Blog: Is your Talent Management Approach Future Proof?

By Professor Nick Kemsley, Associate, CRF

The world has changed a lot in recent years, but have our talent management models evolved with it? Are we challenging and updating our thinking based on changes to how talent thinks and the markets in which it is available, or are we just applying new coats of paint to a rather old door?

Talent strategies need to be rooted in business need, not just now but into a future which we cannot know with certainty. They must segment in order to generate laser-like focus on critical skills segments and become increasingly tailored to match the preferences of an increasingly consumerised talent population wanting to interact with work in an ever more diverse manner.

But more and more they need to address a growing gap between the way that organisations look at talent, and the way that talent thinks about organisations. Nowhere is this clearer to understand than in the perception of the word “career”. To talent, this increasingly means a set of varied work experiences, perhaps across many employers and sectors – a collection of different elements of a work/life jigsaw assembled and curated over time. The implication of this is that “employment” becomes less about a lengthy career with one organisation, and more about an exchange of mutual value for as long as it makes sense. Career thinking will often span organisations.

Organisational definitions of “career” however, most often have at their heart an underlying assumption of “the time you spend with us”. This not only breeds approaches which require longer tenure in order to “break even”, but also misses a key component – that of thinking about how we can equip talent to realise its longer term journey, whether or not that is with us.

Retaining talent within organisations has become an obsession, but is it a realistic objective, or even a positive outcome, in today’s talent ecosystem? We worry about loss of knowledge and additional recruitment costs as a result of people leaving, but in truth aren’t these just proxies for a lack of strategic workforce strategies which mean that we rely too heavily on external recruitment rather than internal career-pathing, and our continuing failure to transfer knowledge from key individuals to the wider organisation?

How would we do things differently if we knew our best people were only staying for two years? How can we lessen our dependency on reactive external recruitment? How can we become more mindful in developing more sustainable talent sourcing strategies? And how can we challenge ourselves to evolve and challenge the assumptions on which are talent processes are built?

If you want to enhance your ability to analyse the business relevance of your talent approaches and the degree to which they are aligned with, rather than moving away from, the changing needs of talent; then the Integrated Talent Management Programme is for you. Come and be challenged. Come and share thoughts and debate with your fellow peers. Leave with new ideas and a more joined-up and future-fit perspective on your organisation’s approach to talent