It’s time to take a more bespoke, fluid, and human-centric approach to talent

By Sandra Oliver, Impact Founder

The speed of change is a common challenge for organizations, especially around talent. COVID escalated the changes, adding things like hybrid, gig workers, quiet quitting, boomerang employees, and evolving expectations for leaders to the mix. And AI is taking the evolution of talent to a whole new level.

How do we find and retain the best people to help grow our business? Which leaders are the right ones to take our organization into the future? How do we make back-to-work, work? What do we do to ensure our leaders and people are happy in their roles? How do we create a culture that works for us?

Answering these critical talent questions requires a new, better way forward than the traditional HR programs and processes we’re used to. One that prioritizes fulfilment at work. That ensures our people feel they’re contributing to something that matters. That they’re making a difference.

And we achieve it by having open dialogues with people.

Sharing what we want as leaders and listening to what our people want. Creating safe spaces for the dialogues to happen without any negative repercussions.

And co-creating with our people the culture, organizations, and futures we all want to experience.

For conversations to happen we need to be courageous

We also have to learn how to move forward in this new direction. Because many leaders and people aren’t comfortable having open, honest, conversations. Especially when the topics are tough ones. Performance results. Salary expectations. Career aspirations. Personal challenges. Promotions. Dysfunctional team dynamics.

For open, honest conversations to happen, we need to be courageous enough to bring up tough subjects. Curious enough to talk about them and to listen. And committed enough to find ways for both parties to feel understood.

Having good dialogue also means we need to explore our own feelings and create space for others to explore theirs. Without judgement or blame.

A space where people can tell each other the truth and feel heard.

Create space for dialogue and practice, to build confidence and culture

It’s time to open up space for real conversation and dialogue. Build talent strategies that are fluid and agile, human centric, and bespoke.

We do this by looking at the top two levels of leadership and high potential senior managers and managers. Assess them, and help them understand themselves and their leaders and team members better. 

Then train and coach them on how to have these conversations. Include it in their ongoing development. And give them a space to practice. For new leaders, set expectations and make it part of their group orientation.

Help our leaders at every stage build these skills throughout their careers. Until they feel confident in regularly engaging in strong, honest dialogue.

This represents a culture shift for many organizations. It changes the way people address conflict, mistakes, and failures. It creates a culture of support and understanding – which sets the foundation for success. For higher engagement and performance. Greater retention and professional development. Increased innovation and growth. Elevated feelings of fulfilment, commitment, and, yes, happiness.

How Impact and Spark’d can help you build the right talent strategy from the ground up

We work with you to establish an approach to culture and talent that places your business goals at the centre. A strategy that’s scalable, and considers what your whole organization needs now, and in the future. And continually keeps you on track to achieve the growth, innovation, and success you want.

• Assess your culture and leadership team.
• Conduct deep dive interviews on your key challenges and opportunities.
• Create a development plan for your leadership and high potentials.
• Help your leaders build skills in self-awareness, awareness of others, building strong relationships, de-escalating conflict, and how to have tough conversations.
• Start shifting behaviours and culture to better manage challenges and change.
• Reassess at the end of the year.
• Repeat.

To get started on a customized talent strategy for your organization, contact us.