By Magi Graziano 

An experienced local government manager or a newcomer to the management profession who works for a smaller community can be responsible for hiring the organization’s employees. For these managers and for all individuals who have a hiring responsibility, knowledge of these four skills can position your organization to compete in today’s hiring landscape:

1. Develop an Executive Summary

The first skill you will need to develop is the ability to write an executive summary. You must evaluate the major workforce challenges that your organization faces and outline your plan to rectify them. If you do not establish a stout plan to address the issues, your organization could have an uncertain future.

How do workforce gaps and frequent turnover impact customer service, employee partnership, innovation, and organizational bottom line? As a manager doing the hiring, you need to know how to communicate both in writing and when speaking, in a way that can be heard.

2. Learn the Importance of Using Big Data

The second skill you need to develop is the ability to resonate with, speak into, and listen from data. Big data rules today’s world, and understanding it and how to make it work for you is imperative to success. Sorting critical data from superfluous data is another key to getting a point across. 

To catch the ear of people who can solve a problem from a strategic and financial point of view, you need to speak to them in a financial and strategic manner. This means, for example, that you might need to be able to discuss financial statements or have knowledge of the total cost of labor and staffing.

Most decision makers have a strong preference to evaluate plans through three-to-four salient points grounded in accurate, relevant data. To speak with someone who understands and responds to data, you must elevate your ability to think from data and make recommendations that speak to improve the data.

3. Cultivate Confidence

The third skill you need to continue to develop and nurture is your confidence. Standing for stronger people optimization in the workplace and human systems transformation is a pretty big stake in the ground. If not you, who? Someone needs to keep people present to the commitments around the workforce. Most managers in most organizations fall astray from their talent optimization commitments as soon as the pressure of another commitment overshadows it.

Without someone standing for—and in some cases fighting for—doing the right thing and making people and talent an organization-wide focus, competitive advantage initiatives fall out of existence. It takes confidence and stamina to create sustainable change; it takes a continual, unwavering commitment, sometimes in the face of no agreement, and that takes confidence.

4. Find Comfort in the Questions

The fourth skill you need to improve is your ability to be comfortable in not having all of the answers. Having all the answers and knowing how things are going to or not going to turn out is a trait that no longer serves the professional of the 21st century. In today’s world, curiosity, agility and creativity are how you win. 

Fostering a workplace of collaboration and innovation begins with you. You need to be the change you want to see. Facing problems with an eye on understanding the systemic impacts on the organization and the people in it opens you up to hear from people you might not otherwise hear from. Inviting ideas and solutions from the team members you have hired gives you a much wider perspective and develops your balanced decision-making skills, which are a requirement for a management professional.

While on the surface if might not be obvious, a keen hiring professional is the key to the successful evolution of optimizing people at work. Every organization needs someone to focus on the future of people and talent optimization. From reducing unwanted employee turnover and filling the leadership gap to transferring today’s knowledge to tomorrow’s workers, the right person doing the right things affects every single strategic lever in an organization.

The effective attraction, engagement, and optimization of high-quality people in any organization may be as—or more important—than any other skill a manager provides for a small community. Therefore, choose and develop team members wisely.

Magi Graziano is chief executive officer, Conscious Hiring® and Development, San Francisco, California, and author of The Wealth of Talent (www.KeenAlignment.com).