Talent Management Definition
A conscious, deliberate approach undertaken to attract, develop, and retain people with the aptitude and abilities to meet current and future organizational needs.
Talent management involves individual and organizational development in response to a changing and complex operating environment. It includes the creation and maintenance of a supportive, people-oriented organization culture.
Importance of Talent Management
Like human capital, talent management is gaining increased attention. Talent management (TM) brings together a number of important human resources (HR) and management initiatives.
Organizations that formally decide to "manage their talent" undertake a strategic analysis of their current HR processes. This is to ensure that a coordinated, performance-oriented approach is adopted.
Quite often, organizations adopting a TM approach will focus on coordinating and integrating:
- Recruitment - ensuring the right people are attracted to the organization.
- Retention - developing and implementing practices that reward and support employees.
- Employee development - ensuring continuous informal and formal learning and development.
- Leadership and "high-potential employee" development - specific development programs for existing and future leaders.
- Performance management - specific processes that nurture and support performance, including feedback/measurement.
- Workforce planning - planning for business and general changes, including the older workforce and current/future skills shortages.
- Culture - development of a positive, progressive, and high-performance "way of operating."
An important step is to identify the staff or employees (people and positions) that are critical to the organization. They do not necessarily have to be senior staff members. Many organizations lost a lot of "organizational knowledge" in the downsizing exercises of a few years ago. The impact of the loss was not immediately apparent. However, it did not take long for many companies to realize their mistake when they did not have people with the knowledge and skills to either anticipate or solve problems that arose.
The current discussions about skill shortages and the aging population are also helping organizations to focus on the talent management issue. It may not be possible to simply go out and recruit new people to meet operational needs. Many leading companies have decided to develop their own people, rather than trying to hire fully skilled workers.
In summary, every organization should be implementing talent management principles and approaches.
A conscious, deliberate approach undertaken to attract, develop, and retain people with the aptitude and abilities to meet current and future organizational needs.
Talent management involves individual and organizational development in response to a changing and complex operating environment. It includes the creation and maintenance of a supportive, people-oriented organization culture.
Importance of Talent Management
Like human capital, talent management is gaining increased attention. Talent management (TM) brings together a number of important human resources (HR) and management initiatives.
Organizations that formally decide to "manage their talent" undertake a strategic analysis of their current HR processes. This is to ensure that a coordinated, performance-oriented approach is adopted.
Quite often, organizations adopting a TM approach will focus on coordinating and integrating:
- Recruitment - ensuring the right people are attracted to the organization.
- Retention - developing and implementing practices that reward and support employees.
- Employee development - ensuring continuous informal and formal learning and development.
- Leadership and "high-potential employee" development - specific development programs for existing and future leaders.
- Performance management - specific processes that nurture and support performance, including feedback/measurement.
- Workforce planning - planning for business and general changes, including the older workforce and current/future skills shortages.
- Culture - development of a positive, progressive, and high-performance "way of operating."
An important step is to identify the staff or employees (people and positions) that are critical to the organization. They do not necessarily have to be senior staff members. Many organizations lost a lot of "organizational knowledge" in the downsizing exercises of a few years ago. The impact of the loss was not immediately apparent. However, it did not take long for many companies to realize their mistake when they did not have people with the knowledge and skills to either anticipate or solve problems that arose.
The current discussions about skill shortages and the aging population are also helping organizations to focus on the talent management issue. It may not be possible to simply go out and recruit new people to meet operational needs. Many leading companies have decided to develop their own people, rather than trying to hire fully skilled workers.
In summary, every organization should be implementing talent management principles and approaches.