Tapping into talent

12 May 2018

This article was featured in the June 2018 issue of the magazine.

With a ‘job for life’ consigned to the past, it’s perhaps no surprise that most employers are looking for new ways to retain their most talented professionals. But how do they develop an effective strategy and what role does technology play in doing so, asks freelance writer and editor Kavitha Sivasubramaniam

Today’s workforces are becoming increasingly transient and it is no longer sufficient to simply focus on attracting talented individuals to your company; developing, managing and retaining them as part of a planned strategy for talent is equally important.

And, as the recruitment market becomes more competitive, it’s essential that human resources (HR) departments explore the complex area of talent management if they want to hold on to their top performers.

Organisations themselves can reap the rewards of doing so too. Patrick Woodman, head of research and advocacy at the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), believes the development of talented employees can be one of the most profitable investments an employer can make. He cites figures from the UK Commission for Employment and Skills which suggest that by 2020 the UK needs 1.9 million new managers, “so it’s vital that organisations are retaining and developing talent to help fill the productivity gap and build the talent pipeline”, he says.

Woodman adds that, if done properly, talent management can add as much as 23% in business performance gains according to CMI’s 2012 report, The business benefits of management and leadership development. Therefore, it’s a must for any organisation.

In addition, according to an Evolution of work study carried out by ADP, 70% of respondents claimed to be open to leaving their job, with almost a quarter actively seeking alternative employment. Annabel Jones, HR director of ADP UK, says: “While a booming job market has benefits, it’s a huge challenge for HR in the realm of talent management.”

For this reason, in recent years the practice of talent management has become an essential focus to assist with the retention of talented individuals and not leave it to chance that they be poached by competitors. But what exactly is talent management and how can employers ensure they are doing it correctly?

...an essential focus to assist with the retention of talented individuals...

The basics

Talent management, at its most fundamental, is about “providing the extraordinary employee experience that delivers exceptional performance from workers of all types”, according to Angel Hoover, EMEA practice leader for talent management at Willis Towers Watson. As the workforce becomes more mobile, she believes this should include full-time, part-time, gig workers, outsourced employees and free agents.

Alison Weeks, HR consultant at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, describes talent management as an effective mechanism and framework to identify, develop, engage, retain and deploy individuals who are considered particularly valuable to an employer. “By managing talent strategically, organisations can build a high-performance workplace, encourage a learning organisation and add value to their branding agenda”, she says.

Optimising engagement

So why does talent management improve engagement and performance, and what effect does this have on the business overall?

“Research has proven that engaged employees deliver more through productivity; talent management is about optimising the levels of engagement across employee types. It’s a fairly simple equation that leads to stronger business performance”, says Hoover.

Employers that get this right will gain a competitive advantage, but they must develop a strategic approach to talent management that is appropriate for the business and, as a result, gets the best from their people. “Some organisations adopt an ‘exclusive’ approach, segmenting talent according to future high-potential employees”, explains Weeks, adding that “others deem the whole workforce to be talent and adopt an ‘inclusive’ approach to development, engagement, career paths, retention and deployment for all employees.”

The stages and processes

When combined with a succession planning exercise, talent management will identify business critical roles and people within the organisation. The early identification of people with potential to fill these roles, should they become vacant, will help to mitigate the risk of leaving these roles unfilled for too long, insists Weeks. “Consideration should be given to skills and knowledge required of talented people to meet future strategic plans and how individuals can be developed over the short- and long-term to close the gaps in experience”, she says.

According to Weeks, the stages of talent management should include:

understanding strategy and future business needs
identifying business critical positions
analysing the gaps, people and positions
defining capabilities
identifying internal potentially talented individuals, and
providing focused development for these individuals.

Hoover agrees that the process is about engaging the employee across the full life cycle, from the moment a candidate is sourced to the time they retire. “Talent management is about managing talent at each of the touchpoints an employee has – the candidate experience, on-boarding, developing, assessing, rewarding and growing”, she adds.

Developing a strategy

When developing a strategy, Hoover advises starting with the question: what does the organisation need to achieve from its people to achieve the business priorities? “If it’s about growth through innovation, you look at each touchpoint along the lifecycle to determine what is in place and what needs to be adjusted to enable more ‘growth through innovation’”, she says. “HR can do this brilliantly – we translate business strategy into people strategy.”

Weeks believes HR professionals have a central role to play in providing support and guidance in the design, development and implementation of a talent management strategy. “The strategy should be aligned to meet future and immediate strategic objectives but should also consider challenges in attracting, recruiting, developing and retaining talented people. Fairness and consistency must be applied to all talent management processes to encompass diversity and inclusion considerations”, she adds.

Leaders must also remember the importance of working to identify and develop talent in the first place and must carefully consider succession plans for themselves and key roles in their team. “In this way talent management is multi-faceted and something that must be carefully planned for at every stage of the employee journey”, Jones says.

