The talent that your organization needs can sometimes be hard to find. However, organizations can  train and develop the talent that they already have. Is there a foolproof way to solve the talent conundrum that organizations are facing?

“I think the challenge is not just about attracting people or retaining people but it’s about making the talent relevant to where the business wants to be at any given time,” says Zeeshan Sheikh, Chief Information Officer, Entergy while discussing the existing talent conundrum in the industry.

So how should a leader maintain organizational relevance and in that context, manage talent? Sheikh has spend some time developing, retaining, and recruit talent.

Few tips on how to solve this talent conundrum:

1. Have a plan:

It starts first with having a good change management plan because it’s almost never about the technology but more about the change management of how you get there with your existing talent.

2. Establish a good relationship with HR:

If you go to a college and say, “come work for utility!” It doesn’t sound as attractive as, “let’s go work for Google,” right? Because whatever you do- people have this image of Utility being the dinosaur. Therefore, you need the help of your peers in the business since they are critical to helping you make a good jump from the talent that you have today to the talent you’ll need tomorrow. They will also play a role in retooling your existing talent as well as creating a media campaign for recruiting new talent.

3. Use the Right Data and Tools:

So typically, business goes to IT and says, “I need a report that shows me this.” Well, I’m trying to transform that conversation to, “I need data and I need the tool that will allow me to manipulate data in this way.” The user then takes these tools and the ability to manipulate this data. So how do you use the data to potentially make more money? And above all, how do you use the analytics to make your staff operate more efficiently.

4. Groom your leaders:

We’ve identified our executives very quickly and realized a couple years ago that organizational help is very important to maintaining a competitive nature in this business. Organizational health is not just about happy people, but it’s more about the health of the organization, how we operate and what we value. So what we’ve done is we’ve put programs in place, to focus in on leadership and leadership practices, engagement at the mid-level management layer all the way up to our executive layer. And I think we’re starting to see these programs take effect, and starting to see our staff at large, really feel appreciative and feel that the changes are beginning to benefit.