Columns

Taking Care of Your Top Talent

Author(s):

Brent Edmisten
Brent Edmisten is vice president, supply chain operations for Hawker Beechcraft Corporation in Wichita, Kansas.

March 2011, Inside Supply Management^® Vol. 22, No. 1, page 10

Out In Front: Leading People, Leading Organizations
Maintaining high-potential supply management personnel is critical to your organization's success as the economy recovers.

The most recent economic downturn, and its subsequent recession, have taken their toll on employees in the form of job uncertainty, layoffs and overall stress about the future. In many cases, remaining employees are struggling with a combination of multiyear salary freezes, compensation reductions and reduced (or no) bonuses, as well as overall reduced benefits — including decreased matching 401(K) programs and higher health insurance premiums.

At the same time, many companies are demanding their employees accomplish more using fewer resources. Many executives have been required to reduce costs and downsize to maintain their organizations' profitability and, in some cases, survival. As a result, employee morale in many organizations has suffered greatly. Worse yet, the future career outlook for high-performing individuals has been negatively impacted.

You Need a Plan

An organization's supply management personnel is critical in meeting cost reductions and improving efficiencies to help create a competitive advantage that will support corporate imperatives. The future success of any organization depends on retaining, recruiting and developing talent for the future.

Talent management is extremely challenging when budgets are tight. Even so, best-in-class supply management organizations regard adverse economic cycles as opportunities for leadership to build up their staff's capabilities with minimal or no budget for development.

Over the years, I have relied on four key strategies to retain and develop future talent in supply management.

1) Communicate openly and honestly. When there is uncertainty in the business and constant change occurring, the best response is to communicate the truth to your personnel in a candid, sincere way. In addition, it's just as important to keep communication open and team members engaged in ongoing talent development discussions.

As supply management organizations are required to deliver more and more to the bottom line, a renewed emphasis on talent management is essential. A comprehensive communication process should provide clear performance expectations and candid feedback to each team member. It should also indicate how each employee fits into the overall vision.

2) Provide a challenging work experience. Providing a challenging work experience lets top employees grow their capabilities and also equips the organization with strong, experienced talent for when the business returns to full capacity.

Challenging work opportunities can be tied to individual development plans to help groom high-potential employees to attain their career aspirations. This, in turn, can help make those employees more loyal to the organization and promote a positive team morale and work environment.

3) Focus on the supervisory relationship. This third strategy addresses the primary reason employees leave companies: the relationship with their direct supervisor.

When job security is uncertain, it is sometimes easy for supervisors to take the upper hand with their employees. Yet, when supervisors spend time with their top employees, it sends a very strong message that the team members are important and valued. As the adage goes, employees want to know you care before they care how much you know — especially during challenging times.

4) Support continuing education, or career-pathing. Although the first three strategies are nonmonetary, this final one — supporting continuing education — involves a small investment of monies in professional certifications and memberships in professional organizations. When tied to a process that leads to future advancement opportunities, supporting continuing education helps set the standard for high-potential employee advancement.

Career-pathing lays a roadmap and sets a standardized continuing learning structure to promote supply management excellence. Investing in your high-potential employees helps drive consistent performance while helping to retain them; after all, they will know you are investing in their future. And the bottom line is, an organization doesn't own its employees' career aspirations — the employees do.

Eyes on the Prize

As business leaders, we must realize that failing to implement such talent retention strategies will result in top employees looking elsewhere for career opportunities. Times of economic hardship test whether a company's competitive advantages are developed or lost. For an organization to surpass its competition, its leaders must focus on maintaining and building talent for the future.

During tough economic times, leaders within supply management organizations play an important role in maintaining and growing their top talent.

When the economy recovers, there will be winners and losers. Maintaining your high-potential procurement talent will be a leading indicator of your organization's success — or failure — when that day comes.

Disclaimer: The views espoused in this article are solely those of the author and not necessarily those of Hawker Beechcraft Corporation.

For more information, send an e-mail to author@ism.ws.

Back to Top