What Is Talent Management

Talent management is an increasingly critical function of HR departments and encompasses all the HR system, process and practices that relate to developing and retaining employees. Tangentially, strong management – along with employee development, recognition, empowerment and involvement – attracts better talent than working without a thoughtful people management program, so these efforts help with recruiting efforts. Often bearing different names like Human Capital Management, talent management focuses heavily on the manager’s role during the life-cycle of each employee’s career with the company. Everything that a company does to recruit, develop, reward and promote people in-house is part of the process. In fact, human capital management software, or HCM, is rapidly replacing traditional HR Software and HRIS.
 

Performance Appraisals

 
These appraisals provide many advantages to both companies and employees. Supervisors can evaluate workers’ abilities, review compensation, investigate the reasons behind performance and guide people to greater accomplishments. Typical reviews identify strengths and weaknesses, assess potential for growth, provide feedback and recommend better work habits.
 

Crafting Succession Strategies

 
Companies must plan for succession or deal with prolonged periods of recruitment and training to cover positions when people leave, retire, get sick or sustain injuries. The jobs that require the greatest skills are best filled by people who already work for the company because they’re usually reliable, loyal and familiar with the company’s culture. Lesser positions are more readily filled from outside the company, younger workers and entry-level employees.
 

The 9-Box Grid

 
The Nine-box grid is a brilliant and commonly employed assessment tool in performance management that managers can use to evaluate the talent pool based on two critical factors. Performance and potential are the most common benchmarks, but other characteristics can also be used. This matrix has a horizontal and vertical axis, and performance usually occupies the horizontal area of the grid while each employee’s potential is plotted on the vertical axis. The tool is especially useful during performance management reviews, career assessments, compensation decisions, cross-training development, succession planning and ensuring that the company has a sufficient pool of qualified talent for each of its business objectives.

For example, workers who perform well in all situations and adapt easily to new responsibilities occupy the premier, or number 1, box. The defining characteristics of the three levels for performance might be ‘outstanding,’ ‘effective’ and ‘subpar.’ For potential, the classifications might be ‘resourceful team player,’ ‘works well in new situations when properly motivated’ or ‘has trouble adapting.’ Staff members in box 9 might be candidates for reassignment, transfer or termination.
 

Business Benefits Of Talent Management

 
Top companies automate their talent managing processes not only to improve their reputations and retain valuable staff members but also to generate cash savings across many company departments. Talent loss is expensive. According to one report, 78 percent of U.S. and U.K. organisations experience severe retention challenges, which compares to 67 percent worldwide. A company with 2,000 workers loses about $2 million annually in preventable staff turnover, and companies without a talent management program waste an average of 24 days or more annually managing underperformers. Other key benefits of managing talent proactively go beyond cost savings and include:

• More ways to reinforce your company’s core values
• Ability to align staffing activities with corporate business strategies such as building a multilingual workforce for global expansion
• Building a high-performance company culture where everyone understands that his or her work will be closely monitored and reviewed
• Enabling pay-for-performance incentives
• Creating clear paths to succession for key company job positions
• Allowing companies to manage collaborative projects and outsourced business partnerships
• Maintaining an active directory of outside consultants, part-time workers, independent contractors and SaaS application providers

Data Supports The Strongest People Management Policies

 
Most companies use software tools to manage their talent programs more effectively. In one survey, 75 percent of hiring managers stated that they used tracking or recruiting software. Software-as-a-Service, or SaaS, applications provide on-demand services and greater flexibility for developing talent management programs and experimenting with different techniques and technologies to find the best fit for your company’s current operating strategies.

Human Capital management not only gets better performances from available employees but also delivers solid business benefits such as succession planning and creating organised plans for in-house advancement. Without a focused strategy and the proper technological tools, your business wastes time, money and resources. In fact, companies might realise less than half of potential income per employee if they don’t invest in performance assessments. Best practices for talent management in forward-thinking companies include setting up bespoke TM departments under the auspices of HR to meet the performance and advancement needs of their invaluable human resources.