Talent Management
Talent management can be defined as activities and processes that involve the systematic identification of key positions, which differentially contribute to the organisation’s sustainable competitive advantage, the development of a talent pool of high potential and high performing incumbents to fill these roles, and the development of a differentiated human resource architecture to facilitate filling these positions with competent incumbents and to ensure their continued commitment to the organisation.
BIOSS SA’s typical approach to Talent Management involves the following 6 steps:
Step 1: Determine what type of talent is required
The first step in the talent management process is to ensure that an organisation becomes aware of the type of talent they require to reach their organisational goals. Thus, strategic planning, both from a broad organisational and strategic HR perspective, is important to ensure that the talent management strategy of the organisation is in line with its long-term business strategy. Further, any effective talent management strategy will need to take forces internal to the organisation (such as the organisation’s culture, history, capabilities and business goals) and from the external environment (such as economic factors, demographic factors and political factors) into account.
Step 2: Know Which Business Skills You Will Need
Once the organisation is aware of its strategic direction, the next step is to understand which skills are required to achieve specific tasks, so that the overall goal is achieved. This is achieved by designing the appropriate organisational structure including the ideal levels for the organisation, as well as ensuring that clear and coherent job profiles are implemented.
Step 3: Get the Right People
At this point in the Talent Management process, the organisation will be aware of what its unique structure is comprised of and what talent and human capital gaps exist. At this time it is critical to source the correct type of human talent to fill these gaps, through several channels including associating with various recruitment agencies. Furthermore, the organisation can become more marketable to the target talent pool through developing and refining its unique Employee Value Proposition.
The organisation must ensure it selects the most appropriate individuals and places them correctly within the organisation, team and job role. This is achieved through:
- Selection (i.e. Assessment; competency-based interviewing; assessment centres).
- Person-job fit.
Step 4: Monitor Your Performance
Once suitable candidates have been placed within organisational positions, the Performance Management process begins, whereby the organisation monitors the performance of its staff, reinforcing and rewarding satisfactory and exceptional performance and correcting performance which will not allow the organisation to meet its goals. This can be achieved through the design of a comprehensive yet simple performance management system, that links each employee’s job performance to the broad goals and strategies of the organisation through a balanced score card.
Step 5: Know Whom to Retain
The next step of the talent management process is to ensure the organisation retains key talented individuals, their skills and their collective institutional knowledge, as this provides the organisation with a sustainable competitive advantage. However, in order for this process to be effective, the organisation will need to ensure these individuals are provided with developmental opportunities and career paths to keep them motivated.
This can be achieved through:
- Personal development plans (PDP’s).
- Designing a comprehensive succession management process which provides unique opportunities for different categories of employees.
Step 6: Become Flexible to Change
Finally, since modern organisations are faced with current global work trends, the nature of work is constantly changing. Some of the main changes that have occurred in the modern workplace are that work today is more often than not completed by interdependent teams (rather than individuals), globalisation and technology have increased the pace and complexity of work and demands on organisations and individuals change constantly. This means that flexibility and adaptability to turbulent circumstances have become crucial to an organisation’s ability to compete and to sustain its competitive advantage in the economy.
Some interventions at this stage include:
- Outcomes-based Team Building.
- Team Development.
- Conflict Resolution.
- Change Management.
- Culture Change.
BIOSS South Africa can help you with talent management, all you need to do is get in touch with us as soon as possible.