Bridging the Gap between Talent and Employers the Right Way

Kelly Services today released their findings of the Kelly Workforce Index survey titled ‘What Talent Wants'. This paper reflects the overall trends in the 2013 with a spotlight on those findings related to workers in the financial services sector. It further elaborates on the fact that in the last two years, workers feel a declining sense of happiness in the work they are doing. They also showed an increased focus on financial reward and there has been a small increase in the proportion of people working in contract and temporary roles.
 
"There is a need for today's HR to bridge the gap between what an employee seeks and what most employers provide. Increased responsibility needs to be built into tasks, processes and decisions if organizations are to extract real value from the talent they hire, be it on a permanent or contingent basis", said, Kamal Karanth, Managing Director, Kelly Services India.

The whitepaper examines the reasons for an employee to switch jobs or move out of a company. It further elaborates on the need for employers to understand what an employee wants from an organization and the job profile he/she is working at.

The results of the survey shows that two-thirds of the workers who intend to seek a job elsewhere this year are ‘frequently thinking about quitting' their job, this indicates that most workers looking elsewhere are doing so because they are significantly frustrated where they are. It is important for organizations to identify and match growth and skill opportunities faster and more effectively to address talent (or potential talent) loss, particularly in the expanding Financial Services sector.
 
Doing the same thing with the same outcomes leads to a sense that employees are not ‘going anywhere' and nothing is changing. Cyclical and repetitive tasks and outcomes are exceptionally demotivating to workers and are major factors in attrition. There is a need for strong global mobility strategy, as it can provide valuable and compelling reasons for talent to stay put. Multinationals must pay greater attention to developing a genuine ‘two-way exchange' of talent and skill development; otherwise the true strategic value of global mobility will be muted.
 
Across all industries, just 29% of employees say they would be very likely to recommend their employer to a colleague or friend looking for work, and they provide a mean rating of just 6.8 out of a possible 10 points. This clearly shows that employers often fail to differentiate themselves to employees-workers feel that employers are ‘much the same' and few companies know how to target the key satisfaction and engagement issues to change this perception.
 
Karanth further added that, "Addressing these challenges requires HR departments and leadership teams to think differently about how they engage themselves with the talent they already have, and the talent they are seeking. But above all, it requires them to think differently to establish the connect with their workforce."