The 7 Things That Define Talent Management

If you've read any of our previous blog posts you'll know that we've been using the term “Talent Management” quite a lot, but we haven't yet explained the basics of what Talent Management really is.
 

Talent Management

Talent Management is not a commonly used term outside of the human resources world, so it may be new to many of you.

In fact in some circles it's often confused with the process of managing acting talent on the stage and in the performance arts and entertainment industry, but it's also becoming more widely used to describe the overall HR strategy around people in the workplace.

 

And here's the reason to sit up and take notice of Talent Management in HR - As it's now a best practice process and is being used to gain a competitive advantage. It's also a key component of a business strategy to differentiate organizations from the competition and can be directly used to achieve desired corporate goals.

 

According to Wikipedia, Talent management refers to the anticipation of required human capital the organization needs at the time then setting a plan to meet those needs.  The field dramatically increased in popularity after McKinsey's research and subsequent book on The War for Talent.

Talent management in this context does not refer to the management of entertainers.

Talent Management is defined as the science of using strategic HR to improve business value and make it possible for companies and organisations to reach their goals.

Everything that is done to recruit, retain, develop, reward and make people perform is part of Talent Management as well as strategic workforce planning.

A Talent Management strategy needs to be linked to the business strategy to make sense. and it encompasses seven main areas of HR:

1) Recruitment and selection: Using the best processes to hire the “right” talent for your organization.

2) Performance management and coaching:  Managing the performance of your talent and providing the coaching needed to improve individual and team performance.

3) Employee development and training: Developing your employees and helping them identify their skill sets to maximize their potential.

4) Compensation, rewards and benefits: Rewarding employees with the proper structures in place to ensure they meet their financial needs.

5) Success planning and leadership development: Planning ahead for emergencies and creating new leaders.

6) Compliance, policy and procedures: Meeting corporate legal obligations and correctly handling employee relations.

 

and lastly,

 

7) Cultural and Corporate identity: Managing the desired corporate culture and making sure employees understand the vision, mission, core values and beliefs.
 

In conclusion, think of Talent Management as a strategic system and process and another component of an overall corporate strategy.

 

 

Hire Quality partners with clients to build high performance teams by recruiting and selecting new talent and by upgrading current staff through training and development. For more information go to www.hirequality.ca or call 705.734.2698



 

Talent Management is a Critical Ingredient to Achieving Excellence

Whether managing a hockey team or a manufacturing business, you need to know the value of each team member you have.

The trouble is, success in business or team sports is seldom an individual achievement.



Talent Management Increases Performance

Being successful at assisting and scoring goals, or being able to generate more profitable revenue than anyone else – as is often the case, one forward or one salesperson cannot do it alone - there is always a team behind them.

Yet, especially in business, most performance management systems are set up in a way that overemphasizes personal achievement. As a result, many companies may be encouraging the wrong people, and rewarding the wrong working behaviors, and failing to reward and benefit worthy but, less visible contributors who are active members of the team.

This isn't a new theory in management, but many businesses I meet with have not taken note - they still reward individual performance of their individual stars.  But when asked why, they say they don't want to loose them to another competitive organization who would also reward them individually. 

So I can see the problem.

What we need to do is find a way to talent manage key staff that reflects the reality of how business gets done. I met with another CEO recently and he pointed to the people around the table. “They’re all industry experts,” he said. “Absolute experts. But they’re not a team.”

Like most business leaders we work with here at Hire Quality, this CEO was frustrated by not having a high-performance, cross-functional team capable of developing real business solutions.

One of the most difficult talent management challenges today is how to make collaboration work and reward the team appropriately. Every team member needs individual skills, to be sure, but unless they work together harmoniously, the game or the sales will be lost.

The good news is that there are specific talent management methodologies available as a way of getting to the answers you need and to help you begin the process of restructuring your performance management and leadership development systems.

Talent management is a critical ingredient to achieving excellence. The ability to strategically assess the talent you have and properly manage team collaboration, is integral to meet and exceed the goals of your organization.

We can help develop, we are specialists in Talent Management and can align and integrate the appropriate talent with your specific business needs.

Our talent assessment solutions range from providing assessment and actionable feedback on current talent, to forecasting for your future needs. The process includes recommendations on sourcing, on-boarding, developing and accelerating talent, and aligning performance with your business direction.

Hire Quality partners with clients to build high performance teams by recruiting and selecting new talent and by upgrading current staff through training and development. For more information go to www.hirequality.ca or call 705.734.2698

An Ikea Job Interview

An Ikea Job Interview

Hire Slow, Fire Fast is the Best Way

Hire Quality is a boutique executive recruitment firm and we've been saying "Hire Slow, Fire Fast" to our clients for many years, so when I came across this article in Fast Company recently I had to share it with you.  The personal perspective of this article by Carrie Kerpen is interesting and good to think about as a common management challenge we're all faced with - but do you agree with this?   Here's the article ...

