Understanding Talent Development in the Post-Pandemic Era

The pandemic has undoubtedly turned the job market upside down.  Few talent acquisition professionals could have expected that job candidates would still hold such a high degree of leverage in the modern hiring game.  Yet, here we are.  Candidate talent remains at a premium, and experts are predicting that our job market will remain candidate driven for some time to come.  

It’s a dynamic that has sent talent sourcing professionals on a scramble to adopt the latest HR technologies and recruitment strategies in hopes of making their hiring efforts more effective, and that’s thrusting the subject of talent development into an entirely new light. 

What is Talent Development?

Sometimes referred to as upskilling, talent development programs build upon an employee’s existing skill set through training, and it identifies opportunities to adopt new skills that will ultimately contribute to the long-term growth of the employer. 

The Harvard Business Review recently estimated that over 1 billion jobs are liable to be transformed dramatically by technology in the next decade.  That means talent development programs will be a huge factor in the post-pandemic era.  They’ve already become crucial programs both in how they’re applied as a strategy for recruiting new employees and in how they are applied to strengthen organizations for the future.

The first thing to understand about talent development is that employees hold these programs in very high regard.  One recent report shows that employees are much more willing to stay with an organization if it demonstrates an interest in their professional development.  In fact, retention rates can be elevated by as much as 50% for organizations that have a solid learning culture in place. 

The cost of employee turnover can’t be overstated.  By having a talent development program in place, an organization’s chances of success at keeping employees happy once they’ve passed their probationary period goes up dramatically.  Below we’ll help you understand talent development as it’s applied in the market today and what it takes to successfully implement such a program in the post-pandemic era, beginning with how it is being applied before an employee even joins an organization.

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Talent Development is a Modern Recruitment Strategy

Talent development is no longer just a perk or benefits offered to employees; these programs are being used as a powerful tool in employee recruitment.  Talent acquisition teams are taking to social media (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) to trumpet all that’s included in the talent development programs that they offer to entice passive job seekers into considering what working for such an organization might mean for their own careers.

There’s also the concept of referrals.  By establishing a talent development program that appeals to your workers, you are strengthening those employee relationships.  Happy employees are more likely to post positive remarks about their employer online (and some employers even ask their workers if they’d be willing to do this).  In doing so, these posts are seen by passive job seekers, and it lays the foundation to attract talented candidates.

However, there are some crucial things to understand about talent development in the post-pandemic era when introducing such a program to an organization for the first time:

Set a Vision for your Company and Culture

In 1989, Dr. Stephen R. Covey wrote the wildly successful self-help book titled “7 Habits of Highly Effective People.”  One of the habits in this framework was titled “…begin with the end in mind.”  The idea is that all things are created twice.  First, we create a vision.  Then, we bring that vision to life in the real world.  Like blueprints, we have a concept of what something is going to look like. Then we create those things in the physical world based on our “mental blueprints.” It’s the same for any organization that wants to set up a successful talent development program. 

Organizations must determine what kind of culture they need to succeed in their industry and what kind of workforce skills and organizational leadership it will take to get them there.

HR professionals must work hand in hand with managers and organizational leaders at all levels in designing a talent development program that promises to cultivate the appropriate combination of soft and hard skills within their workforce to achieve the vision of the company.

Do an Assessment

To succeed in a competitive marketplace, organizations must ensure their employees either have or can develop the appropriate skills to achieve the goals of the company.  Without those skills, organizational goals will go unattained.  However, without first determining those goals, identifying these necessary skills becomes impossible, and that undermines the success of any talent development process.

In simpler terms, the first stage of implementing an effective talent development program is to identify where the organizational weaknesses are that can be improved upon with an upskilling framework. 

