Table of Contents
Why An Integrated Talent Management Approach is Important Today… 2
An integrated approach versus a Just in Time Approach 4
Issues Impacting Talent Management Strategies in Organizations 5
How Talent Management Strategies Vary in Other Companies 8
Business Impact When Organizations Implement an Integrated Approach to Talent Management 10
What are the Components of a Talent Management Strategy 11
Developing a Talent Management Strategy 12
Identify the People Development Strategy and Succession Planning 13
Creating A Strategic Plan for Integrated Talent Management 13
How to Develop a Mission Statement 14
Define the Strategic Plan Leveraging the Mission, Vision, Values, and Goals 17
Sample Talent Management Strategy 18
Talent Management Strategy Linked to Key Organizational Priorities: 20
Integration of Talent Management Solutions With One Another 22
What Makes Integration So Hard? 24
Is Your Organization Ready for Change? 28
Assessing Where Your Is Organization Now? Tips for Data Gathering 31
A Tool For All Seasons: SWOT Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) 32
Suggested Reading 33
Learning Objectives
• Recognize an integrated approach versus a non-integrated approach to Talent Management
• Identify how to create a talent management strategy
• Develop a strategic plan linked to organization goals
• Overcome obstacles to change
• Assess your organizations readiness to change
Why An Integrated Talent Management Approach is Important Today…
The attraction and retention of talent is even more important in the current economic envi-ronment than it has been at any time in the past.”
Organizations are placing an even greater focus on Talent Management
A positive effect of the wider economic uncertainty is a move by some to place even greater impor-tance on Talent Management strategies. Many believe this will push them ahead of their competitors when the economy recovers and are holding on to a long-term view of the benefits a strategic ap-proach can bring to their business:
Talent Management is not something a well-run company can ignore because the consequences of not being prepared to replace key personnel will have a major impact on an organization’s ability to achieve its goals and strategic targets.
Linked to Strategic Plan
The TM planning process needs to be considered as part of the company’s strategic planning process because it deals with projecting future changes by anticipating management vacancies and then de-termining how to meet these challenges.
In its simplest form Talent Management is nothing more than getting managers in a company to use a systemic process to determine the current training and development requirements of their employees.
Talent Management Errors
The biggest errors made regarding strategic planning efforts:
• Not tying Talent Management to the Strategic Plan
• Lack of Senior Leadership Support
• Lack of adequate resources
• Not holding managers & leaders accountable
• Not sharing the data with employees – you run the risk of losing promising employees if they don’t feel the company has a plan for their development
An integrated Approach versus a Just in Time Approach
An integrated approach to Talent Management involves looking at a systemic approach. This is why Talent Management must link to the strategic plan and designed to achieve the goals of the organization. A coordinated effort between HR and senior leaders must ensure that talent management planning is an integral part of the performance management process and participants and managers held accountable for results.
Finally, don’t make the mistake of thinking Talent Management is only concerned with “Succession Planning”, it’s much broader and takes into consideration all aspects workforce planning and develop-ment. The key to success is attracting and retaining High Potentials.
It’s the role of every manager to help their promising subordinates develop their fullest potential by con-tinually challenging them and increasing their leadership competencies.
Example: Miami Children’s Hospital – ranked # 3 in 2012 by Training Magazine for best practices in Talent Management – Talent Management cycle is aligned with the Strategic business planning cycle. Talent Management has a seat at the C-suite table.
Activity:
What is your Talent Management Process? Are you integrated or just in time?
• What is working?
• What’s not working?
• What would you like to change?
Five questions to ask:
• What are the most pressing Talent Management needs?
• How are these needs being met?
• What is the impact?
• How are the efforts to build the leadership pipeline being evaluated?
Issues Impacting Talent Management Strategies in Organizations
Restricted pay increases
A number of organizations have restricted or frozen pay increases altogether as a result of the down-turn. Respondents also spoke of the delay or postponement of salary reviews and the fact that this and poor pay increases were likely to have a negative impact upon their recruitment and retention efforts:
“Across the business we have restricted pay increases and some staff have not had a pay in-crease.”
