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Eight Steps to Making Talent Management Work

Many organisations talk about the importance of their ‘talent’ and the need to manage their talent effectively but how many organisations truly know what to do and practice what they preach? For example, many managers feel that all they need to do is to find and recruit a few ‘high flyers’ and the future of the business will be safe in their hands. But is it a good strategy to just let them get on with it in the vain hope that everything will turn out ok? Clearly not, if you really want your most talented staff to stay committed to your organisation and add real long term value to it, then you need to nurture them, their careers and expectations.

So what should you do as an employer? Hopefully the following steps will help you to make the most off your talent.

1) Talent management needs to be a Board agenda item. The Board should have a view of the future, how the market and organisation will evolve and therefore what types of skills, behaviours and people the business will need in the future. It is important to recognise that no matter how good your talent may be now, they will need to learn and develop and ‘move with the times’ as well.

2) Set up a process to identify the leaders of tomorrow. Lay out the key criteria that the business needs in the future (see 1 above), and develop mechanisms to measure and assess them. Use the process to identify the potential leaders of the organisation in the next 5, 10 and 15 years.

3) Once you have identified your talent, make sure that they know that they have been ‘earmarked’ as such. In this way you can both continually check each others expectations and aspirations. At single 28 year old aspiring manager may be willing to travel the world, but by the time they are 37 and have a young family, their priorities may have changed.

4) Ensure that your talent knows what it is they are executed to learn and develop. Don’t just focus on their weaknesses but think about what is it that will add the greatest value to their performance and careers.

5) Don’t assume that management training and development programmes are the only answer to all your talent development needs. Ask yourself - would development activities will they benefit most from, for example - coaching, project work, or perhaps a secondment?

6) Provide both ‘on and off the job’ opportunities for your talent to flourish. Can they lead a local community or charity project? Generally people will raise their performance to what is being requested of them. Wherever possible encourage them to step outside their comfort zone, to try something new, in this way you will find out their true capability and potential.

7) Encourage your talent to take responsibility for their own careers by providing opportunities for self direction and self learning.

8) Provide your talent with experienced mentors who can act as a focal point for advice and guidance.

Finally, it is important to remember that ultimately the competitive edge of your business and its long term success resides with the abilities of your future key managers and leaders. Surely the nurturing and development of your talent is far too an important business issue to be left to chance?