HR leaders today are burnt to a crisp.

Why? It could be quiet quitting, chaotic working, increased layoffs, a possible recession or any number of talent colloquialisms. Or it could be that we’re in this strange moment where multiple contradictory things are true simultaneously. 

For one, mass layoffs in tech dominate today’s headlines, but it turns out they haven’t made a dent in the overall employment rate, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The report also uncovered that more than half a million jobs were added, yet almost two-thirds of chief economists believe a global recession is likely in 2023. Oh and let’s not forget 61% of U.S. workers are still considering leaving their jobs. 

It’s a lot and a lot of it doesn’t make sense. So what can you do about it as an HR leader? 

When you can’t predict the economy (or your employees), the wisest thing to do is put your energy toward what you can control. The answer is creating a talent strategy that provides stability to overcome today’s challenges…and whatever big thing that comes after “the big quit.” 

Reconnect disconnected employees with your company

Our recent survey shows that while 50% of HR executives have a business strategy, only 33% have a talent strategy that aligns with their business strategy. 

This is a massive opportunity to build stability that only a few companies are seizing. We’ve found that companies that don’t align their business strategy with their talent have higher turnover, lower engagement and less profit. For a business to succeed (especially in this topsy-turvy economy), you must ensure your business and people are in sync.

Employ the following four tips to align your people and create stability.

1. Enhance hiring with behavioral science

When you optimize how you hire, you optimize how your company performs. 

One way to do that is to streamline the hiring process with behavioral science. For when you’re armed with data about your candidates, you can better predict their future job performance. 

Here’s how your hiring process could look: 

• Use machine learning to uncover skills needed based on your job description
• Provide candidates with a behavioral assessment to reveal their strongest work behaviors and tendencies
• Sort candidates whose skills best match those needed for the role to pass to the hiring manager
• Tap machine learning for custom interview questions that get to the core of the candidate’s most common behaviors and how those behaviors manifest in the workplace
• Make hiring decisions easier with insights that back you up, every time

When the hiring process includes behavioral science, we've seen that candidates have been onboarded faster, performed better and stayed longer. 

2. Help leaders lead better with insights

Effective leadership drives results, creates change and inspires others to maximize their potential. To build more effective leaders, you must provide them with insights to boost their self-awareness and team-building capabilities. 

To support leaders, you could: 

• Identify managers’ natural strengths and caution areas
• Do the same with direct reports, so managers know team member’s behavioral drivers
• Provide managers with personalized coaching to develop or enhance leadership skills

Managers perform better when they understand themselves better. And by also understanding their direct reports better, it’s easier for leaders to tailor their management style for each team member. Plus, nurturing this relationship is increasingly more critical, especially considering UKG’s new report that managers impact employees’ mental health more than their doctor or therapist. 

3. Use behavioral data to create dream teams

Behavioral data makes building dream teams easy. 

When you uncover the strengths, weaknesses and behavioral drivers of each team member, you can then create optimal teams that balance a group’s natural strengths and are wired to excel. 

Doing so is bound to pay off. According to Gallup, people who work within their talent set are 8% more productive and 15% less likely to quit. Furthermore, businesses that develop their employees' strengths see:

• 10%-19% increased sales
• 14%-29% increased profit
• 3%-7% higher customer engagement
• 9%-15% increased employee engagement

4. Dig up the root of low engagement

Pinpointing the root causes of gaps is daunting. Add in all of today’s talent and economic challenges and it can feel downright challenging. But it also shouldn’t be avoided. 

Your company will keep leaking without uncovering the cause of low engagement. One method to try is to invite employees to provide feedback, collect feedback and then communicate what you heard and what changes you’ll be making. 

We’ve come to find that giving your workers a voice makes it easier to uncover underlying people problems and make strategic changes that remedy engagement. 

To go even further, you could use a tool that collects employee feedback continuously rather than annually or when a problem first appears. With continuous insights, you can stay ahead of any future discontent. 

Boost your talent strategy with research

Are you one of the 66% of companies whose talent strategy isn’t entirely aligned with their business strategy?

Our recent research found much more than a missed opportunity to align business and people strategies. As you read this, our analysts are working behind the scenes to bring you insights you can act on—with the full survey findings coming in April 2023. 

In the meantime, if you want to start building for an uncertain future, start by getting the right people in the right roles. Learn more about surviving or continuing to survive, an economic downturn and get PI’s toolkit for surviving economic uncertainty.