.

Creating a “Lifer” Culture Once Again

For decades, business literature has bemoaned the loss of loyalty and fidelity to the organization’s employees were expected to serve. Job hopping became an unfortunate by-product of the downsizing decades.

Creating “lifers” within organizations seems to have become a lost art. Today, leaders of advisory practices can re-set expectations by investing in creating truly engaged and sticky team talent. Taking simple but intentional steps to ensure the right talent wants to become part of our organizations is the way to start. When candidates can see future pathways that can only be obtained with our firm we go a long way to ensure that we win the war for talent. And most importantly, we ensure our brand remains a magnet to attract top performers for life.

To learn ways in which you can create a team development culture where talent can thrive contact Bill Kica at bkica@hightoweradvisors.com