8 Steps to a profitable location and talent strategy

An organization’s success depends on many factors, but the two most important are location and talent. The location of an organization is critical to ensure profitable business and to attract employees. Retaining talent is the next priority to maintain a competitive advantage, making talent strategy as important as location strategy.

Simply put, talent strategy entails a comprehensive plan to structure a company’s hiring, retaining, and development policies for sustainable growth of the employees. The workforce is a valuable asset which is why in today’s fast-paced environment, a company’s focus must not only be on hiring the right people for present requirements but also for skills that they might need in the future. This is where talent planning comes in. It can help keep a company’s momentum, giving them an edge over competitors.

Let’s get into the fundamentals of strategy setup that will help in building the foundation of your organization.

1. Discover the best location

A profitable location strategy means more than just where to locate the offices and employees. It also encompasses extensive market analysis and uses labor data to understand the cost, availability, and sustainability of labor. This is why companies need to locate venues that have talent supply appropriate to goals.

2. Real-time data

Having ambiguous datasets doesn’t serve a purpose. In order to determine the ideal location to set up a business in, it requires accurate datasets that will help in understanding the market, improve customer satisfaction, and monitor competitors. This is why companies must focus on getting real-time data to improve the performance in the long run, rather than relying on passive information.

3. Plan ahead

Successful businesses never aim for immediate success but for life-long sustainability. A company’s location strategy must be based on how they aim to progress over the next 10-20 years. This helps reduce operating costs and avoids price shocks. A specified business location decided after planning, shields companies against factors like natural hazards, security threats, and incompatible government policies.

4. Talent analytics

According to a Deloitte report, only 4% of companies use predictive talent analytics capabilities to manage talent, and just 14% of companies implement any sort of talent analytics program. Implementing a talent analytics program is important to analyze the talent your company already has but more importantly, it can help identify skills gaps. 

5. Pay attention to critical hiring needs

To ensure that a company’s  future goals are not stalled due to open positions, initiate conversations with hiring managers to know about key positions in their departments that might be open soon due to retirements or resignations. Once companies are aware of the need, they can create a hiring plan to attract the right talent by assessing the future skills gaps, budget, and recruitment process.

7. Develop an employees capabilities 

True talent planning requires a strategy that focuses on the development of every staff member. It is the company’s  responsibility to provide employees with learning and mentoring opportunities. As long as employees can envision a clear career pathway in the company, they are more likely to stay. Additionally, reskilling can help fill departmental gaps without the need to hire externally.

8. Work on retention strategies

Hiring good talent is hard, but retaining them is even harder. Retaining talent is about showing them that they have a clear career path in your company, that they are actively contributing to the overall objectives, and their opinions and concerns are acknowledged and addressed. Employee surveys can help you identify issues and deal with them before the retention numbers start dropping.

Talent500 has helped some of the biggest brands with skill gap management by connecting them to location-independent professionals. To know more, request a consultation online.