FEATURE INSIGHT
Performance and talent management
Jeanette Hibbert, payroll and shared services consultant of Neonblaze Consulting, discusses this complex but vital part of an organisation’s strategy
T alent management is important is business and never more so than now, if a business is going to tap into its key resource – it’s people, in order to succeed. In The CEO’s guide to talent management (‘the paper’; http://goo.gl/ buvi4y), Audrey B. Smith PhD, Richard S. Wellins PhD and Matthew J. Paese PhD (‘Smith et al’) state that talent management has never been more of a concern than it is now; however, rushing into initiatives is not the solution. Anyone involved in creating a solution must think like a chief executive officer (CEO) or board of a company. Understanding the strategic drivers of an organisation is essential. Smith et al’s approach (see http://goo.gl/2E8nij) focuses on four areas: ● the business landscape ● the talent required to succeed ● the game plan, and ● sustaining execution of the plan. Whilst some businesses can not tell you exactly what their talent management is, one example used in the paper is a CEO who, although he doesn’t have a strict plan, attributes the growth of his business to his exceptional people – but perhaps more telling is the fact that he spends more than half his time on talent management. The paper goes on to say that much feedback from the human resources (HR) community is that CEOs
still see it as an afterthought and not essential in terms of how it affects the CEO’s plans for the business and their role in making it happen. The paper defines talent management as: “the recruitment, development, promotion, and retention of people, planned and executed in line with your organization’s current and future business goals”. The purpose? To close the gap between the human capital a business has today and the leadership challenge it will need for tomorrow. The paper states that the leadership of tomorrow needs to be mobile, adaptable, culturally aware and technologically enabled. The research undertaken suggests there is a significant shift in the amount of time spent on talent-related activities and that a company with a strong learning culture, greater HR capabilities and worthiness (good employer, good seller and good steward) had greater success, with a shift in the value of intangible assets moving from 38% to 80% in one generation. Smith et al list eight things that CEOs struggle with in terms of talent management: ● What you say and do matters more
than you realise. You have to lead and champion your team with ongoing dialog that drives unity and focus on current and future business needs. ● Talent strategy doesn’t automatically support your business goals. Base your talent strategy on what are likely to be your future business needs. Work to build consensus about how to mobilise the energy of the organisation in a common direction and clarify accountabilities. ● Talent management isn’t just succession planning. Balance the focus on ‘critical’ positions and key players – which is often what succession management is about – with broader strategies to support leadership transitions at every level: from individual contributor to leader, to leader of leaders. ● Your eye for talent isn’t that good. CEOs don’t get enough opportunity to get to know and work with their people as they once did. ● Potential isn’t everything. Performance, potential and readiness are not the same thing. ● Belief that a talent strategy exists, when it doesn’t. Mapping high-potential individuals to specific roles is succession planning; talent management is about
...leadership of tomorrow needs to be mobile, adaptable, culturally aware and technologically enabled
| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward | September 2016 | Issue 23 50
Made with FlippingBook - Online magazine maker