Digitalization offers almost endless possibilities to communicate faster, work more efficiently, and be more creative – all in real-time. But groundbreaking digital business models need pioneers: creators, forward-looking thinkers and inventors who don’t hesitate to leave the beaten path, embody ownership, and who understand how to translate customers’ wishes into superb new products, services and solutions that evolve with speed.

Getting the right talent on board can decisively accelerate a company’s digital transformation. At the same time, if your daily corporate practice doesn’t fulfill their expectations regarding a vibrant and flexible working culture and a social media-minded environment, digital natives will simply turn their back on you and go elsewhere.

As many organizations across the Middle East look to digitally transformation, how do you position your company as an attractive employer for the right talent? Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers 5 tips on how to become a magnet for digital talent.

Prepare the organization for a new beginning

One way is to eliminate rigid structures, previously the enemy to digital thinking. Digitalization involves, among others, suddenly converging areas that used to be siloed. Take industrial companies. In the past, their sales departments defined specifications according to the customer’s wishes, which were then transferred step by step into the manufacturing process. These days, it’s expected that everything should happen almost simultaneously. Previously, the top priorities for IT departments were equipping data centers with hardware, purchasing software, and further developing proprietary software. Today, companies take their server capacity and software from the cloud. These changes have to be taken into account when scanning the market for talent.

Allow freedom to create

Another way to make your company attractive for digital talent is to give them as much creative freedom as possible. Today, more and more organizations have started to empower employees who are close to their customers by creating small and agile cross-functional teams with profit and loss responsibility for their market segments. This helps to eliminate dependencies amongst business units, ease communication process and facilitate creative workspaces in the organization.

Showcase your best talent – and give them what they need

It’s important to encourage the employees you already have, provide them with resources and let them decide things themselves. They should be able to follow their ideas and feel accountable for them. Offering regular development opportunities can also help you make the most of your talent. In most cases, you won’t select a learning offer from a general training catalog, as in the pre-digital era. Development will have to be customized for each individual. That might be a course, the opportunity to lead a project, or gaining new insights by working in another part of the company.

Wanted: Employees with a mixed skill set

Another way to attract the best digital talent is to keep an eye out for applicants who bring a diverse mix of skills. Two things are crucial here. First, you need talented individuals who want to be customer-centric and who are able to cross the traditional (internal) customer and IT organizational boundaries in order to truly feel what customers want. In some cases, it could be helpful to even ‘embed’ your employees at the customer for a period of time. Secondly, it’s clear, that digital business models require experts who view data as an essential element of future value creation — regardless of the specific expertise they bring to the company.

Create room for adventure

Finally, be aware of the impact of your culture. Today’s digital talent seeks adventure and a job that gives them meaning. The more comfortable they feel in the workplace, the more willing they will be to work harder for your company’s success. And they want to be surrounded by similarly minded colleagues. Companies must ensure their culture can meet these expectations. A company can differentiate itself on culture also by taking a strong stand on issues that are of concern to their employees, and by having leadership principles that are not just on paper, but reflected within the employees every day.

Digitalization is happening fast. That shouldn’t be an excuse for taking shortcuts in recruiting. Jeff Bezos, a technology and retail entrepreneur once said: “ I’d rather interview 50 people and not hire anyone than hire the wrong person.” In the end, only a carefully planned and executed HR strategy will allow a company to achieve the digital transformation and develop it in such a way that it fulfills the company’s long-term goals.