What is the secret of attracting and retaining talented people within our organisations? Is it all about money, kudos - do these factors guarantee to attract the brightest and the best?

Rosabeth Moss Kanter, author and keynote speaker at the CIPD annual Cconference hit out at human resources' apparent obsession with recruiting talented people. She said: "HR Professionals should focus on creating the right environment for everyone's talent to flourish."

"What troubles me is this search for the perfect people and the idea that we should get only the best. It's a wonderful message, but what you need most is the right organisational culture."

Further research into Moss Kanters' book Confidence: How Winning Streaks and Losing Streaks Begin and End, suggests that truly successful organisations encourage their people to become the best by engendering confidence through three key ingredients: accountability, collaboration and initiative. This approach stimulates confidence among the workforce and ultimately among the customers and investors. Engendering confidence drives people to make more effort and gets ordinary people to perform miracles.

In brief, her theory is that people do generally seek feedback and self-improvement. They want to share information and take on responsibility. Given the right environment, they communicate more often and make higher quality decisions. They set high aspirations and respect each other for meeting high standards. Collaboration, working in teams, giving everyone a chance to excel, creates a culture that boosts confidence and morale, motivating people to take initiative. People like to feel that what they do matters, that they can make a difference.

As employers, recognising and developing our own talent and creating the culture to enable them to thrive is a large part of the secret.

It's good to remind ourselves and ask exactly how we measure up. It's not always the easy option. Some feel it's easier to rule by fear - fear suffocates initiative and kills confidence.

Finally, it's important not to forget the impact of reputation and brand a company projects to the outside world - it makes a real difference to attracting top talent. But it has to be earned.

Louise Hewett

www.hewett-recruitment.co.uk