Despite challenging economic conditions, companies are still finding it difficult to attract and retain the right talent. That’s one of the takeaways from the most recent U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report, which showed that job vacancies still remain above 10 million as of November 2022. We’ve confirmed that trend in our own work: Last August, when we surveyed 800 senior business leaders, more than 95% of them told us that hiring and retaining talent was one of their top three priorities as they strive to deliver on their strategies. However, those needs are not constrained to the short-term: More than two-thirds of the leaders we surveyed reported that filling positions for lower and higher wage workers is critical for their organization’s ability to compete, both in the next 12 to 18 months and in the next three to five years.

But business leaders are doing very little that’s innovative to tackle the talent challenge. When it comes to higher-wage workers, they’re relying primarily on two basic strategies: increasing compensation (a fairly obvious approach) and implementing remote/hybrid work models (an unsurprising approach, given the effects of Covid-19). They’re doing even less for lower-wage workers: In our survey, fewer than half of respondents reported using even basic levers, such as health care benefits and compensation increases, to attract and retain lower-wage workers.

Much of this is due to a lack of awareness of innovative talent practices. Many of the leaders we surveyed simply did not know what other options were available to them. This, they recognized, was a problem: Less than 20% of them reported their organizations had very mature talent strategies.

So how can you enable more talent innovation and measure its impact? Based on our survey findings, organizations need to use a more expansive portfolio of practices to strengthen their ability to recruit and retain talent. To help, we’ve identified nearly 40 strategies, which we’ve organized into seven categories that either strengthen the hiring process or help enhance a company’s offer. Some of these practices are familiar but underutilized, and others are newer and more innovative.