Today’s intellectual (thinking) workplace has redefined what we need from our employees. Employees no longer complete rote tasks; today’s service workplace now requires employees to think their way through constantly changing customer situations to provide responses that are customized and personalized. This means today’s employees must think in particular ways to be consistently effective, to inspire customer loyalty, and to drive profitability.

An organization’s most significant asset is the intellectual capital of their employees – how they think, invent, create and respond. Therefore, every organization needs employees who are the right fit for the job – employees who have the right talents, skills and experience – they connect to customers and drive results. This makes the sourcing and selection process both more critical and more difficult.

No longer will most any employee be able to do any job. Fit matters. And to find employees who fit the role, the organization now needs a greater list of candidates to select from – to ensure the attributes needed to drive performance exist within the candidate. This focus on fit now requires a fuller pipeline of viable candidates. And one of the greatest ways to fill the talent pipeline is to use your workforce’s connections and sourcing ability.

Consider the following ways to use your workforce to identify, find and recruit A-level (the right fit) employees:

1. Clearly identify the talent profile of for each role (this should identify the talents, skills and experience needed to be effective in the role). Share this information with all employees. Now employees know the attributes needed to be effective in each role.

2. Have all employees take a talent assessment, to be better aware of their natural abilities (talents and strengths) and to become familiar with the nomenclature of talents. Having a common language of talents allows the organization to better define, discuss and understand what attributes are key for each role, and what attributes must be sourced.

3. Provide talent scout business cards to all employees; these cards have the employees’ name and “Talent Scout” as their role. Coach employees to give cards to those people they see in their normal day who exhibit the talents and attitudes needed in company roles. Invite these people to find out more about the company. This starts to fill the talent pipeline so that when openings do happen, the organization has already started to source good fit candidates.

4. Have employees talk about open company roles to their (social and professional) networks.

No longer can management be solely responsible for sourcing all talent. Employees see and talk to (talented) people all day. They are connected to personal and professional networks. Be sure they know what attributes encourage great “fit” in each role and send them out to the world to scout for (the right) talent.