Introduction

As the global economy recovers, Shared Services / Global Business Services organizations are under increasing pressure to both understand and influence the key factors for attracting and retaining talent.  At Peeriosity, member companies can easily see the approaches of their peers, with the ability to directly connect with peers facing similar challenges, as a way to guide their hiring and retention strategies.

iPolling Results Review

Two Peeriosity polls were recently conducted to better understand the factors that are the most important to attracting new talent and the factors that are the most important to retaining critical talent in Shared Services / GBS.  Interestingly, the factors selected as most important are very different depending on whether the person is a candidate to be hired, or the person is an employee where the focus is on retention.

When looking at the factors considered to be the most important to attract new talent to Shared Services, 40% of Peeriosity member companies selected compensation/benefits package, with an additional 27% citing company reputation as the most important factor.  Flexible work policies were selected as most important by 14% of responding companies, with 9% citing the opportunity to learn and develop professionally with 5% each citing Shared Services culture or initial rapport with Shared Services leaders.  Here are the details:

With regards to factors that are the most important to retain critical talent for Shared Services, the most popular selection was opportunities for learning and development at 31%, with 21% citing flexible work policies as the most important factor, and 16% selecting compensation/benefits package as most important.  Shared Services culture, and company reputation tied at 11%, with 5% selecting either quality of management and staff, or Shared Services location.

Here are some of the comments from members:

• This one has drastically changed over the past 2 years! Now when we go to hire anyone the first question is “Is this a remote position”. We are now afraid this will be an issue with keeping talent.

• The awareness of the company’s reputation and culture is the initial draw, but once the candidate is interested in the company, I believe it is the rapport with the leadership team and the opportunity for career and knowledge progression that attracts talent.

• Hard to exactly say, but most folks wouldn’t come to a new company without an increase in pay (unless they are unemployed). We generally don’t ask this question, maybe we should.

• There are other factors as well, as a candidate will apply and select the company on the basis of 4/5 different factors.

• I wish we could check multiple boxes, as flexible work policies are high in order also.

Closing Summary

For any sports team, the quality of individual team members plays a significant role in determining whether or not the team has a winning season.  The same is true for Shared Services / Global Business Services, where the quality of employees on the team plays a significant role in determining the extent to which the organization will succeed in meeting its business objectives.  Understanding the most important factors for attracting new employees, or retaining current employees, is an important part of developing and executing a winning strategy.  Fortunately for Peeriosity members, it’s easy to interact directly with leading peers to better understand approaches that work best and the underlying reasons why.

What factors are most important at your company to attract new talent, and what factors are most important to retain critical talent?

Who are your peers and how are you collaborating with them?

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“iPolling” is available exclusively to Peeriosity member company employees, with consultants or vendors prohibited from participating or accessing content. Members have full visibility of all respondents and their comments. Using Peeriosity’s integrated email system, Peer Mail, members can easily communicate at any time with others who participated in iPolling.

Peeriosity members are invited to log into www.peeriosity.com to join the discussion and connect with Peers.   Membership is for practitioners only, with no consultants or vendors permitted.  To learn more about Peeriosity, click here.