To train and develop their workforce, employers are increasingly looking to initiatives such as the apprenticeship levy as a key opportunity to invest in their people. With a wide range of apprenticeships now available for people of every level, and a suite of management apprenticeships spanning from team leader to senior leaders’ masters apprenticeships, Woodman describes them as “a key route to boost productivity and fill the UK’s productivity gap”.

...must carefully consider succession plans for themselves and key roles...

Key challenges

Businesses that are keen to develop their strategies should be mindful that they may need to re-position the mind-sets of any managers involved so that they understand that talent is owned by the business, rather than individuals.

It is also vital that organisations ensure they have a clear and unified definition of what ‘potential’ means for their business. “If this isn’t clearly outlined, subjective definitions will be assumed subject to own definitions and will skew the results of any data capture”, warns Weeks.

She further believes that, with organisations adopting flatter structures, the opportunity to develop career paths vertically is in decline. Weeks adds: “The challenge is for talent practitioners to creatively construct opportunities that offer different learning capability via lateral or horizontal moves that build on knowledge and experiences across the business.”

Additionally, if your talent management strategy and programmes are not focused on outcomes such as business performance, senior leaders will have a difficult time buying into it. “As HR practitioners, we need to start using our analytical capabilities to more effectively measure what we deliver, and the return on investment that this brings to the organisation in the form of better business performance”, advises Hoover.

She further warns that programme redesigns are ‘just a fad’ if employers don’t think through the design principles and how the new design will be integrated. They must determine what end or objective needs to be achieved – so often, they just want to implement best practice.

“Well, that’s nice but how does that truly fit with what your organisation’s needs? And what is ‘best practice’? Just because one organisation is doing something, it shouldn’t mean you should do that same, exact thing”, she says. “Design your talent management programmes to deliver to a focused, disciplined objective and be sure that there is an integrated story or ‘red thread’ that ties all programmes of each touchpoint together. Otherwise, it’s just a set of programmes you have and the opportunity to influence engagement and retention become less clear and a lot less effective.”

The role of technology

In an ideal world you would have a multi-faceted and integrated talent management system driven by the business plan, goals and strategies, according to Weeks. “The system should be able to draw on HR processes such as recruiting, on-boarding, remuneration packages, job grading and performance management which tracks the talent pipeline skill and leadership training and development with timely and meaningful metrics and analytics. The key here is to spend time designing a system that incorporates all HR practices and incorporates change management”, she explains.

Hoover believes employees need to have an experience at work similar to their experience outside of work. She advises employers to think about how they would do things at home, as they are designing their programmes. “Would you ask Siri, Google or Alexa for help with simple things? Would you use a mobile app to purchase your office supplies like you do your groceries? It’s disengaging when employees come to work and find their experience far less digital and ‘easy’ than they do at home. Consider that as an important design principle when you are considering technology”, she says.

In addition, Woodman warns that although technology has widened the accessibility of digital learning resources to develop managers, according to CMI’s Learning to lead research in 2015, only 68% of organisations actually provide their managers with access to digital learning resources for self-directed learning.

Hoover believes it’s about developing the employee experience across the range of workers who will come in and out of an organisation. It’s no longer just about engaging those traditional employees – they will still be there – but employers will continue to have other types of employees they need to attract, engage and retain through their extraordinary employee experience. “It will take a different kind of thinking; and already has, given that 35% of the workforce in mature economies are already contract or free agents”, she says. “It’s exciting to know we need to crack new puzzles in the short-term and that our enabling technologies like artificial intelligence will also change the way we work.”

...businesses that embrace these solutions will enhance their company brand...

Long-term gain

Tackling talent management is unique to every company and industry, and Jones believes that more than anything it is about knowing your organisation and understanding what truly motivates your employees. “Appraisals and ongoing training are some of the most important ways to achieve this, although it is not enough to make a token offer. For example, supporting employees to choose the correct training courses or investing time in designing a high-quality appraisal process will improve employees’ engagement and help to retain top talent. It is a worthwhile investment and one that every company should be looking to make as talent management continues to become more important”, she explains.

Technology has enabled the customisation of talent management, and personalisation is widely recognised to boost engagement. Therefore, businesses that embrace these solutions will enhance their company brand and become employers of choice for today’s top performers. “A tailored talent management system benefits the whole organisation in engaging employees, supporting high performance, enhancing corporate image and helping the organisation to become an employer of choice, as well as contributing to diversity management and reducing recruitment costs”, says Woodman.

The rapid speed of change and globalisation is affecting all of our organisations to a greater or lesser extent, according to Weeks. “It is vital that organisations not only respond to current talent challenges but actively anticipate future challenges and opportunities and develop pipelines of talent for the future”, she concludes.

Indeed, it is clear that employers with long-term talent management strategies today will be the ones that will reap the rewards tomorrow, and beyond.