“We are having to be very cautious about cost-of-living pay awards in light of the current economic challenges.”
“Reward has, sadly, become a case of “be glad you have a job” and the smallest reward possible taken as the more pragmatic route. This is a high-risk strategy by the leadership team as the envi-ronment indicates the high potential to lose key players.”
Bonus reductions/freezes
Similarly, several organizations are reducing or freezing bonuses. Others have postponed new reward systems or have reworked old approaches:
“Year-end bonus scheme reduced and middle managers bonus negotiated to a lower rate.”
“Potential new bonus systems curbed/stalled.”
“Change to how bonus system works for retail employees and no bonus for head office or senior managers.”
Rewarding top performers
Some organizations are ensuring that top performers are not negatively affected when it comes to re-ward and are differentiating pay accordingly:
“We have taken measures to ensure that our best performing staff have incentives to stay with the business and enhance their performance.”
“Promotions accelerated to further retain talent.”
“As the bonus pool may be reduced this year we will see a differentiation of the spend (for example, high-performing people will be extremely well rewarded and those who have made little contribution are likely to get nothing – previously they may have got something).”
Performance-based pay
Some organizations are implementing performance-based pay systems in light of harder times. A number of respondents emphasized that their new performance-based pay systems were closely aligned to business performance. One respondent however suggested that as a result of the economic backdrop they had moved away from performance-related pay.
“About to implement performance-based pay.”
“More focus on discriminating on good performance.”
“Looking to introduce a new, more cost effective performance-based reward scheme aimed to en-courage the “right” behaviors.”
Greater support in spotting and developing talent and engaging and motivating employees in a downturn.
While 51% feel that managers are equipped to some extent, only 6% suggest managers are equipped to a great extent and 13% feel they are not at all equipped. Line managers within manu-facturing and production and private services are more likely to be better equipped to tackle the challenges of managing talent in a downturn than those in the public and not-for-profit sectors*.
Those respondents who work for smaller organizations (500 or fewer) are also more positive about line managers” capability (61% to a great extent or some extent).
A greater emphasis on leadership and management development
Many respondents talked about the introduction of a variety of management and leadership develop-ment interventions to properly equip managers. While some spoke in general terms – “launching lea-dership and management development programs” – respondents also referred to specific training and development around particular themes.
Extra and targeted support provided by HR
A number of respondents referred to the extra support HR is personally providing to line managers, particularly through the role of the HR business partner. This support related to a number of areas, in-cluding:
• dedicated support during a downsize
• advice on talent and performance management and employee relations
• increased communication and information
• HR reorganization to improve support.
Coaching and Mentoring
Coaching and mentoring was frequently mentioned as a more personal approach to developing line managers. This included coaching and mentoring line managers on a one-to-one basis and training managers to act as coaches to their teams.
“Coaching is being introduced as part of our managing change program and this will give support in this area.”
“Line managers are being provided with advice and guidance on being a coach and/or mentor. For those line managers that suggest improvements to the scheme or share lessons, there is a bonus award scheme.”
“Coaching line managers has been an effective way rather than general training. Depending on their business line, they have different challenges and one of them has been managing in a global environment. When working on team-building sessions where they work with their staff to redefine their vision and objectives has proven to be very effective.”
A Greater Emphasis on Communication and Open Discussion
Finally, organizations are also increasingly being honest with managers about the current economic climate and its affect on the business and encouraging managers to have discussions and open com-munications with employees on this topic:
“Company-wide discussions, led by MD and board – consistent message.”
“Our organization’s culture means that we maintain a positive focus and identify opportunities in any given situation; we encourage clients to do the same. The focus is on “what can we gain from this experience?” “rather than “what are we losing?”
Our research suggests that Talent Management becomes more, not less, important in an economic downturn. This is supported by other recent studies (see References). We are still in the early days of the downturn and we need to take care that the threat of a “war on talent” does not progress from a phony war to a real war.
