As qualified talent becomes harder to recruit and retain, organizations are finding themselves needing to create a more strategic approach to address their workforce stability issues.

Referred to as the “Talent Management Cycle”, this strategy addresses four key phases that an employer needs to address: attracting, retaining, developing and transitioning talent.  Businesses who are not paying attention to all of these processes will likely find themselves facing higher turnover and greater difficulty in recruiting the talent that they need.

Consider this overview of each phase of the talent management cycle:

ATTRACTING THE RIGHT TALENT: Given comparable job opportunities, why would someone want to choose you over another employer?  Contrary to popular belief, higher pay is not the main or only criterion.  Challenge, growth, effective leadership, opportunity to make a difference, benefits, a collaborative team environment and flexible family-friendly policies are all critical considerations for today’s candidates.

First and foremost, treat each candidate as you would your best customer from the very first point of contact, and throughout the recruitment and selection process.  Be rigorous in designing a selection process that will help you find the best match.  Top notch employees will want to work for an organization that sets high standards in its employment process.

RETAINING TALENT: Once on board, you will want to ensure that you are creating an environment that will encourage valuable talent to stay.  Too many organizations, once their candidates are hired, do little to implement retention strategies right away.  The first step is reinforcing to the new employee that he or she has made the right decision in choosing to work for you.  A well-designed orientation and on-boarding process can help to reinforce that commitment.

For the long view, organizations need to identify and continue to cultivate those unique aspects of their culture that motivate employees to stay.  Through employee satisfaction surveys, employee focus groups, and other sources of input, senior management and their human resource strategic partners can design programs, processes and policies that will best reflect the specific retention needs of their own employees.

DEVELOPING TALENT: “Grow me, develop me!!” is the cry of the new generation of employees.  Skill acquisition and continual learning are not just perks.  They are necessities for both the employee and the organization.  Satisfying the learning appetite and leveraging employee knowledge to maintain that competitive edge go hand-in-hand.

Businesses must take a much-needed look at the career aspirations of their talent pool as well as assess needed competencies within the organization and respond to them with frequent opportunities for employee development and growth.  These can come in the form of continuing education, in-house or external seminars, professional memberships and conferences, and providing coaching or mentoring support.

TRANSITIONING TALENT: The final phase of the talent management cycle is transitioning: up, over or out.  Internally, career and succession planning – including lateral moves and traditional upward promotions – will mark the beginning of a new cycle for those employees.

Externally, transitioning talent can mean exiting the organization through downsizing, re-organizing, terminations or retirement.  In most cases, the employer will want to support outgoing employees by providing them with career transition support services.

This is not only of practical assistance to the outgoing employees, but serves to uphold the positive reputation of the employer within the community.  With ongoing recruiting, this also reinforces the “attraction” aspect for future candidates.