=== 1. What is the problem/issue being addressed?
Any company needs several things to grow and develop: a market to sell its services or products, financing to invest in equipment and materials, political and economic stability for visibility, reliable infrastructure to limit breakdowns, and more and more, access to Talent. In some regions of the world, the shortage of skilled workers represents a significant constraint on companies’ growth.
In this competition for Talent, SME are facing several disadvantages: lower visibility, smaller budget dedicated to Talent hunting, often unfairly seen as places with lower possible career moves and fulfilment, and with lower impact to the economy. And SME are the types of companies that need Talent the most to face fierce and global competition, counterbalancing small market shares and low revenues with innovation and cutting-edge people.
To support SME’s efforts to attract Talent, cities and regions can come into play by providing significant support to its local SME through development agencies with innovative management, methodologies and strategies, a joint Talent Attraction Management system. By combining the visibility of a city to its own brand, a company shall achieve significantly higher reach to Talent.
Simultaneously, SME are facing situation where their Talent are having professional expectations, sometimes linked to career path, sometimes to meaningful purpose enhancement... while working for the company. This is all the more important to ensure that "in-house" Talent find the right answers to their aspirations, so that they stay and contribute positively to the company's development.
Hence, the willingness of Lyon's, Berlin's and Rotterdam's economic development and investment promotion agencies to share experience to ensure efficient achievement in Talent Attraction, Retention and Development for the benefits of local SME.
=== 2. Why is it important for society?
Talent is a key stone as talented people clearly contribute to the development of creativity, innovation and business. Growing Talent in the society is crucial for all civil spheres, from pupils to students, from workers to decision-makers, from companies to NGO, from private business to public institutions...
Hiring new people to support growth or development is a process where companies strive to identify the skills to match best with their actual and coming needs. Therefore, there is an essential need that companies and schools/universities share their vision and objectives.
For all these reasons, growing, retaining and attracting Talent is crucial for the society as a whole.
=== 3. What are the overall objectives?
Knowledge and skills are core to development. Europe does need to structure dynamics to create but also attract and retain talent in a globalized competition.
Given this background, the overall objective of the project is to design a standard process to set up a Talent strategy into a defined economic environment, to attract, retain and grow Talent for the benefits of SME. The project shall lead to the production of a Design Options Paper (DOP) presenting a Talent-focused related methodology which shall be applicable in any European economic region.
Lyon, Berlin and Rotterdam have agreed to mobilize their respective SME, Academic and Talent-related ecosystems, and have them work on the challenges and the solutions to attract, retain and grow Talent - in a collaborative way, including 3 international workshops. All the intelligence gathered during this 12-month project will be aggregated and summarized in the DOP for the benefits of any European economic player interested in the topic of Talent & SME.
