It hovers over recruiters, hides in handbooks, and covers progress in dust.
We're talking of course about...the antiquated hiring strategy.
The spirit of the approach is that the only way to fill positions is to ignore your up-and-comers and hire exclusively from outside. Write your job description, designate the required degree, and then wait for the ideal employee to come along with the appropriate credentials and exactly the right skills.
And it haunts employers on three fronts:
Recruitment
Skills shortages today are downright scary. The yawn between open jobs and degreed employees is widening. Open positions can languish for months, leaving existing employees stretched to fill gaps...and empty cubicles covered in cobwebs.
Engagement
Outward-only recruitment signals a roadblock for existing hires - a death knell for engagement if ever there was one. As our Dan Henry wrote on Huffington Post, "People need to learn and grow to stay inspired."
Retention
Stagnation spooks employees. Over and over we've heard employees call development and growth opportunities the make or break. Many will commit years to an employer that will support their education - and bolt from those that don't. That means you either invest in employees' development - or watch them vanish into thin air.
Education and development not only rids your talent strategy of ghosts - it also wields magic. We often talk about the hospital that leveraged a development program to turn an accountant into a nurse. With the help of an education advisor, the employee transformed from khakis to scrubs and was headed to the operating room."If we have an accountant who's been with the college for a while and who understands our culture and way that our systems work," said the employer, "it would be much easier to replace an accountant than it would to find a qualified nurse."
Bibbidi bobbidi boo
