Integrated Talent Management- A comprehensive approach to driving organizational performance.

“Talent Management” – a term you can probably find scrawled across 90% of the whiteboards adorning our walls in HR today.  Curiously, “Talent Management” means different things to different people and the range of meaning is vast.   Some label their applicant tracking systems as “talent management” while others, utilize talent management as an umbrella term covering an array of initiatives within HR.  Depending on your organization’s definition, talent management will either be an important key to your company’s success or it will be a catchy term for your next PowerPoint presentation.  If talent management truly is a strategic charter for your organization, then you need to be concerned with deploying a superior talent management strategy.  Obtaining superior results rests on having a superior plan.  A superior talent management initiative is one in which the various components are integrated.

Defining Talent Management

Labor, Personnel, Employees, Human Resources, Human Capital, Associates, Workforce- these are all terms that have been used to designate the people that work at our companies.  Today, more and more people are replacing these monikers with “talent.”  This reflects the changes we’ve seen in the marketplace.  People are more educated than ever before, there are more specialty/niche job positions than ever before, and the marketplace is more competitive than ever before.  Add to that the fact that we are about to undergo the much discussed labor shortage as the baby boomers exit the workplace and it is easy to understand why we have replaced traditional descriptors with “talent.”  We focus not on hiring for the open position but on hiring the right person for the position.  Organizations are comprised of people and in order to win in the marketplace, we need the best people available- we need the best talent.

Ultimately, we hire people, or “talent”, not out of altruism but out of a need to drive organizational performance.  This, I believe, is the key to Talent Management.  I define Talent Management as:

the activities associated with attracting, hiring, training, developing, and managing an organization’s people for the purposes of maximizing organizational performance

It isn’t enough just to hire great people or to develop great people.  With great people and lousy results, you still have a lousy company.  Results are king.  Obtaining desired results rests on aligning and integrating the key components of talent management.

Talent Management Components

As noted, talent management centers on the activities employed to maximize performance for the organization.  When defining what talent management is and what isn’t, this definition serves as the litmus test.   Simply put, if an activity is core to driving human performance, it likely falls under talent management.  If it isn’t core to driving performance, it is not talent management.  In my opinion, the core components of talent management include:

• Strategic Workforce Planning
• Total Talent Acquisition
• Employee Development
• Performance Management
• Succession Planning

Strategic Workforce Planning

This is the first stage in talent management and addresses the question, “What are the needs and goals of our organization?”  As Stephen Covey reminded us, effective people begin with the end in mind.  This holds true for talent management.  Organizations must first determine their desired end results.  For example, an organization may aim to increase sales by 7%.  This goal should cascade down to the appropriate departments and people so that it can be achieved.  Increasing sales will require the accomplishment of key tasks by many people in the organization.  Production, Marketing, Sales, and Customer Service all must have goals aligned with achieving an overall increase in sales of 7%.  During strategic workforce planning, the organization determines the “talent gap” and seeks to close that gap via talent management.

Undoubtedly, during strategic workforce planning, the organization will find that it needs key people to accomplish key tasks.  Those people may or may not be within the organization.  Regardless, the next step is total talent acquisition.  Importantly, these steps must be integrated.  A superior talent management program links the planning stage to the talent acquisition stage.

Total Talent Acquisition

Most have heard of talent acquisition and many associate it with the use of an applicant tracking system targeted at hiring full time people.  This is typically managed by Human Resources.  However, effective talent management comes from focusing on total talent acquisition- and integrating it.  There are various pools of talent available to companies and organizations.  Examples of talent pools include:

• Internal Employees
• External candidates for full time positions
• Contingent workers
• Offshore labor
• Project and statement of work based labor

Unique is the organization that holds an expanded view of talent and incorporates the various sources of talent.  Total talent acquisition recognizes that anyone doing work for the organization should be considered talent and thus, is incorporated (at least to some degree) in talent management.  Integration within this component is crucial.  Today, most organizations fail to address total talent acquisition from a comprehensive perspective.  HR typically owns the full time labor force while various departments such as IT may own the variable workforce associated with their success.  Organizations’ failure to integrate the strategy, sourcing, and evaluation efforts of all the talent pools leads to great inefficiencies and lost opportunities to maximize performance.  Superior talent management looks at all talent pools and seeks to leverage advantages of each group for the greater good of the organization.

