The expression “war for talent” was coined in 1997 by Steven Hankin, to convey how hard it was for the employers of the most advanced economies to attract and retain talented individuals by reason of labour markets stiff competition.
Talent management emerged thus as a crucial component of HR strategy and practices, increasingly attracting HR professionals attention. Developing Talent Management practices, nevertheless, does by no means entail formulating on paper “nice to have” policies, just to show CEOs that the company’s HR practices are up to date and in line with those of the largest corporations. Do not having crystal clear the whys and wherefores of the talent management practices introduced into an organization, would just take employers nowhere and jeopardize the significant strategic role played by HR.
The ultimate purpose of Talent Management is enable employers to invariably have the right people, in the right place, at the right time to effectually pursue their strategy and withstand the challenges posed by the ever-changing external environment.
Talent Management should not be hence perceived by Managers and, worse still, CEOs as a “yet another HR thing,” but rather as a tangible, effective HR strategic contribution to the attainment of organizational success. As such, Talent Management should help to make, rather than break the strategic role played by HR.
The practical implications of wisely and accurately designed Talent Management practices should essentially be twofold:
- Ensure organizations can bank on a strong succession plan, enabling employers to constantly be in a position to replace key role holders in case of their departure;
- Make certain employees gain the skills, competencies and expertise not necessarily crucial to lead in the present, which will be indispensable to lead, and create and maintain competitive advantage in the future.
These objectives can essentially be regarded as the two sides of the same coin. Their simultaneous, combined attainment would enable employers to bank on the right people, in the right place, at the right time, despite the disruptive influence relentlessly exerted by the external environment, taking heed of the likely future developments.
The distinctive feature of this comprehensive approach is extend Talent Management focus of attention and interest to the external environment, as opposed to limit it to the internal context only.
Consistent Talent Management practices implementation should enable employers to be constantly ready to replace key role holders leaving the organization with skilled, talented individuals, both in leadership and technical roles. At the same time, employers should unremittingly investigate future market trends, the external environment, technological advances and future of work studies to analyse and assess the influence change occurring in the exogenous environment may have on their business.
The timely identification and monitoring of these factors, and an accurate risk assessment of the impact these may have on their organization, would certainly put employers in a position not only to identify the new roles and skills the business may need, at any given time in the future, but also to anticipate and drive change and adapt its business strategy accordingly. Employers should proactively come up with new solutions and introduce change, rather than wait and reactively being suddenly forced to accelerate, to desperately try and catch up with change.
It can be argued that, to effectively help employers attain competitive edge, Talent Management practices should be developed in combination with environmental (e.g. PESTLE) and risk analyses.
HR initiatives should be tightly connected with, not disconnected from the external context reality and business strategy, and Talent Management makes no exception. Yet HR Professionals should never lose sight of the objectives they aim at attaining through the actions and initiatives they propose.
Talent Management practices should be developed duly taking into consideration:
- Internal environment needs, succession plan and role mapping;
- External environment ever-changing circumstances and developments;
- Company-specific business strategy;
- Corporate culture.
HR Professionals can develop effective, consistent,
comprehensive Talent Management practices if and only if it is crystal clear to
them their company business strategy, how Talent Management can effectually and
practically help attain it, and the impact external pressures may make on their
organization strategic human capital planning.
To avert this list of ingredients to show to be a recipe for disaster, rather than for success, an additional ingredient should be indeed necessarily added. People the business is keen and eager to devolve power and responsibility should first and foremost be those who, better and more than anyone else within the business, behave and do things strictly adhering to the organization values, norms and beliefs. Talent Management practices should thus be developed within the organization corporate culture framework.
Future leaders should naturally, spontaneously promote corporate culture and play the role of its strongest advocates. Their daily behaviour and actions, rather than their words, should be promptly identified by employees as a clear expression of corporate culture and easily associated with it.
Like every HR initiative, Talent Management should not be regarded as a per se, standalone programme, but as a significant component of a bundle of initiatives supporting one another so as to create a synergic, multiplicative effect. Talent Management is indeed used in combination with development opportunities enabling employees to join different teams, at times in different countries. These individuals may be regarded in many ways like company ambassadors and models for the other employees, as such, their contribution to promote corporate culture, genuinely expressing it with their actions and behaviour, is of paramount importance.
Talent Management programmes should be clearly tailored to each organization distinctive features and peculiarities. Slavishly introducing programmes developed by other companies, just because these have worked well under certain circumstances, is highly unlikely to produce the same exceptional results under different circumstances and hence in other organizations: different people, different culture, different strategy and different circumstances. Organizations are different one another so that despite the ingredients of the recipe may apparently seem to be the same, the recipe varies from business to business.
The objectives employers aim at attaining on the other hand are unchanged, to wit: successfully pursue organizational strategy, achieve sustainable competitive edge and secure a future to their organization and people. Achieving these objectives nevertheless is increasingly proving to be a herculean task for employers.
Once formulated, practises also need to be properly, consistently executed. Practices and policies development is indeed sorely vain if not followed by appropriate implementation. Are not indeed rare the cases in which the same practices have worked well in some branches of a company and have ended in a dismal failure in other branches of the same company, under similar circumstances, due to implementation.
As usual, Line Managers play a crucial role in the execution of an organization practices. Rather than believing that Talent Management and other HR activities are “just another HR thing,” Line Managers should think over the fact that the real challenge is not completing a given task by the end of the day or of the week. The real challenge is developing and scheduling, in time, a plan of action securing them and their team significant tasks to complete also for the years and decades to come.
It clearly depends on HR; to gain credibility and the management genuine commitment to Talent Management programmes, HR Professionals need to gain management trust. They should show to be well acquainted with their organization strategy and challenges, be genuinely able to understand how HR can help the business factually achieve its objectives and take the time to discuss with managers the benefits of Talent Management initiatives, which sometimes may not be immediately obvious to the managers who are struggling with their daily duties, projects and management tasks.
Longo, R., (2020), The Whys and Wherefores of Talent Management; Luxembourg: HR Professionals, [online].
