Building Your Brand New Team

In most cases, an Indian business won't be able to match the pay scale of a global enterprise and therefore less likely to attract the merit talent. With the shortfall of talent, the choice of talent for smaller businesses is too thin. However, organisations can take steps to build their talent pool. If you get one great talent in hundreds, your talent strategy is not conducive to growth. However, if you invest in talent and build your talent pool within your organisation, you have a much better chance of winning the future. Global organisations have been investing in developing their talent pool in-house. They are hiring the brightest students from the campus and taking them through the learning curve.

In case you have been thinking along the lines of talent development you are in the right direction because to build the pyramid you need to have a strong team under your command. At this point, you may itch to launch a training calendar however it makes sense to understand what are the factors which have been affecting their ability to learn on their own. What are their barriers, financial, emotional, aptitude, language?

The younger generations are highly capable and have much better exposure than the generations earlier, but the key reasons blocking their Learning curve can be sum up in three facets.

1. Lack of Resilience:
The younger generation entering the workforce give up too soon. As the technology and the dynamic of business are changing too fast, and it’s not easy to become successful instantly, but if they have been getting everything on a platter why should they work hard? Has anyone prepared them for failure? Failure looks terrible on them, why not avoid it altogether? Why get into something that has higher chances of failure? For business owners, the right question is this how will you build your future leaders for your organisation if they lack the resilience?

2. Seeking Instant Gratification:
Social media have hogged many young and old to crave for 'likes "- millions of dollars have been spent by enterprises worldwide on encashing the carrot phenomenon of an employee. But there is proof that carrots do not work in the long run. In fact, it creates a lousy expectation which is feeding the real problem - lack of resilience. To build something great and with purpose, you need grit which doesn't come by incentive schemes.

3. A difficulty with Language and Communication Skills:
How do you learn if you have language difficulty, how you ask for a solution if you hesitate to communicate? Haven't seen many in your office who hesitate to ask? Haven't come across an employee with potential lacking language and communication skills? Imagine what they can create if they get the power of language.

I recommend smaller organisation a two-folded strategy to deal with the talent crisis.

1. Invest in an organisational culture:
It doesn't matter if you have got the brightest talents unless they are the right cultural fit, it is not going to make any difference. If employees do not find themselves in the safe zone, they will never express themselves. If organisations are not working on a purpose, it will not inspire the employees. If the environment is not 'failure friendly' no one will risk doing anything new. The best example of an active culture is the young Indian cricket team which lifted the first T20 world cup.

2. Invest in employee leadership program:
In my interactions with the younger generations, I found them not having any exposure in many aspects of life which are vital. They have been raised to win as an individual; they have been compared to someone better so why at work they should collaborate? Do they understand the term leadership? Can they differentiate between a boss and a leader? Do they know the choices they have when in conflict with someone? Do they know how to go about making decisions or the types of decision making? Do they have self-awareness? Do they understand why do they get angry so often? Unless we help them understand some of the basics of leadership how we can expect them to grow and productive team leaders.

If smaller organisations have these two vital strategies in place, they will discover and evolve the talent within much faster without futile investment in "carrot phenomenon" and create a sense of belonging.

Connect with us if you need to discuss more on how you can create a workplace of the future.