“Talent consists of those individuals who can make a difference to organisational performance, either through their immediate contribution or in the longer term by demonstrating the highest levels of potential” – CIPD

Talent management is selecting, training, developing, retaining, rewarding, and helping employees. One can achieve ROI by implementing talent management with strategies using a competency-based approach in terms of skills, knowledge, and behaviour, citing current and desired state.  From here one can build a record system or the so-called Talent Profile.

Build a talent strategy

1. What is the Goal
   Involve the HR team, Business Unit Heads, Managers and Executives. Answer questions about the organisation’s culture, current and desired states, such as:

• Reason for the Company’s Existence
• How the Company Behaves (Core Values)
• What the Company Wants to Become
• Strategy-KRA’s/business goals/objectives and competitive advantage
• Implementation and scorecard: how the company executes and monitors the plan

Consider:

1. Alignment to the entire organisation
2. Identify jobs/roles and skills needed to support company VMV
3. Which criteria to utilize in measuring performance (identify both high performers and underachievers)
4. Decide what the organisation should look like as this defines the desired state for performance, competitive position, and profitability.
5. Analyse how well each component is working. Document the organisation’s talent management priorities based on your goals and related talent requirements.

2. Employee competencies

Define the competencies the organisation needs:

• Core competencies: qualities and behaviours
• Leadership competencies: qualities and behaviours for supervisors, managers, and executives
• Job-specific competencies: skills, knowledge, abilities, and behaviours

Associate these competencies with specific roles and job positions. Establish the proficiency levels required for each competency to use in creating a competency profile for each job.

3. Gap analysis – how do we get there.

Conduct a skills inventory and identify gaps. The process enables organisations to identify qualified candidates for special projects or new assignments. It also allows employees to manage their careers because they can see their current and desired state.  The organisation’s performance appraisal process provides a means for collecting details on the current state of employee skills. Other tools can include:

• Self-assessments/profiles
• Annual performance appraisals
• 360-degree assessments
• Competency analysis

Other useful information can be found in an employee’s ‘talent profile’ including awards; universities attended; membership of communities and associations; current goals; interests; language skills; past goals; professional qualifications, and work history.

4. Managing Change

Employees may resist talent management processes. Introduce communication and learning experiences that can ease the ‘culture shock’ and encourage employees to embrace the new system.

Culture Assessment – Denison OCS

Assess the current culture of the company.
Translate that strategy into a system. The objective is to build a multi-year plan for taking talent management from where it is today to a fully integrated system tailored to the organisation’s unique culture and processes.

The end goal is neither the system nor the software.
The real goal of creating a talent management system lies in giving people more time, information, and the power to make a difference. The HR team and line managers have the strategic information they need to make better decisions. This encourages higher performance for the organisation and satisfaction for employees. Start from what is in place, assess whether these systems are meeting your goals and if they can be integrated and maintained with your planned talent management processes and systems. If not, you need a replacement and migration plan.

Priorities in Talent Management

1. Consider a calendar-year timeline.
2. Identify current manual processes or systems already in place and
3. Identify the ‘competency’ level of these processes or systems.

Once these are addressed the real work of developing the talent management system, strategies, tools, and actions can be deployed to produce the desired outcomes.