Discussion Question:
Which of these issues does your organization face?
Business Impact When Organizations Implement an Integrated Approach to Talent Management
According to the 2010, Bersin & Associates Talent Management Factbook, companies with strategy-driven integrated talent management functions have significant advantages over their siloed counter-parts:
• 26% higher revenue per employee
• 28% less likely to have downsized during 2008 and 2009
• 40% lower turnover among high performers
• 17% lower overall voluntary turnover
• 87% greater ability to “hire the best people”
• 56% greater ability to “develop the best leaders”
• 92% greater ability to “respond to changing economic conditions”
• 44% greater ability to “plan for future workforce needs”
Characteristics of an Integrated Talent Management Strategy
An integrated talent management function has several distinguishing characteristics:
• Talent Strategy and Workforce Plan Are Tied to Corporate Strategy: An integrated function is meant to help the business meet the human capital needs of the corporate strategy. As a result, an explicit talent strategy and workforce plan are key to ensuring that talent manage-ment activities are aligned with the business. Workforce planning also allows an integrated function to rapidly adjust to changing business needs.
• Talent Management Processes Are Aligned to the Talent Strategy: The talent strategy and workforce plan should drive all talent management activities. In an integrated function, the tal-ent strategy and workforce plan are the puppet-master, and the talent management processes are the marionettes.
• Talent Management Processes Share Inputs and Outputs: This is a crucial piece of breaking down the siloes of talent management to encourage data sharing: Often, Succession Planning is not sharing bench successors with Talent Acquisition; Workforce Planning is not sharing scenario-based hiring needs with Talent Acquisition, Learning & Development, and Succession Planning; Talent Acquisition is not sharing hiring evaluations with Learning & Development.
• Competency Model as a Common Language: Each talent management process performs evaluations of talent. A consistent competency model ensures that each process can share that evaluative data with other processes by ensuring that those evaluations are using a common language. If talent acquisition is using a different competency model than Learning & Development, the value of hiring evaluations in the development planning process is greatly reduced.
• Technology Enablement for Talent Management: In some cases, the sharing of data across processes in Talent Management can be achieved without technology support, through cross-functional participation in meetings, or paper and email communication. However, technology support is critical to ensure these interfaces are scalable as a company grows.
• Change Management as a Foundation: The journey to integrated talent management is trans-formational, not incremental. A detailed and pervasive change management effort is absolute-ly essential to ensure that your business is able to follow your lead on that journey.
Creating a Strategic Plan for Integrated Talent Management
Connecting the Organizational Vision and Mission to Talent Management
There are several reasons why an integrated Talent Management strategy requires an organization to have an established an organizational vision and mission.
• High performers prefer to have a bigger picture to tie their efforts to.
• Talent Management practices should address business goals. It is much harder to have mea-ningful business goals without an established vision and mission.
• Visions should be “inspiring,” tie to values and build on the employee brand. Branding, On-boarding, Development, Engagement, and Retention are all important concepts in Talent Man-agement.
How to Establish an Organizational Vision
A vision is a picture of a preferred future state, a description of what you would like it to be some years from now. The vision provides the context for designing and managing the changes that will be necessary to reach those goals.
While vision directs us toward the future, it is experienced in the present. One of the key characte-ristics of a high performance organization and team is that they have a clear picture of what they are trying to create together.
To create a meaningful vision statement, prepare yourself and your participating team mentally:
• Allow yourselves to be in a relaxed state, where there is no pressure.
• Focus on what really matters to you/them.
• Focus on what you want to create, not how to make it happen.
• Avoid focus on today’s problems and what isn’t working.
Then, discuss these questions:
• If we could be what we wanted in five years, what would we be?
• How would we know we are there?
• What kind of organization do we want to be?
• What do we really want to do or create?
• What would be worth committing to over the next 1-5 years?
Discussion Question
The above section, “Prepare yourself and your team mentally,” makes it sound like everyone is about to start meditating.