Once the organization acquires needed talent, it must ensure that it is poised for success.  The next stage in talent management is employee development.

Employee Development

This stage addresses the question, “will our people be prepared and able to deliver the results we expect?”  Integrating employee development with total talent acquisition provides an obvious benefit.  Organizations must understand each person’s ability as it relates to the core competencies identified in strategic workforce planning.  Personal profiles and resumes contain much of the information that needs to be considered in employee development.  Garnering data from the talent acquisition enables the organization to focus on a tailored development plan for each employee, thus increasing the probability of success. 

Obviously, employee development isn’t simply a stage that happens and then ends.  Rather, it continues but it is important that it starts after talent acquisition.  There are various sub-components that should also be integrated with each other.  How do organizations get their people “up to speed?”  They do it by setting up activities and tasks that will promote acclimation to the culture and job at hand.  Developmental activities occur.  On-boarding is an excellent example.  On-boarding is not, as many would have us believe, the initiation of workflow and tasks to ensure people receive benefits, work stations, assets, etc.  On-boarding is the process of getting “talent” to the point where contributions are meaningful and sustainable.  Orientation, training, eLearning, mentoring, etc. are examples on-boarding components.  Once we’ve effectively determined that our people know what is expected of them and we have helped develop them so they can be successful, we need to hold them accountable for results and manage performance.

Performance Management

Performance Management answers the question, “is the person getting the results we need?”  Linking employee development activities and goals to performance management makes sense.  But today, many organizations are conducting their 360 feedback surveys and performance reviews in a manual manner.  They are not leveraging the technology that exists today that ties these relevant components together.  Many view performance management as a necessary evil or an event that HR forces upon them.  Motivating managers to conduct performance management in a thoughtful and deliberate manner is crucial.  Performance management ensures the organizational goals are met and it promotes meaningful communication which in turn, promotes retention and high morale. 

Unfortunately, many organizations have performance management policies and procedures in place but they are loosely followed by those responsible for administering them.  Getting managers and users to adopt performance management can be a crippling challenge.  However, superior talent management initiatives increase usage and adoption by employing technology that makes the process easier and integrates to the various activities and tasks that comprise performance management or appraisal process.

With strong performance management, companies/organizations greatly increase the odds of achieving corporate goals and objectives.  If done properly, success is all but guaranteed.  However, talent management is not complete.  Savvy organizations think ahead and prepare for the challenges of tomorrow.

Succession Planning

The last stage of talent management is succession planning.  Every organization has key people and key positions that are important to the success of the company and achievement of its goals.  Simply achieving goals isn’t enough.  Being prepared for the next wave of talent challenges is also important.  There are plenty of organizations that fail to address succession planning.  Of those that do, their process is often informal and managed by gut feel.  Serious talent management advocates proactively identify key people in the organization and develop a plan to manage key people and key positions.  Having the discipline to do this can be difficult.  However, employing a technology solution can facilitate this process and will mitigate obstacles.  Again, having a system that links the other components vastly increases organizational commitment to succession planning and streamlines the process.

Managing a great talent management program will optimize organizational performance.  But simply having a talent management plan or installing talent management software isn’t enough.  The winners in the war for talent will be those that invest time to clearly define a talent management strategy and process for all of the components discussed.  Winners will look beyond political boundaries within the organization and collaborate for the good of the organization vs. the department.  This, in most cases, will not occur until the C-level commits to superior talent management and removes obstacles for success.  Organizations must look at talent management holistically vs. departmentally.  Talent Management must be part of the culture vs. an HR program.  Companies and organizations that adopt this perspective and implement a talent management software suite that integrates the key components will be few and far between.  They will also be light years ahead of those in the market competing for talent.