Your employees are your most valuable asset. They’re the key to growing your engineering business and maintaining and improving profitability. Today’s companies need access to talented, engaged, and dedicated individuals to succeed.
Unfortunately, accessing and retaining talent is becoming increasingly difficult. Skill shortages in every industry and changing employee preferences and priorities present significant challenges to today’s organisations/organizations.
To overcome these issues, you need a comprehensive strategy. Talent planning gives you the resources to consistently attract, identify, develop, engage, and retain staff.
Here’s how to develop an effective talent plan for your engineering company.
Defining a Talent Plan: What is Talent Planning?
To implement an effective engineering talent plan, you must first understand what it involves. Talent planning is a comprehensive approach to attracting, hiring, developing, and retaining critical employees for your organisation/organization.
It involves taking a strategic approach to determining which professionals you need to attract to your team, how to source new candidates, and how to engage your current team members.
In today’s skills-short environment, talent planning is crucial to accessing the skills you need to grow your business and reduce turnover. Research studies from Deloitte show companies with a comprehensive talent management plan are 6 times more likely to overcome performance issues and four to select the most suitable candidates for their team.
Additionally, with around 30% of employers only looking about 6 months into the future with their recruitment strategies, talent planning can give you a significant edge over the competition. It helps you identify the staff you need faster and take steps to attract and engage more candidates.
The Importance of Talent Planning
Talent planning and management are crucial to ensuring your engineering business can maximise its human resources. A McKinsey survey found companies with structured plans for attracting and managing candidates were far more likely to be successful than their competitors.
Effective talent planning is also crucial in today’s uncertain hiring environment. With the right strategy, you can:
- Overcome skill shortages: Skill shortages are increasing in every industry, with more than 77% of businesses struggling to find the candidates they need. An effective talent plan can help you find ways to source talent and help attract crucial candidates.
- Navigate economic uncertainty: Companies of all sizes struggle with economic issues in today’s uncertain landscape. An effective talent plan can help to ensure skill shortages and turnover don’t damage your chances of success.
- Improve company culture: A good talent plan looks at more than just attracting candidates. It also helps you to retain and engage existing staff members. This leads to better company culture, improved productivity, and reduced turnover.
Creating a Comprehensive Talent Plan
Creating a comprehensive talent plan is a multi-step process for any engineering organisation. Though the approach can be complex, it’s essential to your company’s success. Over 60% of executives say talent planning is one of their top priorities.
Here’s how you can get started:
Step 1: Strategic Workforce Planning
The first step to successful talent planning is understanding what your business needs to thrive in the marketplace. Start by taking a closer look at your company’s strategic goals and future vision. What do you want to accomplish in the years ahead, and which skills will you need to source to achieve your goals?
Speaking to the managers of different business departments and asking them about their potential skill gaps can help you define which critical candidates to hire or develop. Succession planning can also be helpful here, ensuring you source talent that will help you to fill any gaps key staff might leave when moving on from your business.
From here, you can create a hiring plan, breaking down the number of new hires you’ll need to fill current and future skills gaps and the support you’ll need to achieve your goals.
Step 2: Talent Acquisition
Next, you’ll need to consider attracting and hiring the right talent for your team. Think about how you currently connect with job seekers in the engineering industry. It’s worth taking a comprehensive, creative approach in a skills-short landscape.
Don’t just focus on interacting with “active candidates” by listing job descriptions on recruitment sites. Remember, 70% of the global workforce comprises “passive” candidates. Working with a engineering recruitment company will help you appeal to employees willing to switch positions in exchange for better benefits and opportunities.
Speak to your recruitment partner about opportunities to find talent in different areas, such as at recruitment events or social media channels.
Step 3: Employee Development
An effective talent plan looks beyond attracting new candidates to your hiring pipeline. It also ensures you can make the most of the employees you already have. This is particularly crucial today, where around 46% of leaders say the skills gap is increasing in their organisation.
Ongoing digital transformation in the engineering landscape is promoting a need for rapid and consistent employee development. Ensure you have the right resources to educate and empower your team members, giving them the new skills and abilities they need to thrive.
Speak to your team and ask them where they could benefit from additional training and what kind of support they want. Experiment with mentorship solutions, comprehensive training programs, and career advancement opportunities.
Step 4: Enhance Your Employee Value Proposition (EVP)
To both attract and retain talent in today’s engineering landscape, you need something that sets you apart from the other employers in your space. Your “Employee Value Proposition” is crucial to capturing candidates’ attention and increasing engagement among existing staff.
Think carefully about the core elements of your EVP. Are you offering excellent development and training initiatives to help prepare staff members for progression? Are your benefits packages robust, providing everything from flexible work to wellness initiatives?
How do your remuneration packages compare with the salaries/wages offered by other businesses in your industry? You can discover more opportunities to improve your EVP by reviewing feedback from your current employees and testimonials on job sites like Glassdoor.
Step 5: Working with Recruiting Partners
Perhaps the best way to improve your chances of a successful talent plan is to work with engineering recruitment companies with experience in your industry. These companies can use their expertise and experience in recruitment to give you an edge over the competition.
The right recruitment partner will help you to access a broader talent pool, thanks to their relationships with leaders in the industry. They can help you streamline your hiring process, improve the candidate experience, and choose the right talent for your team.
An effective engineering recruitment partner can even help position your EVP more effectively to the talented professionals you want to recruit.
Crafting the Ultimate Talent Plan
A reactive approach to hiring is no longer practical in today’s complex and talent-short market. You need a comprehensive strategy to stay ahead in the recruitment world and attract, retain, and engage the talent you need.
An effective engineering talent plan will ensure you can proactively address skill shortages and prepare your business for growth in an uncertain landscape.
Contact us today to learn more about developing a talent plan that helps your organisation thrive in 2024.
All the best
Steve
At Coalesce we have been partnering with engineering businesses for over 27 years; if you want to find out how we can help, call us on 07512 821708 or email us here.