Talent management has always been a priority issue in human resource management given that it focuses on the most critical resources of every organisation.
Having worked in the people and organisational development business for more than 20 years, I personally agree that talent management and talent development should be one of the main areas every top-level manager, decision-maker and HR practitioner should pay attention to.
On the one hand, one of the major reasons to emphasise talent is that it is a great way to expand the HR function into a broader discussion about what is next for the organisation and what the business strategy should be. In other words, positioning the HR function and talent management to contribute to the overall effectiveness and financial performance of the company is the best way for the HR function to add value to the organisation.
On the other hand, when many organisations are now doing much more complex work and operating globally, talent has become increasingly vital since the performance of key people has a direct impact on the bottom line and drives organisational competitive advantage.
This article is certainly not the first time that I have mentioned how important talent management is, yet still I find that many organisations neglect this particular subject by thinking that they can live without top talent. Others believe talent management is significant but not as important as finance or technology. The most disturbing scenario, however, is that many executives are unable to see the relationship between talent issues and the business strategy of their organisation.
Given all these reasons, I’d like to sum up the four most vital keys to the success of talent management as follows.
Define your Talent Objectives
Initially, a good talent management programme starts with a very clear talent objective: why are you doing it and what do you want to get out of it in the long run?
In reality, many organisations implement talent management programmes as a sudden reaction to a few incidents, such as rapid staff turnover or the frustration of top management that they are not getting right workforce skills. As a result, such programmes may not yield a high investment payoff and eventually will result in the dilution of their value over time.
To elaborate, only when an organisation has a clear talent objective will it then be able to define precisely its targeted talents, including the number of people needed to drive organisational growth as well as the appropriate plan for managing the overall programme to meet the desired outcomes.
It is necessary to highlight that organisations need to design and define the talent pipeline according to their specific business needs and business direction. If they merely define what they think they need by intuition, they might end up acquiring more talent than they actually need.
Planning Your Talent Programme
The next step is to identify potential talent. During this stage, it is important for executives to be able to distinguish between real talent and high performers within organisations to be able to clarify whether they need to outsource certain critical talents in order to move the entire company forward.
However, as stated earlier, one of the most common myths in talent management is the struggle to define and distinguish “talent” and “high performers”.
Talent usually means employees who not only perform well in their current roles but also demonstrate strong potential to grow and extend their skills to unfamiliar job responsibilities. High performers, on the other hand, are those who consistently perform well in their given roles but may have limited potential to be stretched to work in unfamiliar roles or with greater responsibilities.
Although many studies show that talent can create a much greater impact on longer-term strategic values, the high performers — sometimes known as workhorses — do contribute greatly to the company’s current business success. Therefore, planning a talent programme shouldn’t neglect this fact, and the organisation needs to find ways to keep this group of employees motivated so that they can continue delivering the desired value.
Furthermore, when planning the talent management programme, it is essential to articulate crucial leadership requirements by evaluating and assessing the existing capabilities, and then trying to fill in the capability gaps to ensure future success.
These are the first two vital steps in performing talent management. They are the significant stepping stones for the next two steps, which I will elaborate on in next week’s article.
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Arinya Talerngsri is Group Managing Director at APMGroup, Thailand’s leading Organisational and People Development Consultancy. For more information, write an e-mail to arinya_t@apm.co.th or visit www.apm.co.th