Talent Management

The meaning of talent management

Talented people possess special gifts, abilities and aptitudes which enable them to perform effectively. As defined by the CIPD (2007), Talent consists of those individuals who can make a difference to organizational performance, either through their immediate contribution or in the longer term by demonstrating the highest levels of potential. Talent management is the process of identifying, developing, recruiting, retaining and deploying those talented people.

The term ‘talent management’ may refer simply to management succession planning and management development activities, although this notion does not really add anything to these familiar processes except a new, although admittedly quite evocative, name. It is better to regard talent management as a more comprehensive and integrated bundle of activities, the aim of which is to secure the flow of talent in an organization, bearing in mind that talent is a major corporate resource.

However, there are different views about what talent management means (Michaels et al., 2001).   Michaels (2001) identified five imperatives that companies need to act on if they are going to win the war for managerial talent; these are as follows.

Five imperatives for talent management (Michaels, 2001)

1. Creating a winning employee value proposition that will make your company uniquely attractive to talent.

2. Moving beyond recruiting hype to build a long-term recruiting strategy.

3. Using job experience, coaching and mentoring to cultivate the potential in managers.

4. Strengthening your talent pool by investing in A players, developing B players and acting decisively on C players.

5. Central to this approach is a pervasive mindset a deep conviction shared by leaders throughout
the company that competitive advantage comes from having better talent at all levels.

The McKinsey prescription has often been misinterpreted to mean that talent management is only about obtaining, identifying and nurturing high flyers, ignoring the point they made that competitive advantage comes from having better talent at all levels.

The process of talent management

Talent management takes the form of a ‘bundle’ of interrelated processes, as shown in Figure 01

Figure 01 The elements of talent management

Talent management starts with the business strategy and what it signifies in terms of the talented people required by the organization. Ultimately, the aim is to develop and maintain a pool of talented people. This is sometimes described as the ‘talent management pipe line’. Its elements are described below.

The resourcing strategy

The business plan provides the basis for human resource planning, which defines human capital requirements and leads to attraction and retention policies and programs for internal resourcing (identifying talented people within the organization and developing and promoting them).

Attraction and retention policies and programs

These policies and programs describe the approach to ensuring that the organization both gets and keeps the talent it needs. Attraction policies lead to programs for external resourcing (recruitment and selection of people from outside the organization). Retention policies are designed to ensure that people remain as committed members of the organization. The outcome of these policies is a talent flow that creates and maintains the talent pool.

Talent audit

A talent audit identifies those with potential and provides the basis for career planning and development ensuring that talented people have the sequence of experience supplemented by coaching and learning programs that will fi t them to carry out more demanding roles in the future. Talent audits can also be used to indicate the possible danger of talented people leaving (risk analysis) and what action may need to be taken to retain them.

Role design

Talent management is concerned with the roles people carry out. This involves role design ensuring that roles provide the responsibility, challenge and autonomy required to create role engagement and motivation. It also means taking steps to ensure that people have the opportunity and are given the encouragement to learn and develop in their roles. Talent management policies focus on role flexibility giving people the chance to develop their roles by making better and extended use of their talents.

Talent relationship management

Talent relationship management is the process of building effective relationships with people in their roles. It is concerned generally with creating a great place to work, but in particular it is about treating individual employees fairly, recognizing their value, giving them a voice and providing opportunities for growth. The aim is to achieve ‘talent engagement’, ensuring that people are committed to their work and the organization.  Sears (2003) points out, it is “better to build an existing relationship rather than try to create a new one when someone leaves.”

Performance management

Performance management processes provide a means of building relationships with people, identifying talent and potential, planning learning and development activities, and making the most of the talent possessed by the organization. Line managers can be asked to carry out separate ‘risk analyses’ for any key staff to assess the likelihood of their leaving. Properly carried out, performance management is a means of increasing the engagement and motivation of people by providing positive feedback and recognition. This is part of a total reward system.

Learning and development

Learning and development policies and programs are essential components in the process of talent management ensuring that people acquire and enhance the skills and competencies they need. Policies should be formulated by reference to ‘employee success profiles’, which are described in terms of competencies and define the qualities that need to be developed. Employee success profiles can be incorporated in role profiles.

Management succession planning

Management succession planning takes place to ensure that, as far as possible, the organization has the managers it requires to meet future business needs.

Career management

Career management is concerned with the provision of opportunities for people to develop their abilities and their careers in order to ensure that the organization has the flow of talent it needs and to satisfy their own aspirations.

Developing a talent management strategy

A talent management strategy consists of a view on how the processes described above should mesh together with an overall objective to acquire and nurture talent wherever it is and wherever it is needed by using a number of interdependent policies and practices. Talent management is the notion of ‘bundling’ in action. The strategy covers the following aims.

The aims of talent management

·         Define who the talent management program should cover.

·         Define what is meant by talent in terms of competencies and potential.

·         Define the future talent requirements of the organization.

·         Develop the organization as an ‘employer of choice’ a ‘great place to work’.

·         Use selection and recruitment procedures that ensure that good quality people are recruited who are likely to thrive in the organization and stay with it for a reasonable length of time (but not necessarily for life).

·         Design jobs and develop roles that give people opportunities to apply and grow  their skills and provide them with autonomy, interest and challenge.

·         Provide talented staff with opportunities for career development and growth.

·         Create a working environment in which work processes and facilities enable rewarding (in the broadest sense) jobs and roles to be designed and developed.

·         Provide scope for achieving a reasonable balance between working in the organization and life outside work.

·         Develop a positive psychological contract.

·         Develop the leadership qualities of line managers.

·         Recognize those with talent by rewarding excellence, enterprise and achievement.

·         Conduct talent audits that identify those with potential and those who might leave the organization.

·         Introduce management succession planning procedures that identify the talent available to meet future requirements and indicate what management development activities are required.

Management succession planning

Management succession planning is the process of assessing and auditing the talent in the organization in order to answer three fundamental questions. First, are there enough potential successors available – a supply of people coming through who can take key roles in the longer term? Second, are they good enough? Third, have they the right skills and competencies for the future? At different stages in their careers, potential successors may be ranked in order, such as,  

1. Being ready to do the next job now,
2. Being ready for a certain higher-grade position in, say, two years’ time,
3. Being ready for job rotation at the same level, and
4. Being ready for lateral assignments on temporary relief or project work.

Succession planning is based on the information about managers gleaned from supply and demand forecasts, talent audits and performance and potential reviews. In some large organizations in which demand and supply forecasts can be made accurately, highly formalized succession planning processes exist based on the sort of management succession schedule illustrated in Figure 02.

MANAGEMENT SUCCESSION SCHEDULE

Figure 02 Management succession schedule

References

(CIPD, 2007) Talent Management Fact Sheet, CIPD, London

(Michaels: Handfield: Jones; Axelrod, 2001) The War for Talent, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA

(Sears, 2003) Successful Talent Strategies, American Management Association, New York