How re-engaging with past talent leads to productive workplaces

How re-engaging with past talent leads to productive workplaces

As the job market continues to show signs of cooling off, workers are becoming less likely to switch jobs – opting for stability over new opportunities. In this new market, re-engaging with past talent is becoming a crucial best practice.

This Direct Sourcing strategy allows companies to build diverse workplaces with a variety of different generations and perspectives while also lowering time to fill and reducing costs.

Whether you’re working with Gen Zs and Millennials or Gen Xers and Baby Boomers, each demographic brings unique strengths to the team. In part one of our two part series, we explore why companies should re-engage with top talent from all generations.

Benefits for all – Why re-engagement with talent is a must

Regardless of which generation you’re engaging, tracking and communicating with past hires has a myriad of advantages, including:

Faster Time to Fill

Companies with robust hiring needs can reduce time to fill when re-hiring a past worker.

Former workers are already knowledgeable about your company’s culture, team, and expectations, allowing them to seamlessly integrate into your business with minimal onboarding. This type of engagement also reduces the need for thorough, time-consuming training, creating not only a faster time to fill, but a quicker time to productivity for each worker.

Once a successful worker exits your organization, keeping them in a talent pool means less work needed on your curator’s end when another position opens up, leading to a more efficient hiring process.

Significant Cost Savings

Creating an effective Direct Sourcing strategy can reduce both curation and on-boarding costs for companies. By decreasing the time to fill for each position, you’re reducing the amount spent on curation expenses, including job advertisements, boosted social posts and hours worked. Quickly filling positions with capable workers also increases productivity in the long-term while reducing on-boarding spend, leading to more cost savings.

Keep in mind that retention is a vital piece to this puzzle. Choosing the wrong employee can be costly. According to industry stats, a bad hire can cost up to $240,000 in hiring, pay and retention expenses.

Training new employees is expensive as well.

In 2016, the average cost of training a new employee was $1,252, a number that has increased with inflation and doesn’t include a variety of hidden onboarding costs, such as instruction materials, paying for the manager and employee’s time and a natural productivity loss that goes hand in hand with onboarding a brand new hire.

Re-engaging past workers solves all these problems by increasing retention and reducing the amount of training needed.

Tech-focused and adaptable: Understanding Gen Zers and Millennials

Engaging with younger workers brings its own unique advantages. For Gen Z, that includes:

Tech proficiency. As the generation who never knew a time before the internet, Gen Z workers are able to quickly adapt to new technologies, allowing your company to stay competitive by leveraging the latest software and tech products.
Understanding changing industries. New workers entering the workforce often understand and embrace emerging trends, which can lead to innovative ideas and game changing initiatives.

Like Gen Zers, Millennials bring their own benefits to the workforce, including:

Adaptability. As a generation that has lived through constant change, Millennials have the unique ability to learn on their feet and adapt to any situation. This is especially useful in the post-pandemic world, where all industries are forced to continually adjust to market fluctuations and economic shifts.
Innovation. Millennials are responsible for a significant amount of technological advancement. Both Facebook and Slack were founded by Millennials – a generation known for their innovative ideas and tech savvy.

Vast experience and a can-do attitude: engaging Gen Xers and Baby Boomers

While fresh talent and new perspectives are essential in the workforce, experienced professionals play a vital role in any team. Gen Xers are known for their flexibility and commitment to diversity while Baby Boomers have a reputation for workplace loyalty.

Benefits of re-engaging Gen Xers include:

Leadership skills and an entrepreneurial spirit. Gen Xers are a unique generation. They lived through tumultuous economic times and, in many ways, were forced to innovate to survive. This generation makes up over half of all startup founders. Gen X workers are strong leaders who come up with creative solutions when faced with a problem.
Encouraging a healthy work-life balance. Gen Xers value work-life stability. This mindset leads to healthy, engaging workforces with higher retention rates.

Baby Boomers are also assets in the workforce due to:

Their deep industry experience. As the oldest workers, Boomers have quite literally seen it all. They’re incredibly knowledgeable and are valuable mentors to younger employees.
Their reputation as team players. Boomers value teamwork and collaborate well, allowing for a seamless work environment.

Connecting with all generations of talent through one platform

Tracking, organizing and communicating with past talent is essential to a successful contingent workforce. In part two of our series, we’ll explore tips on how to engage with former workers from a variety of generations.

TalentNet’s intuitive platform helps companies build solid talent communities filled with tested, experienced candidates. To sign up for a demo, click here.