But what would happen if you didn’t do this step?
How to Develop a Mission Statement
This is the core purpose for which a person, team, or organization is created. Summarize it in a clear, short, inspiring statement.
Defining a mission is essentially a creative process. In most organizations, it is not much different from strategy. A strategy is a commercial concept that will enable organizations to outperform the competition and can only be developed creatively, even inspirationally. Mission is the same, often a combination of strategy and values with very few rules on how it should be done. The challenge is to create a mission that will shape the organization for many years.
How you define the mission of your business determines the way that you structure your business. At the core of an organization is its purpose or mission. The mission provides the guiding direction for developing strategy, defining critical success factors, searching out key opportunities, making resource allocation choices and pleasing customers or stakeholders.
The mission is the synthesis of what the customers see as your business, what the employees in your group see as your business, what your products and services should be, who your customers are and what value you bring to them. It also includes what the larger environment sees as your purpose and what work you actually do.
Your mission statement should:
• Distinguish your business from others, making clear what is unique and/or special.
• Tell, from the customer’s perspective, what you offer.
• Be a guiding tool for the employees, and help them make decisions and know what course of action to take.
Exercise
Answer the questions below for what is Talent Management in your organization as you see it:
What business is your or-ganization in?
Who are your customers?
What is the added value your customers receive?
What is unique about what your organization does?
How does your organiza-tion make your customers’ lives better?
What contribution does your organization make to society as a whole?
Follow-up questions:
What would your talent management vision statement look like?
What is the purpose of your Talent Management Group?
Discussion Questions
What is the difference between a “vision” and a “mission?”
Which should be created first? A vision statement or a mission statement?
Exercise
Simply react to the following vision statements and mission statements. Are they good? Clear? Mo-tivational? Helpful? How might they be improved?
Statement
Your Reaction
Be the best XYZ fulfillment house we can be.
Be known as the most enjoyable restaurant in town.
Have a market share of 25%, as measured by the ABC survey of dollars spent on movies.
Provide customer service that is noticeably better than that of our competitors.
Be viewed by the community as the first choice in utility providers.
Enable local patrons to be able to go to anyplace in the city without having to drive their own cars.
Provide capabilities to customers so that anyone who uses our services never again initiates contact with a competitor.
Enable everyone to have a front yard that matches their wildest dreams.
Define the Talent Management Strategy Leveraging the Vision and Mission
Develop a TM Strategy
• Assess readiness of the organization – See assessment, pg. 22
• Identify gaps
• Brainstorm actions
• Identify key priorities
• Determine specific goals to measure success
• Define how the process is integrated
• Select a task force committee
• Gain buy-in from Senior Management
Conduct an environmental scan
• Analyze workforce trends
• Conduct a SWOT
• Assess the organizations current and future talent needs
Gap Analysis
• Compare current talent to future needs
• Identify gaps and surpluses
Gap Closing Strategy
• Develop a plan to close the gap between the supply and demand
• Monitor and evaluate progress and results
Sample Talent Management Strategy
This example outlines the purpose of the program, the desired results, and how the initiative will be car-ried out.
Purpose:
To ensure retention, engagement, new hires, and replacements for key job incumbents in executive, management, technical, and professional positions in the organization. This policy covers all aspects of Talent Management above in [name of organization].
Desired Results:
The desired results of the Talent Management program are to:
• Identify high-potential employees capable of rapid advancement to positions of higher re-sponsibility than those they presently occupy.
• Ensure the systematic and long-term development of individuals to replace key job incum-bents as the need arises due to deaths, disabilities, retirements, and other unexpected losses.
• Provide a continuous flow of talented people to meet the organization’s management needs.
• Meet the organization’s need to exercise social responsibility by providing for the advance-ment of protected labor groups inside the organization.
Procedures
The Talent Management Program will be carried out as follows:
1. In January of each year, the management development director will arrange a meeting with the CEO to review results from the previous year’s planning efforts and to plan for the present year’s process.
