Er… what is Talent Management exactly?

Talent management is a concept that has been around for a while particularly in response to the ‘war for talent’. But what is it exactly?

Talent management is hard to define as the processes and what it involves can vary from organization to organization. For instance, research conducted by the Institute for Corporate Productivity asserts that more than 75 per cent of the companies they surveyed don’t have an agreed-upon definition of talent management (Galagan. 2008).

They do however go as far to state that ‘talent management concerns competencies- what employees should know and be able to do- and performance processes- how to leverage those competencies by putting them in the right parts of the organization, and then measuring their impact on real goals’ (Galagan. 2008). For this reason it is important to have processes which encapsulate talent management at each touch point for employees from recruitment to employee engagement strategies.

This means talent management strategies should be based around recruitment, leadership development, culture, succession planning, performance management, brand or the employee value proposition, learning, career development, remuneration, and employee engagement (Gilmore, 2008; Galagan, 2008; Ready, Hill, and Conger. 2008).

Linda Sharkey who is the Vice President of people development at HP summarizes talent management as ‘about having people at the top of their game and who are able to drive the performance of the company (Gilmore. 2008). More simply it’s about ‘getting the right people in the right place at the right time for the right cost’ (Galagan. 2008).

How does your organization define talent management and what strategies are you putting in place to retain your talent in the GFC?

FL!P Peter Sheahan speaks about mindset flexibility at AHRI National Conference

Peter Sheahan

How do you stay ahead in a world where ‘fast, good, and cheap’ are just the price of entry for your clients, customers and staff? What is the X factor you need to differentiate your offering – and what will it be tomorrow? How will HR add the most value to business in this market and what will HR need to do in order to be seen as a genuine partner and not just a consultant, or worse, a support function to the wider business?
This session was a must for leaders who want to stay on the cutting edge and future-proof their business. It outlines how the world is changing, and what the mindset of the business leader needs to be to adapt to that change. HR professionals and senior executives will be inspired and informed, and be ready to blitz the challenges that lie before them.

Peter was a highly engaging and interesting speaker, and this was important as he was towards the end of Day Two of the AHRI National Convention. He started out by telling us that the number one skill needed by Senior Leaders was what he called ‘Mindset flexibility’.

‘Mindset flexibility, not proprietary expertise or resources will define the successful businesses and leaders of the future’.

Mindset flexibility is about ‘flipping’ the norms or what we have been complacent with, and being challenged. In times of high-speed change and complexity, a new philosophy for strategy and leadership is needed. Peter argues that the real money is made in the cracks and that we are conditioned by past experiences (choosing to stick with the way its always been done) and being conned by media into believing that success or failure is a result of the economic conditions.

The biggest take out for me from this presentation was when he used the “Values Jam” from IBM as an example of flipping the way HR does things.

In a time of great change, IBM felt like it needed to revaluate its values for the first time since it was founded. They said they needed to “affirm IBM’s reason for being, what sets the company apart and what should drive our actions as individual IBMers.”

The CEO did want this dictated from the top and wanted everyone engaged in the process. So they created the “values jam”. For 72 hours they invited all 319, 000 IBMers to their global intranet for a discussion on the values at IBM.

The CEO said that people were brutally honest and that “some of what they wrote was painful to read, because they pointed out all the bureaucratic and dysfunctional things that get in the way of serving clients, working as a team or implementing new ideas.”

The result was:
• Dedication to every client’s success
• Innovation that matters, for our company and for the world
• Trust and personal responsibility in all relationships

What an amazing organizational change experience to be part of. So go ahead and get yourself FL!Pped today!

Communication Strategies and Organisational Change

Previously I’ve spoken about organisational change, change management and emotional intelligence which are all timely issues right now. In addition to these areas, I like to highlight the importance of the communications strategy in managing organisational change.

Covin and Kilman’s (1990) research note that:

‘Failure to share information or to inform people adequately of what changes are necessary and why they are necessary were viewed as having a highly negative impact. Secrecy, dishonesty, and the failure to assess dysfunctional rumours were also issues of concern’.

Hence, a positive communication strategy would involve announcing the change early (even if incomplete); establishing an information timeline; commenting on the inability to give further information; clarifying the values and protocol for change decisions; tailoring each communication to the intended audience and finally, involving those affected by the changes in as much planning as possible (DiFonzo and Bordia. 1998).

This is a particularly key point as participation in the process can greatly assist in reducing employee resistance to change (Robbins, Waters-Marsh, Cacioppe and Millett. 1994), however full participation in the processes is not always possible due to the nature and sensitivity required by some changes (such as a restructure) and time constraints. It is also wise to use a variety of media to deliver your messages, however face-to-face should always remain the preferred medium.

Finally, it’s important from a HR standpoint to view the communication process and the implementation of organizational change as inextricably linked processes (Lewis. 1999) that must be carried out systematically in order to assist people to cope with change and achieve a positive impact upon the business.

Do you know of any good or bad examples of organisations trying to communicate change?