Authored By  -- Carrie Kerpen is the CEO of Likeable Media, a social media and word of mouth marketing firm. You can follow her on Twitter @carriekerpen or her company @likeablemedia
[Image: Flickr user Naren King]

I recently read Danny Boyce's piece in Fast Company titled, "Why Hire Slow, Fire Fast Is A Bunch of BS ." As someone who has worked both in corporate America and has launched a startup, I respectfully disagree.

I remember the first time I ever had to fire someone. She was a 55-year-old radio salesperson. I was a brand-new manager, and my boss was on maternity leave, and had asked that I let her go, as she wasn't making her quota. I was terrified, and delivered the good old "this is actually better for you in the long run" speech. Afterwards, I felt a combination of relief and nausea, and I called my business mentor, who told me--"If firing people ever feels to easy, get the heck out of the business. You've been doing it too long." I think that's true no matter how necessary the fire is--it sucks to let people go.

Of course, in the long run, firing people who aren't working out, and doing it quickly before the problems escalate, is the best thing for the company and for the person. And I'm sure that even Boyce would agree that when you have time, conducting a more extensive, elongated interview process might result in finding better talent. But what happens when you're a startup, and you are living on borrowed time, and you are so strapped for resources that you will fail if you don't have warm bodies there doing the work?

You STILL hire slow.

There was a bloodbath of firings, lost clients, and the morale of the people who were still at the company just plummeted

 

My husband Dave and I started our company Likeable Media in 2007. We did it with no outside funding; we were just two dopes with an idea that businesses needed some help understanding the impact that social media could have on their organizations. We started to grow--and grow fast. So fast, in fact, that we couldn't staff the clients that we had. We started bringing people in the door. If you had ever tweeted in your life, you were a great candidate to work at Likeable Media. Have a Facebook account? Come on board. Can you guess what happened?

There was a bloodbath. A bloodbath of firings, lost clients, and the morale of the people who were still at the company just plummeted. This was four years ago, and I still remember it like it was yesterday. We were lucky to make it out of those times alive, and we learned a lot in the process. And so, while I understand the resistance for startups to "hire slow, fire fast," I urge you to think twice before bringing in the mailman to code your next IPhone app. Here are some things that I learned while growing Likeable Media that I hope other startups find useful.

1. Your business partners have the most skin in the game. Make sure they don't mind getting dirty. Most people don't start a startup entirely on their own. Usually, there are 2-3 partners involved.

When you are choosing your partners--which is usually before you do ANYTHING else--make sure the skill sets are varied enough that you can cover the main core components of your business via your partners. Two tech guys who can't sell or market need another partner. Two marketers who are slick salespeople but don't make their own product need a developer. Choose your partners wisely and you will struggle less in hiring. Remember, partners are in this WAY more than any employee will ever be, and they'll step up when they need to.

2. Use short-term incentives to get by. I learned this from my advisory board when I literally sobbed in a meeting with them about not having enough talent to staff my growing business. Take the best employees in your business, explain the situation, and offer them cash/incentives to help. I cannot tell you how many times I have asked a staff member to take on an extra account or two while I found the perfect fit to service them. Do you know why they do it? Not out of the goodness of their hearts. It's because they know if I hire someone who stinks, they'll be fired within a month and the account will end up coming to them anyway. Stretch your best employees, but reward them for it. If they're comfortable, they'll snap right back into shape.

3. Trust your gut, but don't obsess over it. In my past four years running Likeable Media, there have been three instances where I KNEW I needed to hire someone on the spot. Sometimes, your gut just tells you what you need to know. Those three people grew to be on my management team, and are now the key leaders of our organization. While I know I can't replicate that experience as often as I like, I often find myself saying "Do I feel the way about this interview that I felt when I met (star employee)?" Most of the time the answer is no, but I follow it up with a second question--could this person grow to be (star employee)? If I think the potential is there, and my gut feels good, I go for it. I find that this keeps me from hiring SO slowly that my team suffers, but allows me to be discerning enough not to let bad hires affect my business.

As a social media and content marketing agency, my people are my product, and I need LOTS of people! But the best part of hiring slow and firing fast is this--once you're in, you usually stay in. And last year, when we were named the 28th best place to work in New York City, I couldn't help but feel like the overused adage "Hire Slow, Fire Fast" had a teeny bit to do with it.

 

Source: http://www.fastcompany.com/3006206/why-hire-slow-fire-fast-better-idea-you-think

 

Hire Quality partners with clients to build high performance teams by recruiting and selecting new talent and by upgrading current staff through training and development. For more information go to www.hirequality.ca