2. In February top managers will attend a meeting coordinated by the management development direc-tor in which:
A. The CEO will emphasize the importance of Talent Management and review the previous year’s results.
B. The management development director will distribute forms and establish due dates for their completion and return.
C. The management development director will review the results of a computerized analysis to pinpoint areas of the organization in which predictable turnover, resulting from re-tirements or other changes, will lead to special needs for management talent.
D. The results of a computerized analysis will be reviewed to demonstrate how successful the organization has been in attracting protected labor groups into high-level positions and to plot strategies for improving affirmative action practices.
3. In April the forms will be completed and returned to the MD director. If necessary, a follow-up meet-ing will be held.
4. Throughout the year, the management development director will periodically visit top managers to review progress in developing identified high potentials and successors throughout their areas of re-sponsibility.
5. As need arises, the database will be accessed as a source of possible successors in the organization.
Source: William J. Rothwell and H. C. Kazanas, Building In-House Leadership and Management Development Programs (Westport, Conn.: Quorum Books, 1999), p. 131. Used with permission.)
Talent Management Strategy Linked to Key Organizational Priorities:
What Does That Mean?
Most Talent Management executives and vendors can cite big business results from certain Talent Management interventions. That might justify their purchases, and they are probably good business decisions.
But that doesn’t mean they align with the organization’s bigger picture. What might such an align-ment look like?
• If an organization’s information in largely in people’s heads, so that turnover would be a problem, it should embrace retention efforts, especially among its knowledge workers.
• If an organization is in growth mode, it would do well to have tools and/or training to help hiring managers conduct good interviews.
• If an organization is planning not for the next 3 years but for the next 30 years, it should invest in succession management program design.
• If an organization is very flat and decentralized, so that upward mobility is unlikely, it should have individual development planning tools and training.
• If an organization is trying to expand into new countries, it should consider diversity training, even for workers who will not be interacting directly with people in those markets. For example, the marketing team, who might never set foot in the new countries, should learn to understand and appreciate the local ways.
• Research by IBM and the Human Capital Institute shows that:
– Knowledge-intensive industries, such as telecommunications and professional services, which focus heavily on the intellectual capital delivered by their people, focus on motivating and developing talent at the individual level, as well as enabling people to network with one another. This is likely useful both from a retention point of view and an innovation point of view, in that it cultivates sharing of ideas and information.
– Financial industries focus more on attracting talent and identifying high potential talent and having programs to retain them. The researchers suggest that the financial industry is driven more by individual contribution mentality, as opposed to teamwork, and compensation is viewed as a more important driver. They feel that selecting and retaining is more important than idea sharing and teamwork in an individual contribution environment.
– Retailers are more likely to deliver a variety of solutions, largely because of the high percen-tage of employees who come into direct contact with customers.
Talent Management Strategy Exercise
Identify one of your organization’s key goals, strategies, or its mission or vi-sion statement:
How has it adjusted its hiring practices to reflect that? How else could it adjust its hiring practices to reflect that?
How do its employee development pro-grams reflect that? How else could it adjust its development programs to re-flect that?
How can it add or adjust other Talent Management initiatives or programs to reflect that? You can use the table sev-eral pages back for guidance.
Conceptual Examples:
– “Since innovation is a critical differentiator for us, we’ve identified that as a core skill for all jobs, and all candidates must answer questions about innovating.”
– “Because customizing our solutions to very specific client needs is at the heart of what we do, our project teams interact very closely with our clients. So, we train all employees in all depart-ments in customer service.”
– “We want our customers to perceive us, accurately, as knowing what’s going on in the market-place. So, we sponsor a lot of conferences and networking opportunities for our customer-facing people.”
