How to Bolster Your Talent Management Strategy

ContinuumCloud’s 2023 Behavioral Health Industry Trends Report found that recruiting, employee retention, and employee engagement are once again top concerns among behavioral health leaders. Companies looking to improve in these key business areas will need to have a strong talent management strategy in place this year.

Behavioral health organizations must work even harder than other industries when it comes to talent management, as staff often work long shifts in emotionally demanding roles. Agencies must be intentional about providing employees with ongoing support and recognition for their hard work to reduce burnout and limit turnover. The behavioral health field also has additional challenges when it comes to attracting and retaining top talent, as it often doesn’t have the budget to pay as competitively as other healthcare specialties. However, these issues can be minimized with the right talent management strategy.

A well-designed talent management strategy will improve workforce planning, employee retention, and productivity so that the organization can make the best use of its resources, including its top talent. An effective strategy will cover the entire employee lifecycle from application to offboarding in order to provide the best employee experience and business outcomes. Explore the top recommendations to incorporate into your talent management strategy to help attract, engage, and retain top talent.

Talent Management Strategy Tactics to Leverage in 2023

Your everyday human resources and talent management practices can become a meaningful part of your business strategy once you start thinking about them through the right lens – and start using the right tools. Here are some effective tactics to implement at your organization.

Streamline the Recruiting Process

Many organizations are tightening their staffing budgets right now, but behavioral health staff are still in high demand. As such, organizations will want to streamline their recruiting process for 2023 to ensure that only approved roles are filled while also providing a positive candidate experience.

ContinuumCloud’s workforce planning tools, including Position Control, can be used to help employers view their current hiring needs and streamline the recruiting process. With Position Control, employers can approve job descriptions, salary ranges, and required credentials and competencies, and also ensure that there is room in the labor budget before granting the recruiting team approval to post a new role. Position Control also provides the visibility leaders need to understand the daily lost revenue of unfilled positions, allowing them to prioritize their hiring needs accordingly.

Once a role is approved for posting, employers can use the ContinuumCloud HCM platform to seamlessly post the job on job boards and social media with one click. As applications come in, HR professionals and hiring managers can easily sort through candidates and use the integrated applicant tracking system to review their talent pool. The platform displays all the candidate details that hiring managers need for decision-making and allows them to easily rate candidates. Having a quick and organized talent acquisition process makes the experience better for both recruiting staff and job candidates.

Provide a More Organized Onboarding Experience

Providing an excellent onboarding experience is an essential part of good talent management. It not only helps the organization create a positive first impression with new employees, but it also ensures that employees have everything they need to do their jobs well, including any necessary training. In fact, providing a positive onboarding experience has been found to increase new hire retention by up to 82% and boost productivity for new hires by as much as 70%.

A well-designed human capital management (HCM) system can help organizations coordinate the onboarding process and remove tedious tasks such as duplicate data entry. With ContinuumCloud’s HCM, all of the data from the candidate’s profile can be used to populate their employee file. The platform also allows new hires to easily access their benefits enrollment information, training goals, payroll, and more in one place. Having a unified solution minimizes confusion for employees, since they don’t have to worry about learning how to navigate multiple platforms or remember a ton of different logins.

Build Your Employer Brand

Many behavioral healthcare organizations overlook the need for employer branding, but it can be a helpful component of a well-rounded talent management strategy. An organization’s employer brand is its marketing and branding regarding the employee experience. Most behavioral health agencies know how to communicate their values and identity when it comes to the patient experience, but some struggle to properly market their employer brand to potential job candidates and current employees.

Some strategies for building your employer brand include improving internal communication (more on that below), strengthening your values and mission statement, and incorporating more employee feedback. Using a centralized platform like ContinuumCloud’s HCM to share employee-focused content and interact with employees can help develop your company’s brand. Employer branding, in turn, can help build morale and create a stronger sense of belonging for current employees, while also attracting top talent by positioning your organization as a great employer.

Improve Internal Communication

In ContinuumCloud’s 2023 Behavioral Health Industry Trends Report, 65% of survey respondents indicated that internal communication is a top challenge related to their company culture. Frequent internal communications help create a culture of transparency and togetherness, but it can be tough to oversee all of these internal communications without a centralized system to manage them in.

Communication tools such as ContinuumCloud’s “Company News” feature can help HR teams communicate more frequently with their employees. Using a digital tool like Company News is particularly helpful for companies that have remote teams or employees spread out across different worksites. These internal communications can be used to share company updates, client success stories, information on team bonding initiatives, and anything else the employer wants to share. When used consistently and correctly, these interactive communications also help strengthen the employer brand by building and reinforcing the company’s identity.

Help Employees Grow

In LinkedIn’s 2023 Workplace Learning Report, only 26% of employees surveyed reported that their organization had challenged them to learn a new skill in the past six months. This is a missed opportunity for organizations — and a core reason why it’s important to incorporate training and development into your talent management strategy. By not providing ample skill-building opportunities, employers fail to keep their employees challenged and engaged, while also missing out on the opportunity to develop a more skilled workforce. 

A great way to encourage employees to expand their skill sets is by setting quarterly learning goals. With a digital solution such as ContinuumCloud’s human capital management system, managers can easily assign learning goals to ensure that every employee is being challenged and motivated to learn a new skill. These goals can be assigned individually or by team to keep everyone working toward personal goals that align with the company’s business goals.

ContinuumCloud’s HCM offers additional performance management tools that managers can use to check in with employees frequently regarding their performance and career advancement goals. Managers can schedule regular check-ins on the platform to talk to employees about their current performance and any career development opportunities they may be interested in. Having these check-ins year-round — rather than confining them to one annual performance review — can boost employee satisfaction and motivation.

Encourage Employee Recognition

Employee recognition should be a central part of your talent management strategy. Recognizing and rewarding employees for their hard work helps keep your top performers motivated and engaged. A study by the Harvard Business School found that over 80% of employees don’t feel adequately recognized or rewarded by their employers.

ContinuumCloud’s HCM platform can be used to track employee performance and achievements to help managers regularly recognize their staff. Managers and HR teams can monitor productivity targets and goal completion so that they can provide recognition whenever an employee hits a major milestone or has an especially productive week. ContinuumCloud also provides helpful templates that can be used to quickly send weekly performance check-ins or recognition.

Encouraging peer-to-peer recognition is another effective talent management strategy. ContinuumCloud’s HCM solution includes a built-in employee recognition feature called “Shout Outs.” This feature allows employees to publicly recognize their peers for their hard work, positive attitude, or a recent accomplishment. Building peer-to-peer recognition into your talent management strategy is a great way to develop a sense of community among your employees while improving your organization’s recognition efforts.

It’s Time to Step Up Your Talent Management Strategy

There’s no doubt that a robust talent management strategy can improve employee engagement and retention. ContinuumCloud’s human capital management platform can help you coordinate all of your talent management activities in one centralized system to better execute your talent management strategy (while making it easier for your team to manage it all). Whether you’re looking to develop your employer brand, improve internal communication with regular updates, or encourage recognition, ContinuumCloud offers the features you need to keep your best talent engaged.

ContinuumCloud is the only HCM solution specifically tailored to the behavioral health industry. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you improve your talent management process and encourage even greater business success.