How to Ensure Talent Optimization Practices Produce Good Outcomes

Talent optimization starts with a successful strategy.

Like any strategy, talent optimization will not automatically produce a good outcome for your business. It’s the implementation of the strategy that will determine its ultimate success. Here are some ways to ensure that your talent optimization practices produce good outcomes as they are implemented in your business.

Begin With the End in Mind

Success is unlikely when you haven’t thought about what a successful talent optimization strategy looks like. You can begin with the end in mind by setting goals and benchmarks for your company’s talent optimization plan, which will give all the players something to work toward as they make decisions on how to move forward.

Use People Analytics in Hiring

People analytics–including assessments–make the difference between guessing which candidates will be the best fit for your position and using data and science to optimally match candidates to positions. Assessments are a major building block of people analytics and provide crucial information to hiring teams.

Tailor Interviews to Your Strategy

An assessment is only one aspect of hiring. Interviews allow a more in-depth investigation into how candidates will match up to predetermined criteria and should be carefully crafted to meet these objectives. Interviews and assessments work together to provide a clearer picture of candidates than either one of these tools alone.

Having a well-aligned team can help with productivity and engagement.

Avoid Team Misalignment

There’s more to putting a team together than grouping recent hires or deciding what’s convenient for the existing company configuration. Only by carefully evaluating each team member’s traits and skills can you form an effective team that will work together in the best way possible. When teams are misaligned, they can quickly erupt into a time-consuming conflict that may lead to even bigger problems when not dealt with properly.

Be Transparent

The more everyone involved understands the techniques being employed in hiring and staffing decisions, the better the company will be able to meet goals and objectives. In addition, it will show candidates and new hires that the process was fair and equal to all. Not only will transparency help with meeting goals, but it will also improve engagement and encourage other departments to be transparent in the same away.

Encourage Leadership Development

Data is not the only element of a talent optimization strategy. If your budding leaders aren’t developing their skills so they can become more of an asset to the company, your talent will never be optimized. Trusting that having the right people in the right places will naturally develop leaders is naive at best and neglectful at worst. Leadership development needs to be intentional and sustained to yield results. Repeated assessments and mentorship can bolster an initial strategy for talent optimization in hiring.

Narish International is all about talent optimization through assessments, data analysis, and more. Let Narish help your company build higher-performing teams.