Talent acquisition and retention is becoming increasingly difficult in today’s workplace.

The South African employment industry is currently facing a situation where the demand for talented workers is higher than the supply. Due to the fact that most organisations are in search of this scarce resource, talent pools are becoming exhausted. Organisations’ reaction to this scenario is to create their own talent databases often by exploiting the services of recruitment agencies to source talented candidates. For example, an organisation will enlist the services of a recruitment agency, only to gain access to the details of their talented candidates with the sole purpose of contacting these candidates in the future. In this way, organisations will avoid paying the placement fee, but will still benefit from the information provided by these agencies.

Organisations will have their own career portals or utilise personal/in-house referral networks to source talented employees. In general, talent is not found on databases, it is mostly traced and approached. To achieve this, organisations develop stable relationships with schools and tertiary institutions and offer top students bursaries or graduate programmes. Nevertheless, a large percentage of talented workers are still employed through traditional recruitment methods as well as specialist and executive search. Once hired, these employees are often presented with offers and benefits that they cannot refuse, such as management development programme participation, share options and positions of authority.

There is no fixed talent benchmark against which a potential candidate can be measured. Each organisation has different talent criteria. Talented employees:

• are top achievers at school;
• normally fulfil leadership roles prior to working (at school and university);
• will pass tertiary degrees with distinctions or cum laude;
• have headed/been members of various committees or currently belong to professional boards;
• have strong business and leadership acumen;
• are able to think strategically and see the big picture;
• are able to put their tertiary knowledge into practice: and
• can manage people, stress/pressure very well.

Talented candidates often undergo a very stringent interviewing process and even undergo psychometric evaluations.

On a personal level (depending on the role that will be fulfilled and the organisation), talented employees are generally:

• high flying;
• well presented and spoken;
• dedicated;
• hardworking;
• dynamic; and
• adaptable.

They are able to maintain a healthy balance between their social and work life and should ideally have high IQ and EQ counts.

In the South African employment market especially, a person’s tertiary qualifications influence his/her talent rating substantially. Regrettably, too strong a weighting is placed on qualifications than is placed on experience. In my findings, there is a vast amount of people with strong experience and because they do not have the qualifications they do not get short-listed for positions or promotions. Consequently, companies lose a lot of talent because of the severity of the weighting on qualifications. Experience does count a lot, but if a talented, experienced person without a strong academic background is in the running for a talent position, the person with the qualification coupled with the experience will be short-listed and interviewed before the candidate without a qualification. The irony of the matter is that the person without a qualification might be an even better candidate for the position as opposed to the qualified person.

Occasionally, a number of people are academically talented but struggle to apply their knowledge in the workplace. In contrast, some people are practically/technically and/or functionally talented but have chosen for various reasons not to go the academic route or are just not academically inclined and are therefore disadvantaged in the talent pool. This scenario might stimulate a negative attitude towards tertiary qualifications among unqualified, talented individuals.

Talent retention
Once a talented person is employed, it is essential to ensure job satisfaction and retention. Initially, strategies such as personal career development plans, individualised development programmes, career tracking and promotions may be employed. I believe that the actual key to retaining talent in South African organisations lies within open and transparent communication. The employer and employee should have regular meetings and feedback sessions in order to create a mutually beneficial relationship. Once this win-win relationship is accomplished, trust can be built which will eventually result in a higher level of job satisfaction and, ultimately, a higher degree of employee retention. Sadly, most organisations are primarily concerned with profit generation and neglect their employees, which is the most important part of their business. If companies do not look after their talented employees and they resign, counter offers are far too late to rectify the damage already done. The next step for South Africa is to retain these individuals so as to avoid losing them to the international employment market.

Organisations often use remuneration and reward measurements to ensure talent retention. Examples of such are premiums above market related salaries, sign-on bonuses, study loan takeovers, bonuses, commissions and shares options. The ethics of this is questionable, as all employees within an organisation should be treated equally. This can also create a generally dissatisfied workforce, a culture of job-hopping as well as salary distortion in the market.

Companies should not set talented employees up for failure by making promises they are unable to keep. They should not be expected to perform at a level they are not yet ready for, as this will result in failure on both sides. In order to nurture and coach your talent it is advisable to develop a relationship of engagement and have proper on-boarding procedures. Moreover, an internal centre that focuses specifically on retaining excellent staff by employing protégés who can coach, mentor and facilitate your talent is vital. It is significant to understand what your talent is saying. This can be achieved through sufficient communication between the relevant parties. This mutually beneficial relationship will stimulate high levels of trust and productivity. A final word of advice: do all that you can to retain your good staff. It will cost you if you don’t!

Bridget Bakos is the chief executive of Kuphela People Solutions SA (www.kuphela.com).