Global Talent Acquisition

Introduction

The United States has been a long-standing attractive destination for tech and non-tech talent. This is changing as more companies and countries elsewhere offer incentives to attract talent while also reshaping business practices to highlight skills defined beyond conventional tech-only talent. Specifically, companies (and governments) have been developing ambitious programs that go well beyond conventional hiring methods to attract, train, and retain local and global talent. This is used to fill much-needed job and skill gaps.

For organizations, having highly skilled and best-fit workers is not only important to keep business going but to compete in an ever-evolving and fierce global market. The challenges organizations face when attracting and retaining top talent are usually daunting and span various issues, such as competitive salaries, unconventional perks, and local employment regulations.

Attracting top talent is not an easy task for many employers, particularly smaller organizations struggling to establish their footprints and grow globally with a limited budget. Therefore, this article highlights everything global employers need to know about global talent acquisition.

What is global talent acquisition?

Global talent acquisition is a systematic process of attracting and retaining global talent to scale business operations in a new market or build a team with exceptional talent to fulfill specific business requirements.

Currently, talent acquisition is global. Due to innovations in IT communications and the rapid development in internet connectivity, remote work has been adopted by many global organizations. 

For organizations, attracting best-in-market talent has expanded substantially to include anyone anywhere who has the required skills to meet the requirements of the announced jobs.

Challenges organizations face during global talent acquisition

In attracting international talent and maximizing returns on human capital investments, organizations are facing challenges, which include:

Retaining talent

Retaining top talent is one of the most common challenges for many organizations. Once hired and onboarded, employers argue that more skilled workers grow restless and want to move on. Payment aside, skilled workers cite company culture as a major factor in leaving an organization.

Talent gaps & internal skill gaps

Internal skill gaps refer to what organizations identify as the gaps their workers have in the skillsets needed to perform job duties. More employers are outsourcing or hiring new candidates to fill in much-needed and critical job roles. However, this approach overshadows deeper problems in skill gaps that current employees have and how companies work to fill them. Therefore, organizations need to strike a balance between upskilling current employees, hiring new workers, and outsourcing talent.

Talent experiences

High-skilled workers have many options. That is why conventional recruitment processes of hiring and doing nothing about the evolving needs of skilled workers rarely work. Unsurprisingly, employers desperate to fill roles find that recently interviewed candidates often walk away and join the competition. Such occurs when organizations fail to properly identify signs of unsatisfactory or unmet needs of highly skilled workers.

Hierarchical vs. dynamic work structures

By definition, workers enjoy innovation and dislike red tape and routine. Unsurprisingly, more skilled workers thrive in more dynamic (and smaller) teams compared to larger and vertical work structures. From a global talent acquisition perspective, organizations struggle to adapt existing work structures to the needs of top talent, not the other way around.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)

Top talent looks for diversity when applying for a job. Having a diverse workforce is part of a company culture that skilled workers often want to work in. That is why employers need to improve DEI within their workplace culture to provide top talent with healthier and happier workspaces. By having more diverse, equitable, and inclusive work environments, skilled workers find a thriving culture where diverse skills and mindsets exchange ideas freely and creatively, maximizing organizational return on human capital investment.

Benefits of having the right talent in your team

Getting top talent aboard is critical for an organization's growth and efficiency. However, hiring alone is not enough as you need to hire the right talent. By ensuring you have the best fit for your organization, you avoid future culture wars among your top talent. That is why a combination of the right skills and the right mindset is indispensable to make talent work for your organization.

Having secured the right skills and mindsets among your newly hired talent, you're sure to reap the benefits of having a cohesive team, including:

Optimizing resources

Top talent is already ready to join your workforce and deliver. Despite initial "upfront costs" of hiring and retaining skilled talent, what you spend on acquisition and retention you reap in maximized business value and profits over the long run. Thus, invest in your workers like how they invest in your company's success.

Filling in critical knowledge and skill gaps

The primary reason you're after top talent is that you need things done. By having the right talent on your team, you ensure core, internal business knowledge and skill gaps are closed. This is even more crucial in tech roles where minor skill gaps could make all the difference.

Leveraging performance and productivity

Top talent usually infuses a sense of mission into your organization. Having a strong internal motivation to deliver quality work, top talent offers a high-value human asset, which is more likely to leverage performance and productivity organization-wide.

Minimizing turnover and increasing retention rates

By addressing the needs of your highly skilled workers, such as having more innovative work and maintaining a work-life balance, your talent is happier and more likely to stay and not leave in droves.

Cultivating a strong work ethic and company culture 

Having a strong sense of mission — supported by an understanding of management — creates an organizational culture where all workers share a collective sense of "us" under one banner, bearing broad implications for the economy.

Skuad: A global employment and payroll platform

As an established employer of record (EOR), Skuad enables organizations with all they need to hire top talent, onboard their preferred employees, manage payroll, ensure compliance with country-specific employment laws, and seamlessly handle all employment-related activities.

Skuad handles the entire employment lifecycle including global talent acquisition so your organization can scale business operations with reduced effort, lower cost, and with an efficient HR administration. To know more about Skuad, book a demo today.