Integration of Talent Management Solutions
Not only should Talent Management components reflect organizational strategy, goals, mission, etc., but they should often reflect one another. An organization that has many well-thought-through Talent Management components (selection processes, regular surveys, individual development plans, succession management, etc.) is better off than one who has fewer such programs. But at the same time, an organization that has these programs integrated is better off than one that does not. For example:
• Ideally, a performance evaluation system would link to a learning system, so that people who want to develop in certain areas can have ready access to a list of development guides and re-sources to choose from. While software makes this easier, it is not a requirement.
• If a company has established competencies, it can and should build these into selection tools, performance review tools, and assessment tools. The same competency model would ideally be used for all applications.
• Companies that have good Talent Management tools (for example, regular surveys) ideally should have good training for managers to use those tools.
• What else?
1) ________________________________________________________________________
2) ________________________________________________________________________
3) ________________________________________________________________________
4) ________________________________________________________________________
Research by the Aberdeen group shows that integration of Talent Management is a fairly young undertaking overall, and suggests that most of the time, it only involves integrating two or three dis-parate elements.
Discussion Question
Please provide an example of how your organization ensured
alignment / integration / linkage of two or more Talent Management practices.
Gaining Buy-in and Alignment
Start with the
big picture
Make sure you understand the big picture. Let the big picture drive your action steps and your communications.
Identify the stakehold-ers Create a multi-functional advisory committee. Anticipate problems by learning stakeholder concerns.
Plan for constraints Identify time constraints and resource constraints. Don’t over-commit. How big is your staff? What are their other priorities? Create a strategic plan for the project – identify the mission, vision and goals. Define the actions needed to implement the change. And make sure that the people involved know and embrace their roles.
Short Term versus Long Term For most ambitions, you must go one step at a time. Create a short-term plan and a long-term plan.
Prioritize Which jobs first? Which organizational levels first? Which functions first? Which solutions first? The most critical and real business needs should help determine priorities.
Centralize or
de-centralize While either is good, depending on the project and organization, re-member that the issues you will have to deal with along the way are different.
Get buy-In Ensure that senior leaders want it, and are willing to make it a priority for themselves and others. Ensure constructive mechanisms for dealing with people who fear or resist change.
Organizational culture Stay close to organizational culture. If the culture is flexible, don’t be too rigid. If the culture is empowering, don’t micro-manage.
Sustainability
Plan for maintenance When your implementation is over, there will probably be some type of ongoing needs. Users will have questions. Jobs will evolve. Make sure to plan some mechanism for dealing with this.
Measurement
Identify measurable outcomes and how to track the results.
Exercise:
Suppose you have been put in charge of implementing a 360 program in your marketing division. Identify at least five variables you must first think about, plan, or research.
1) ________________________________________________________________________
2) ________________________________________________________________________
3) ________________________________________________________________________
4) ________________________________________________________________________
5) ________________________________________________________________________
Diversity and Inclusion
Following are a few topics that we have discussed only briefly, if at all, in our sessions, and that need to be considered in Talent Management Integration.
• These are practices related to ensuring open-mindedness and continuous exploration of new al-ternatives.
• It is often used in the context of people, and ensuring that diverse types of people are hired, promoted, retained, etc.
• The origin in the United States was based on legal and fairness considerations, but over time, diversity has become more viewed as “the right thing to do” and a competitive advantage, based on the notion that productive employees can be found in all races, nationalities, religions, age groups, etc.
• “Inclusion” is the concept that just “having” people of different backgrounds is not a good solu-tion. Rather, involving, encouraging, empowering, and training them to the same extent as any majority groups is the major thrust, and where much of the benefits will come from.
• While relevant laws differ from country to country, the notion that minority groups can produce productive and gifted employees just like majority groups is a key point, not limited to any culture or country.
• Diversity training, diversity surveys, diversity associations, and diversity metrics are available for organizations to use and learn from.
• Ways organizations try to build diversity into everyday work include:
– Staffing teams with people from different backgrounds, to ensure diversity of thinking.
– Treating people’s differences as strengths to be applied, rather than distractions.
– Ensuring that hiring and promoting is done in a way that does not discriminate
against minorities.
Discussion Question
How is diversity and inclusion addressed in th