Talent management encompasses your organization’s entire talent lifecycle. It integrates elements from a number of key HR processes, including human resource management, performance management, talent development, and talent acquisition.
When human resources teams have a strong talent management strategy in place, it provides a long-term outlook on what skill sets and competencies the organization will need in the future and keeps organizations aligned to a talent strategy that will help them reach their strategic objectives.
Talent management is a structured approach to workforce planning — but it’s not a monolithic process, and it doesn’t just involve the HR department. As your organization scales and matures, the market shifts, and new business priorities come to the fore, your talent priorities will naturally shift alongside them. As such, constant re-evaluation and measurement are key to adjusting your talent management strategy as you grow.
As we approach ‘The Fourth Industrial Revolution’, this technological transformation will not just displace millions of jobs, but will also open new jobs that demand more human skills, like creativity, imagination, and social intelligence.
Who is in charge of Talent Management at a company?
Everyone is. While HR roles are responsible for designing career paths and organizing training programs, a Talent Management strategy requires company-wide participation. Team leaders should identify high-potential employees and address their training needs. Also, upper management should promote a learning culture throughout the company. Then, it’s the Talent Management team’s job (consisting of HR Generalists and Training Coordinators) to develop employees.
What’s the difference between Talent Acquisition and Talent Management?
First comes Talent Acquisition, and then comes Talent Management. Talent Acquisition is about hiring candidates with the right skills and potential to evolve at your company. Talent Management is what follows after a candidate is hired. It involves training and developing current employees, keeping them satisfied and engaged, and preparing them to take on more challenging responsibilities.
What’s more important: Talent Management or Talent Acquisition?
You can’t have one without the other. Talent Acquisition is the process of attracting and hiring qualified people. Talent Management is how you develop and retain these skilled hires. If you attract and hire good employees but don’t invest in their development, you won’t be able to retain them or unleash their potential. Alternatively, if you want to create a training culture and build successful career paths, you need to start by recruiting skilled hires who are eager to learn and grow. So, it’s best to use both Talent Management and Talent Acquisition techniques in your HR strategy to hire and develop your employees.
Developing TMS
For an effective talent management strategy, organizations need to take the idea of talent management forward, paving the way for the personal development of the talent and its long-term association with the organization.
Developing TMS includes taking talent-friendly and strategic initiatives like:
Making talent a pillar of business strategy, not an afterthought
While deploying TMS, organizations must focus on talent creating business value. By aligning online talent assessment strategy to business strategy, organizations can acquire and develop TMS that reflects its bottom line. Focusing on talent while developing a business strategy will motivate and support talent with an effective infrastructure. Developing TMS which focuses on mobility allows talent’s aspirations to be considered while discussing business decisions. This is a strategic step, as a study by PWC says that 80% of millennials want to work abroad.
Converting business goals into talent goals
Management often views growth in terms of abstract objectives. Deploying TMS factors in the human element with respect to business goals. Organizations need to consider goals as a dimension of talent. Overall business goals and individual aspirations must be mapped in such a way that the talent hears them in the same breath.
Anticipating future hurdles and nipping them in the bud
Developing TMS comes with its challenges. However, if stumbling blocks are identified in advance, it will be much easier to create an effective talent management strategy. This may mean, for instance, that the organization might have to alter its benefits package to attract a certain age group, or look outside its geographical area if the talent pool there is limited. Alternatively, an organization might anticipate and create a culture shift, in case the current preference is towards hiring new talent instead of promoting from within. Taking the bull by the horns, rather than allowing the challenge to affect the organization, can be one of the best outcomes of deploying TMS.
Culture leading the talent management strategy
Talent management strategy must account for the fact that the culture of the organization may shift during change. The strategy needs to appreciate how pertinent organizational culture is to the sustainability of an organization. Developing TMS to help talent understand the organization’s prospects on the change and highlight the opportunities for the talent that may exist as a result of change within the organization.
Talent management initiatives
Developing TMS includes taking talent management initiatives to identify the vacant position, hiring suitable talent, developing the skills and expertise of the talent to match the position, and retaining the talent to achieve long-term business objectives. Initiatives like recognition, job rotation, on-the-job training, e-learning programs, work-related tutorials, educational courses, internships, succession planning, and flexibility are part of developing successful talent management assessment tools.
Strengthening employer brand with content marketing
One of the keys to developing TMS is sharing your organization’s knowledge to attract talent. Each employee of the organization has a unique area of expertise. Finding ways of sharing their expertise in a variety of places, whether it’s writing a short article to share online, tweeting shareable wisdom, or answering questions on Quora.
Gone are the days when talent management was seen as a collection of transactions or services at an administrative level that, more often than not, failed to provide a competitive advantage to organizations. This function was called workforce management. The contemporary view of talent management in Mercer | Mettl is a function that needs to have an employee experience at its heart – a networked, customizable system for individuals, built around the employee’s relationship with their organization.
