Sesame HRRecruitment and Selection
No matter the sector you work in or the size of the company: the scarcity of talent is the current challenge in HR. A lack of talent that results in a loss of productivity for any organization.
Marcos Lopez
HR Consultant
10 of March, 2025
No matter the industry you operate in or the size of your company, the shortage of talent is the updated challenge in HR. This lack of talent results in a loss of productivity in any company. This can be because we’re becoming increasingly demanding, or because employees are, but finding talent has become challenging.
You might be wondering how to attract and retain talent in your company. An easy solution would be to pay employees more. However, this option is not always feasible. Firstly, it would lead to wage chaos. And secondly, but just as important, it would put us further into debt.
Very few companies are able to pay above-market salaries. And as we’ve just mentioned it doesn’t seem the best solution if we want to maintain budget control. In such challenging economic situations combined with a shortage of talent, it’s up to HR to be creative.
Do you want to find out how to combat the lack of talent? Let’s look at some new strategies to deal with the talent shortage that you could put into practice.
If you can’t find talent outside, why not look for it within? To do this, you have the option of training your current staff. The first step here is to identify areas for improvement and training needs among the workforce. Next, you must identify the employees who have the right profile to be trained.
To maintain competitiveness, training employees in soft skills is as important as in hard skills. We cannot overlook any detail, and this is the perfect example. Having training plans also helps us to retain talent. They build a bond with employees, reinforcing their commitment to the company.
The management of employee training is a very interesting perspective. In our training plan, we could include updates and recycling, but it can also be a benefit for employees. And if you don’t want to resort to outside training, you can opt for internal training. It’s certain that more than one employee is capable of providing it.
Here we can include the repositioning of employees. This is not an easy task, neither for the company nor for the worker, but it may be a good option. Training can potentially help us promote or reposition employees. If the move is horizontal, personal objectives must align with corporate ones.
When it comes to employee training, we often limit ourselves to academic training. But … what about self-taught training? Our employees also have their own interests, and they can educate themselves beyond traditional channels. And that is something you should value.
Through mechanisms such as performance evaluations, you can analyze the skills of the workforce. Perhaps you will discover the hidden talents of the organization, employees with latent potential who can help your company improve.
When it’s not possible to pay more-or offer off-market salaries-, we can resort to employee benefits. These are pluses that complement salaries, with countless advantages for workers. Faced with two similar salary offers, benefits can tip the balance.
Among the most common are flexible hours and remote work. Here, tools like Sesame HR play a key role in managing human resources and teams. Among other things, they facilitate time tracking. These benefits make it easier to retain and attract talent.
However, we have other benefits. From nursery, transport or restaurant vouchers to gymnastics, meditations, or yoga in the office, we have plenty of options. Training can even be included among the benefits for workers. Knowing their needs will help us offer the best benefits.
Apart from the “conventional” salary, the emotional wage is increasingly important. In the absence of financial resources, we can fill this gap with emotional wages. If well managed, it can help us retain the best talent in the company and even attract new talent.
Do you not know what emotional salary is? Among other things, it combines leadership, benefits, recognitions, and facilities. The primary aim is to better our employees’ quality of life, making them happier. This in turn translates to their commitment and the competitiveness of the organization.
We must not overlook the recognition of achievements and milestones hit. Credit should be given where credit is due. From additional time off to public recognitions, these all add to the emotional salary.
The saying goes that if Mohammad won’t come to the mountain, the mountain must go to Mohammad. We can do something similar with talent. If the talent isn’t coming to us, we need to go to it. But to do this, we first need to know where the talent is.
Through social networks, recommendations, and referrals from the workforce, or previous recruitment processes we can create a portfolio of candidates. Tools such as Sesame HR help us monitor talents through a People Analytics strategy. We can update their profile, add any notes, and if we have a job opening, we can let them know about our offer.
Keep in mind that often the shortage of talent is due to the fact that they do not want to change jobs. If they are happy in a company, they are not paying attention to job offers. Being proactive and directly contacting them will help us, at least, get our offer in front of them.
Have you tried any of these strategies? If you’re also worried about the talent shortage, on our blog you will find key information on how to attract and retain talent, helping you to avoid losing them to competitors.
I'm Marcos López, HR consultant at Sesame HR. Book a meeting with my team to help you.
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