Talent sourcing and acquisition are keys to achieving organizational objectives and favorable business outcomes. Beyond finding the right people to achieve the organization’s vision and goals, it also ensuring that they are retained over a long haul. Talent retention preserves an organization’s culture, ensures that the brand is intact and ensures business continuity. No one delights in the stress and frustrations of a high staff turnover.So how can an organization ensure that it gets the best talents and retain them as well?
It is getting increasingly difficult to find talent in the face of skills shortage and as firms scramble for the available top talent. This is especially true for start-ups and medium sized organizations who do not have as much resources as the ‘top brands’. It has become expedient for organizations to build an effective talent pool to ensure constant flow/supply of talent as needed. This helps to avoid the frantic search for suitable employees as the business expands or when a top talent suddenly leaves the organization.
Internship programs are a great way to build talent pools in the organization, no matter how small (or large). It is practically a ‘win-win’ situation for everyone involved. The candidates get the opportunity to gain work experience, develop their skills and competencies and close some of the skills gaps created by the educational system. The organizations on the other hand get to create a talent pool that is readily adapted to their culture, their brand, their values, in a most cost-effective manner. It saves the organization the stress of the scramble for top talent as well as the cost of training & re-training whenever an employee exits or a new one resumes. Here are some guidelines to developing an effective internship program that will create a talent pool for your organization:
- Before you start an internship program for the organization, have a solid plan in place. If you intend it to be a 1 year program or 6 months’ program, have a step-by-step plan on how it would work, the activities to engage in, and the expected or planned outcomes. Schedule trainings, mostly in-house, job rotations, job shadowing, one-on-one coaching etc. Having a plan on paper ensures that time and resources are not wasted and that your objectives are achieved.
- Plan and put a budget in place for the program. It shouldn’t be left to chance. A budget for the entirety of the program will give a clearer vision of the amount of resources the organization is willing to commit, how many interns can be taken in one season, whether the company is in the right financial state to take on interns, how cost effective it would be when compared to hiring or firing full time employees etc. and all such important decisions.
- Develop a solid system for recruiting interns and make it competitive. Use psychometric tests and assessments and ensure that the selection is based on well-defined criteria. This will make the program serious, very objective and will help ensure that you are getting the best talents that will suit your organizational culture and brand.
- Develop a generic Training & Development Plan that will focus on your organizational brand and values which will help interns imbibe your culture from the onset. The idea is to have a talent pool that will understand your corporate values and become brand ambassadors. It is more expensive to hire people who may have the technical expertise for the job but do not imbibe or practice your corporate values.
- In addition, develop a T&D plan that enhances individual competencies and skills. There has to be a system to identify potential top performers and leaders, discover their current skills, future competencies and tailor their individual T&D plans accordingly.
- Partnering with select schools for your internship programs helps with the process of selection and recruitment. It helps to narrow down the hiring criteria to a laser focus on the exact type of interns you want for your organization.
For a tailored Internship Program Plan or bespoke People Strategy to meet your immediate people needs, contact [email protected] or call +2349058247268.
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