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Developing a Comprehensive Pipeline Strategy: More than Recruiting and Retention

Saturday, October 14, 2006 - by Judith H. Katz

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To keep up and stay ahead, companies are chasing after a talented, diverse workforce. While many organizations address this by more proactive hiring, mentoring, and development practices, few make it a comprehensive structure with critically connected pieces. Instead, efforts to attract and retain diverse talent are segmented and underleveraged. They lack the development of a clear and comprehensive approach that creates a culture in which people can contribute and do their best work. They lack a pipeline strategy.

Strategic Sourcing: Leveraging your Brand and Partnerships

In a comprehensive pipeline strategy, the ability to attract top talent begins long before a position needs to be filled. It begins with brand--building a reputation as a great company to work with and work for--and a recruitment strategy that assures:

relationships with the community, customers, partners, and suppliers are maximized;
different strategies are developed for different populations;
prospects are diverse and the organization hires for talent (using networks, relationships with professional organizations, etc);
individual talents are recognized.

Hiring: A Process Not an Event

Just as important as developing a diverse talent pool is an organization's ability to identify and secure talent. So it is vital that the individuals responsible for screening candidates have the cultural competence to review resumes effectively and see the skill sets of candidates with different backgrounds and experiences that may not show up in traditional ways. The same is true of the interview process. The more diverse the panel of interviewers, the more thorough the review, yielding a greater ability to hire individuals from a wider range of backgrounds.

As organizations work globally, and as the workforce continues to be more diverse, organizations can no longer hire individuals who have only technical abilities. A core competency that must be considered is an individual's ability to work effectively on teams and, more important, to work with people with different perspectives, backgrounds, and abilities. This means that organizations must shift from hiring for a position to hiring talent.

On-boarding: Building Loyalty

While the interview and selection process is one opportunity for a prospect to experience a company's brand, how an organization introduces a person to his work, colleagues, and company (on-boarding) is often what creates a lasting impression.

Effective on-boarding needs to begin with an orientation that goes well beyond setting expectations about the employee-work relationship and providing information about corporate benefits and policies. It needs to provide an opportunity for new hires to connect to the people in the organization and to have ongoing support as they navigate the new organization. Having buddies who are both seasoned and new to the organization, provides important support for new employees.

Also, all new employees should be involved in a 90-day feedback process that helps the organization learn what is going well and, more important, what the company can do better throughout the on-boarding process. In many ways, new people bring fresh eyes to the organization and can identify areas for continuous improvement if their voices are heard.

Talent Development and Promotion: Treating People as Assets

Arguably the greatest measure of an organization's successful commitment to diversity and inclusion is its ability to promote from within. This effort hinges on providing a structure where career development is available to everyone, high performers are identified and nurtured, and managers are rewarded for mentoring and coaching the next generation of leaders.

In every stage of a pipeline strategy, diversity is a key factor in talent development and promotion. It is not good enough to have a diverse pool of internal talent; there must also be diversity among the high performers and the opportunities afforded to them. If there is not, the lack of desired results is more likely attributable to a breakdown in systems and structures than to a lack of diverse, high-performing individuals.

Culture is Key: Enabling People to Do their Best Work

The foundation of an inclusive environment is a culture of respect and fairness. Respect means that people feel valued for their unique talents and perspectives and feel included in conversations about the direction of the team, especially in regard to their work and areas of contribution. Fairness means that people of all backgrounds and identities believe they have the same opportunities as their colleagues, from access to career development to flexible work schedules, promotional opportunities, rewards, and coaching, among others.

Keeping Score: Measuring What Matters

If people and talent are a company's core assets, then measuring the effectiveness of leaders to manage these core assets becomes critically important. This requires a new definition of accountability that expands bottom-line business results to include how well managers create a work environment in which all people at all levels can do their best work and feel engaged and valued for their contributions.

The key is to remember that measurements and accountability are only tools for gauging organizational effectiveness. They identify areas of weakness that can be addressed and improved. This is particularly true in regard to a pipeline strategy, where the emphasis is not on keeping up in today's global economy, but getting ahead through sourcing, high retention, leadership development, and building a culture of inclusion that enables people to contribute their best work.