Marc Effron is the President of The Talent Strategy Group, a company that helps the world’s leading organizations increase the quality and depth of their talent. As President, Effron leads the firm’s global consulting, education, and publishing businesses. He also co-founded The Talent Management Institute, created TalentQ magazine, and co-authored the Harvard Business Publishing best-seller One Page Talent Management. 

Before founding The Talent Strategy Group, Effron was the VP of Talent Management at Avon Products and led the Global Leadership Consulting practice for Aon Hewitt. He received his BA from the University of Washington and his MBA from Yale School of Management.

The tight labor market has forced leaders to scramble to rethink and redevelop the ways they compete for top talent and ensure that they’re growing a strong team. In many companies, there’s a kind of panic — a feeling of being caught unprepared, a sense that they lack a talent strategy, and that talent tools that once served them well aren‘t working.

According to Marc Effron, a leading thinker and practitioner in the talent field, these challenges are nothing new. Over the past decade, exit rates have been on a steady, uninterrupted climb. The difference nowadays is that these talent issues are more noticeable — and solving them more expensive. If you want better talent faster, Effron says, a “production mindset” is what’s going to get you there. You need to build a talent machine.

Companies can raise the level of talent management if they look at talent acquisition and retention as if they were a production line. To develop a strong team, you must get clear on what you’re trying to build, who you want in the company, the raw materials you need (that is, what people you need to fill pivotal roles), and the ways in which you assemble it (that is, your hiring processes, training and development, and retention tools). Effron talks about this and more as he joins Thomas A. Stewart on The Leading Edge — a place where new ideas emerge and are sharpened, and where leaders look to find the edge that brings success for themselves, their teams, and their enterprises.

In this episode of The Leading Edge, Thomas A. Stewart is joined by Marc Effron, President of The Talent Strategy Group, to talk about building a talent machine to solve hiring and retention challenges. Effron breaks down the critical components of a successful talent strategy, why you should invest in your top employees, and how to de-risk your talent production process.