How to Build a Best-In-Class Workforce?

What is a “Best-in-Class” Company?

In the recent “State of the U.S. Workforce” survey by the Adecco Group, in partnership with the Aberdeen Group, a few key performance indicators (KPIs) were used to distinguish Best-in-Class companies from Industry Average and Laggard organizations.

A Best-in-Class company is the top 20% of aggregate scorers in the following categories:

• 2% decrease in time to hire (Year Over Year)
• 5% increase in revenue per FTE (Year Over Year)
• 4% decrease in unwanted turnover

So, how do you build a Best-in-Class business?

Assess your current workforce.

Use Strategic Workforce Planning to determine future hiring needs. Strategic Workforce Planning, or the internal initiative designed to ensure that talent management efforts run tandem with business goals, usually takes the form of an assessment and is often sponsored by the executive team. Best-in-Class companies are 17% more likely than other companies to identify gaps between current workforce skills and future business needs.

The Skills Gap

Knowing that 80% of all employers believe that a skills gap exists, it’s important to address what it is, how it can hurt you as an organization, and how you can overcome it.

What is the skills gap?

The skills gap is a disparity between the essential work skills in today’s company needs and the abilities of the current workforce.

How do you fight the skills gap?

The best way to fill this impending skills gap is to use temp workers to enhance your workforce and close talent gaps. A staggering 76% of organizations are already pipelining candidates and using contingent labor (like temps) to fill the skills gap.

Install new processes.

To address any sourcing challenges, Best-in-Class companies use staffing firms to find the best talent and establish strong relationships with existing employees. For example, giving your people the training they need to succeed in your organization can help increase retention and decrease unwanted turnover. Best-in-Class companies are 22% more likely than other companies to increase training to ensure their employees have the necessary skills to fulfill their roles and career goals.

Up your brand reputation.

Attracting top talent isn’t easy. But with the help of a staffing firm, and a little reputation tuning, any company is capable of Best-in-Class status. One way to increase your company’s reputation is to hone your social media presence. Best-in-Class companies are 22% more likely to invest in social media and social tools to strengthen their employer brand. And 40% of respondents use social sourcing to pipeline candidates.