We encounter it at job interviews, art exhibitions, writers’ rooms, cricket commentaries, fashion design, school homework projects, social media and spirituality, amongst many other spaces. Psychologists Thrash and Elliott are reported to have studied inspiration for decades and they identify 3 elements in a person who is inspired:
Inspiration is at the heart of TAHKAY and TAHKAY draws inspiration from the bamboo plant. I am Suresh Pradeep Stephen, and TA, Talent Acquision, inspires me. In fact, all things TA is why I brush my teeth and log in to LinkedIn regularly. Amongst other things that I do regularly, such as looking for good food places for work breaks with my team, client briefings, analysing CTC, and discussing latticed versus lateral career moves. Also golf.
But names tell us little about people, unless they’re celebrities. This is important. In my line of work, we are always asking people for their names and we’re always telling people ours, and filling names in forms, and recording numbers against those names.
How do you ensure Talent is included in those business-critical discussions at an early stage? Partner with your finance team in advance to model exactly what budget allocation will deliver the correct number of headcount growth. That way, unrealistic headcount targets can be avoided as senior management gains transparency from the outset around what you can and can’t deliver against the budget you receive.
Similarly, it was suggested that if you put together a set of trade-offs, working with product teams to understand how certain hires (or lack of hires) will affect timeframes and output, you can very quickly make the case for exactly how valuable talent acquisition is to the business. Other responses also touched on the importance of adding senior, experienced members to the talent function, who will drive strategy from within and champion the significance of talent acquisition to the wider business.
We forget in the systems we create, why we created them in the first place. That we are inspired, we work with inspired teams and we want to continue to do so.
What inspires you?
Answer this and you’ve hacked the big one.
Michael Page Insights in the India Salary Guide 2023 gives these India talent workforce insights 2023: 86% people are looking for new jobs, 38% have been in their jobs for less than two years and a whopping 48% of talent out there is looking to change roles, careers and even industry! The trend is towards consistent hiring in 2023, and we can expect an increase in hiring, despite the debates around pace of economic growth, market outlook and analysis of hiring intent.
I can put faces to these percentages. I’m pretty sure you can too. Maybe your face is in the 86% or the 48%.
Or perhaps yours is the face of HR in your enterprise and you want to connect meaningfully with those percentages?
If you’ve reached this blog, it is through a route march through the territory of talent. I’m thinking of this people focused list:
The chances are, you’re done asking questions. You want:
I am inspired by all three.
Working with teams of people, living with our families, hanging out with friends, chatting with a stranger at a metro station or at a truckers’ dhaba stop in a small town while the driver breaks for chai, daal, roti, sabzi - this matter of inspiration is always hovering somewhere, in some form.
In this article, the writer, Yeshab giri, says “Inspiration transforms the way employees at all levels perceive their capabilities, empowering and motivating them to constantly push the envelope.”
But what is inspiration and why is it important? Let’s consider 3 responses:
Perhaps this is why we borrow the magic of all that we see as inspired or inspirational and bring them to the corporate boardroom and training retreat. We mix it up the best we can, so the line manager, procurement team, QC analyst, field staff, distributors, production head, market research people, sales and servicing - wake up wanting to do the things they do and then do it better. Companies invest, in creating learning opportunities where people play cricket and discuss strategy, they invest in stress management so that the team can find inspiration in rock climbing or a session of water meditation. Or in a good laugh.
In my next blog post I’ll be writing about Golf. 6 lessons. Plus some inspired life stuff.I’ll stop here with this belief I want to share with you. Inspiration lives everywhere, in a bamboo plant, a game or meditation. If you’re ready to be inspired, and to inspire, a good place to start is with your own truth: