23 Mar Are You Talented at Finding and Keeping Talent?
It’s pointless.
This entire book. All of the great innovations in the world are pointless if we are not doing a fantastic job at hiring, training, motivating, retaining, recognising, and promoting talented, committed people. Very, very few of us are. At least that is what we have discovered in both our global consulting business and in our research for this book. We and FIPP hear the same refrain over and over and over again from publishers everywhere: They can’t find and keep top talent! Well, guess whose fault that is?! As you will read in our first chapter on Human Capital, there are proven ways to take much of the guesswork and luck out of the hiring, training, retaining, promoting, and motivating equation.
In that chapter, we explain:
- How to recruit the best talent BEFORE you or they are even looking
- 13 key strategies to retain the best employees
- How to market your company culture
- How to create a human analytics system
- How to monitor your company’s reputation
- How to create an employee programme system
- How to create a mentorship programme
- How to recruit women
- How to create an ambassadors’ programme
- How to reach out to potential hires
- How data can help you keep your best people
Not only does having (and keeping) the best talent increase your chances of success, but it also saves you a ton of money and anxiety. It is extremely expensive to lose good staff. Various studies have shown that the cost of hiring a new employee is between 90-200% of the departed employee’s salary — just to do the hiring! Talent — happy, motivated, skilled, trained, committed talent — is without a doubt the most important element in determining your success. You might know how to raise new revenue or what makes great content or how to collect data or run a CRM programme. But if you don’t have people around you who care about the company and have the skill sets and constant training to make it happen, it won’t happen. Period. Without attracting, hiring, training, and retaining great people, you are seriously jeopardising your chances of success.
Make the Human Capital chapter the one chapter you commit to reading thoroughly and passing around to your staff and absorbing into your corporate culture and HR strategy. If you want help, give us a call. But whatever you do, use the tips in our chapter to start changing how you hire and manage your people. You’ll be glad you did.
Congtratulations!
If you were reading the Editors’ Note in our first edition of FIPP’s “Innovation in Media World Report”, you might not have been entirely sure that you would be reading the next edition, never mind the eleventh, as a media executive, right? But here you are! You’ve made it! If you’re like an increasing number of publishers, you’re seeing a growing amount of new revenue from new sources: readers, native advertising, branded content, events, memberships, perhaps also from podcasting, brand licensing, your own in-house agency, educational classes, and maybe even from being an IT provider, data merchant, nostalgia merchant (selling from your archives), or even an investor.
Of course, there is still a LOT of work to be done before we can breathe more easily (if ever), but the amount of effort and pain and imagination and flexibility and courage it’s taken for you to get here deserves to be recognised and celebrated. So, take a moment before reading on and pat yourself and your team on the back! Savour how far you’ve come.
John Wilpers wilpers@innovation.media
Juan Señor senor@innovation.media
Co-editors
This article, along with many, many more is available in full, within the pages of our Innovation in News Media 2019-2020 World Report, available for purchase in print or digital edition.