Managing the Talent Gap

 

Jane Bleach, former regional managing partner & head of diversity & partner development at Baker Tilly (now RSM) shares her views on managing the talent gap in the 21st Century. 

 

"How do we manage the talent gap?" is a regular question emanating from professional service firms. 

It is an important question, of course, but perhaps there are some prior questions to be asked: is there a talent gap and, if so, how did it come about in the first place? 

The answer to the first part can probably be taken as read. Most firms are constantly looking for new partners and often needing external lateral hires to fill the gaps. Ask a group of managing partners what their current challenges are and a significant number will talk about needing to deal with succession issues. 

So why do firms find themselves in this position? After all, they have been recruiting talented people at all levels in the organisation so why do they not have enough partner ready talent in the firm when they need it? 

 

Recruitment

Perhaps firms should start by testing that initial assumption - did they really recruit enough relevant talent in the first place? Did they recruit future partners or did they recruit people who could do a certain job at a certain level but were not going to be able to progress to higher level roles? Recruiters (whether they are partners, associates/managers or HR professionals) may argue that firms should not recruit only stars, people who they see as potential partners: if they do that, then there will not be enough people to do the work. But the truth is that there will always be people to do the work if you have properly planned out resourcing and recruitment strategy. As stars progress to the next level, so the stars from the level below then move up to fill the gap. And some won't progress as quickly, even if they appeared to be potential stars when they were recruited. 

Firms need to ask whether they have the right people recruiting. Are their recruiters able to spot raw talent? Are they scared to recruit stars, preferring the safe option of someone able to do the job but perhaps less demanding than someone more ambitious? Will your recruiters inspire the candidate? Future partners want to be inspired from the very earliest stages of their careers. HR professionals clearly have an important role to play but recruitment cannot be left to HR alone. Inspirational fee-earners, at all levels from trainees through to partners, will need to be involved to attract and inspire the aspirational partners of the future. 

 

Why do firms lose their talent? 

Even when firms do recruit an appropriate pipeline of potential partners, talent gaps still emerge - so when and why do firms lose their talent? 

Seeing the opportunities

Many potential partners leave their firms because they cannot see opportunities to progress. This often surprises firms at exit interviews and so they dismiss it as an issue. The opportunities exist and are there for all to see so surely that cannot be a valid reason why the person chose to leave. But just because management and HR can see the opportunities does not mean that the individuals these opportunities are aimed at can see them too. Firms need to talk to their talent at an early stage and throughout their careers and make sure that people know what opportunities are available to them and what they need to do to progress. 

Diversity and unconscious bias

Women may leave firms if they perceive gender bias, whether it is conscious or unconscious. The same will be true for other groups if they perceive a firm may be biased on the basis of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or physical ability. If an aspiring young woman looks at the composition of the existing partnership and sees that it is 85% male, how does that impact on her perception of her chances of making partner? Similarly, if an aspiring young Asian, male or female, sees a partnership that is 95% white, what does that make them think? And the same applies to any minority group where the existing partnership does not reflect the diversity of the population of potential stars. 

This does not mean that firms are consciously biased, but that is the impression that may be given: conscious and unconscious bias are not the same thing but they may have the same consequences. Of course, firms cannot change the percentages of women, BAME and LGBT partners overnight but they need to work harder to ensure that bias is not at play and that those groups know that it isn't. This is not about positive discrimination - making it easier for these groups compared to others, or about giving them an unfair advantage - it is simply about levelling what is otherwise a systemically uneven playing field. 

Management barriers 

Middle-management can often be the cause of young talent leaving. Some managers and associates may be reluctant to recommend promotions for young talent because they feel threatened that they may be overtaken. They may judge and appraise talent on narrow criteria that consciously or sub-consciously overlook the wider skills of the individual. Senior management start to form the view that these people are underperforming or lack the ability to progress further. The aspiring youngsters become disillusioned and leave or fail to realise their full potential. 

Partners and department heads may prevent people from taking secondment or transfer opportunities because they want to keep the talent in their team. Many potential stars have left their firms because opportunities for advancement were denied to them, ostensibly for good business reasons but ultimately to the detriment of the firm. Meanwhile, others have thrived in new and exciting roles in different parts of the firm that stretch and challenge them outside their comfort zones. It is these people who have had many and varied roles within an organisation, or on secondment outside of it, who are most ready to fill firms' talent gaps. 

Firms need to ensure that management at all levels understand what the firm wants in terms of the skills and behaviours of its future partners. And they need management at all levels to act in the best interests of the firm as a whole, not solely in their individual best interests or those of their own team or department. 

Training and development

The need for firms to train and develop their people is self-evident but simply having a one-size-fits-all L&D programme is unlikely to help manage the talent gap. Professional firms are generally very good at providing suitable technical training, both during student years and post qualification. They are perhaps less good at providing training in non-technical areas - "soft skills" training is often seen as less important, and less directly related to client needs, and, beyond the basic skills, is often seen as discretionary spend, ripe for cutting in difficult economic times. And yet, just as much as cutting-edge technical ability, clients are looking for those skills and behaviours into which much less investment is usually made - good judgement, great communication, curiosity, creativity and tenacity. 

But even a wide-ranging suite of training programmes may not be enough if firms really want to manage their talent effectively. Top talent often needs bespoke development opportunities and leadership programmes built around the individual's strengths - not designed simply to address their weaknesses, unless there is a critical skills gap - and focused on the individual's career aspirations. 

Many people are uncomfortable about the concept of talent programmes - it is not fair if a programme is not open to everyone - but if firms really want to manage the talent gap, it is essential that they set their talent apart and provide coaching and development accordingly. 

Challenging work 

Something else that may seem obvious is to provide your talented people with interesting and challenging work. Yet a lack of such work is often another reason for leaving cited in many exit interviews. There is a perceived safety in giving people work they have done before, but from complacency and boredom comes adequate performance, not brilliance. Firms need to test their stars with new, stimulating and demanding work. It will stretch them to achieve excellence on the task at hand and prepare them for the next challenge. 

Role Models 

Potential partners need role models. They need to see people that they aspire to be like. Partners need to be inspirational. They also need to be doing roles that people want to do, not to be stressed and overworked with no life outside the office. Young talent may leave if the holy grail of partnership looks so unappealing or they feel unsupported in an intrinsically challenging and complex regulatory environment. 

Firms also need to address the issue of underperforming partners. Ironically, it can be tempting to postpone this when faced with succession issues but that is just the time when it is most pressing. The issues will not be solved by retaining existing under-performers but by inspiring the high-performing partners of the future. Rarely are high-performers inspired by mediocrity or by firms' acceptance of it. 

 

In summary 

The talent gap is real. Firms are competing in a relatively small pool and will increasingly face severe shortages in leadership positions - shortages that will directly threaten competitiveness and profitability. The good news is that managing the talent gap is not difficult. A number of simple and inexpensive actions, which are good for business anyway, will help to attract, retain and develop top talent and enable firms to close the gap.