Are you continually surprised by the lack of qualified talent needed to fill key roles in your organization? Frustrated by your inability to attract and retain critical talent needed to grow? My recent research and keynote talks to leaders in sectors as varied as financial services, supply chain, healthcare and manufacturing shows that a simple way to think about tackling these problems is use the acronym ROAR, like a lion.

R – Risks That Must Be Managed

Which specific capabilities pose the greatest risks to sustaining quality and growing the business in your organization? You must prioritize the threats of critical skill shortages. It’s hard find skilled talent in plenty of roles.  But which jobs and capabilities  matter most? Is it loan officers, supply chain technicians, CNC machinists, or nurse managers? See this blog post for a great tool to address this problem – the Knowledge Silo Matrix.

O – Older Workers Leveraged

So many companies are obsessed today with hiring and retaining young workers that they fail to leverage the real value of their experienced employees. This starts by recognizing that not all older workers are of equal value. Please spare me the every-human-being-is-valuable speech. That’s true in the bigger picture but not in terms of contribution to the business.

To learn more about maximizing the value of your older workers, click here.

A – Attract Skilled Talent

This may mean redesigning jobs that are more attractive to scarce talent in your field. Or it could require letting more employees work virtually because there are no local candidates.  Employers have to get much more creative in recruiting people with specialized skills. Click here for more ideas on attracting talent.

R – Retaining High Potential Employees & Future Leaders

The problem driving most employers crazy today is their inability to retain promising talent that they’ve trained and prepared to lead the organization in the future. Almost every Baby Boomer and Gen-X manager knows that Millennials are much less likely to stay in their jobs long term. But some organizations are getting much better at increasing the tenure and reducing the turnover of their younger staff. Click here for some ideas of how one company has done this.

The changing workforce and critical skill shortages is creating all kinds of headaches for leaders today. And these talent problems aren’t going away! But there are actions you can take that will make a difference. Use this ROAR – like a lion – framework to focus your leadership team on specific solutions that will improve your business performance.