Onboard Employees with the Best Technology

HR technologies have become a competitive advantage in talent acquisition and onboarding, and now this technology is being recognized as a new key for tapping into the potential of talent development for modern organizations.  The finest applicant tracking systems (ATS) are often equipped with artificial intelligence (AI) engines that help recruiters quickly identify candidates that show the most promise of fitting in with an organization’s culture and which of them demonstrate the best potential for growth.  When it comes to modern talent acquisition, it’s the organizations that are willing to make strategic investments in the market’s best ATS systems that will have the greatest chances of success in selecting the most trainable candidates from swaths of unknown applicants. 

Employee Retention

In the future, talent development programs are expected to be the most important factor in boosting employee retention rates.  In fact, over half of one group of employees recently surveyed said that they would be more likely to leave their employers if they weren’t offered access to a skills enhancement or upskilling program.  

Once employees have passed their probationary period, it’s incumbent on organizations today to offer talent development opportunities if they hope to retain them for the long term.

Ultimately, the long-term success of any organization in the modern marketplace is entirely dependent on the skills of its workforce, so employees should be made to feel as though they’re valuable assets that are worthy of investment which is what talent development programs are designed to achieve. 

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Establish “Buy-In” Across the Company

Implementing a successful talent development program will likely require the efforts of more than one person at an organization – it will be a companywide effort requiring the support of leaders and all levels of management if the program is to succeed.  For some organizations, implementing a talent development program may be an entirely new concept that’s never been offered before.

That qualifies as “change.” 

As any business leader will tell you, getting real buy-in for any new program isn’t easy.  In fact, research shows that 70% of all organizational change efforts fail because of a lack of buy-in from enough people in an organization.

To overcome this hurdle, organizations need to engage managers and employees in discussions that allow them to voice their opinions on how a talent development program should be instituted at the company and what specific skills are needed in the workforce so that they feel their voices have been heard in the process.  HR professionals then need to be prepared to communicate why a talent development program will make the organization stronger and boost employee retention rates.

Build a Team of Strong Leaders

A majority of organizations believe that it’s important for them to be actively developing leaders at all levels.  Talent development programs are becoming increasingly more crucial to the success of the modern organization, so they need to be assembling a strong cast of leaders that will support and encourage employees to take advantage of talent development programs when they’re offered.

Developing leaders once they’re hired is one option, but in our post-pandemic era, it’s growing increasingly more important for talent acquisition professionals to have the tools and technologies they need to identify the unique skills and qualities in candidates that demonstrate their potential for being groomed to leadership posts within the company – this is another area where powerful ATS systems are helping recruiters, and HR professionals find the future leaders of their organizations.

“No Time” is No Longer an Excuse

One of the biggest obstacles you can expect to encounter in developing skills within your organization is a perceived lack of time. 

There’s a strong connection to the “buy-in” and “company vision” topics we mentioned earlier, and by addressing those two topics properly, it’s likely that your organization will have more success overcoming a perceived lack of time as a reason not to take advantage of talent development programs. 

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Conclusion

There are many reasons, but the fact is that most company learning programs don’t work.  Perhaps the most important thing to understand about talent development in the post-pandemic era is to succeed. Organizations must cultivate a learning culture.  Building such a culture is becoming a strategic priority for organizations because of the positive impact such a culture can have on productivity, innovation, and employee retention.  It’s a different world than it was 2.5 years ago, and organizations need to be embracing learning opportunities for their workforce as a key to future growth and long-term profitability instead of seeing talent development as simply a budgetary issue to be controlled.

Manatal – The Leader in HR Software Solutions

We touched earlier on how HR technologies are playing a direct role in the success of modern talent development programs, and the one company providing the technology to find candidates offering the best potential for growth is Manatal.  Boasting AI-powered software solutions, Manatal’s ATS platform can help talent sourcing professionals attract, identify, and onboard candidates with precise skill sets that also demonstrate the best potential for growth within an organization’s existing culture.

You can discover for yourself just how effective Manatal’s ATS platform can be at supporting your talent development program by taking advantage of the 14-day free trial to see how the latest innovations in HR tech can support your organization’s talent development efforts.