6th Installment of RESET by SHRM President and CEO, Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.

Your biggest challenge isn't technology, innovation, or even leadership. It's finding, hiring, and engaging the right talent to thrive now and in the future.

FINDING AND KEEPING GREAT TALENT Forget skills. Forget technical competency and Ivy League degrees. Forget the greed of the 1980s, the 401(k)s of the 1990s, and the stock-option frenzy of 2010. Forget the foosball tables and rock-climbing walls of 2015. The evolution of payouts and perks, of all the staples employers have used to land the best and brightest , is not always enough to attract top talent anymore. And when great talents are discovered, it doesn’t necessarily mean they are in perfect alignment with your culture.

MISGUIDED INDIVIDUALISM Competency is discoverable. Skills are identifiable. But culture is the tripwire for many companies once an employee is hired. This is where data can come back into play as a way to monitor cultural alignment. If you miss the markers of cultural misalignment, then misguided individualism can blow up a team. It’s that simple. If we look at collectivism research, we see that the world has shifted much more toward individualistic cultural norms than collective ones. Collective cultures are sort of dying off.

Rooted in our identity is a challenge culture. As the CEO, I want divergent opinions and diverse perspectives to push new ideas and initiatives. Can those ideas withstand a challenge?

Can they hold up to the rigor? You can’t give every new concept a green light because then you’re vacillating on who you are. You have to know the difference between chasing shiny objects and staying true to your objectives. CULTURE IS THE CURE AMID THE CHAOS Once you define your culture, and when you lock in on values and vision, who is the matchmaker in this case? HR. With HR developing the plan and using the right tools, employers can hone in on who meshes with their cultural makeup through the search and interview process. Look at each piece of the organization’s vision, mission, and values statements. Interview questions should focus on behaviors that complement these areas. For example, if the organization works with a lot of intensity, then job applicants should display that natural intensity to be considered for hire. Leave discussion of company culture for later. Do not tell candidates about culture up front. First, listen to what they have to say about their experiences and beliefs. This tactic will reveal more candid responses to help determine whether they are a fit for the organization. Make sure at least three people are involved in the hiring process. Different people will see and hear different things. These varied perspectives give a clearer understanding of the person being considered for hire.

QUESTIONS FOR POTENTIAL HIRES THAT UNCOVER VALUES

• What are three negative personal qualities that someone close to you would say you possess? The answer tells us a lot about selfawareness and reflects the core value of transparency.

• Add two fractions. For example, we might ask, “What is ¾ plus ½?” shows how they handle an unexpected question.

• Finish this sentence: Most people I meet are___ . One of our core values is caring deeply, so it’s important we understand how a potential new team member views others. LEADERSHIP LESSONS Talent is an almost-spent natural resource. Imagine if oil reserves were fully depleted or natural gas deposits were totally exhausted. This would be tantamount to being left without an energy source, and the same basic issue arises when considering the role talent plays in your organization. Luckily, we have not really reached the talent depletion state just yet, but we aren’t getting a lot of help from factors such as the educational career readiness system, adult learning opportunities, and the graying of our global workforce. As leaders, this makes our jobs all that much harder, and they are complicated even further by the need to make the most of our reset opportunities. With this backdrop, we need to ask ourselves, “What do we get right when it comes to finding talent and keeping it?” This is the principle lesson for leaders. We need to ask on a regular basis what we are doing well for optimizing talent. Here are some key questions you should consider making part of your reset repertoire:

• Why is it so damn hard to find good talent? • Why can’t HR quantify talent acquisition operations for me? • Is LinkedIn really a valuable source of information? • Why do I need talent analytics? • Why can’t people use their gut instincts to find talent? • Why does talent today seem to care about everything but money and growth? • How do I use Glassdoor to my advantage

Adapted from Chapter 5 of Reset: A Leader’s Guide to Work in an Age of Upheaval (PublicAffairs), by Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., President and CEO of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM)