What Is Talent Management and How Can You Implement It?

Updated 11 August 2023

Talent management plays an integral role in attracting and retaining employees who're valuable to your organisation. It's important to recruit employees who can help you achieve your business objectives. By implementing effective talent management strategies, you can maintain high performance in your workplace and improve the value of an employee. In this article, we'll discuss what talent management entails and why it's important to look at the strategies, processes and models of talent management.

What is talent management?

In an organisation, a talent is an individual who can help increase the levels of performance. Therefore, talent management is the systematic identification, attraction, development, deployment, engagement, and retention of valuable individuals in the organisation. It's a progressive process that involves finding the right candidates, onboarding them and training them to develop their skills whilst keeping the organisation's objectives in mind.

Team management can involve a wide range of activities, from formal and informal coaching to mentoring. Typically, it encompasses seven key components within HR, including recruitment, onboarding, performance management, education and development, succession planning, compensation planning and workforce planning.

Team management process

The process of team management is cyclical. It begins by acknowledging the need for specific talent and making efforts to recruit, develop and keep employees with those skills. The key steps of team management include:

Planning

Planning is the primary stage, and it involves assessing the need for talent and formulating job descriptions for the required candidates. This demands setting requirements and duties for the roles to help guide the selection, sourcing and career development of the recruits. Setting the right standards for the recruitment of candidates can also help determine the level of training required during the recruitment process.

Attracting

Based on the plan setup, the recruitment team can decide whether to outsource the labour force or fill positions within the organisation. External sources can include social networks, job portals or referrals. It's beneficial to base the decision to source the labour force on attracting the most fitting candidates for the position. Depending on the organisation's reputation, a company can decide on the quality of applicants they want to interview.

Selecting

Selecting entails using a series of tests or checks to find a fitting candidate. Some tests can include written tests, group discussions, psychometric tests or interviews. You can also analyse their social media presence to get an overall picture of the person. In addition, there is software that scans through a large batch of CVs to find the ideal matches for the job.

Developing

Whilst finding candidates with excellent skills in their CVs is important, developing the attitudes of recruits and training for skills is vital. This is because developing employees to help them grow can build employee loyalty and engagement. To achieve consistent employee development, most companies start by helping the recruits to settle in their roles, allowing ample opportunities to help them develop their skills and enabling growth through counselling, mentoring and coaching.

Retaining

For an organisation to achieve its long-term goals and ensure consistent growth, it must ensure high employee retention. You can try using incitements, promotions, offering opportunities for growth and encouraging employees to get involved in special projects and decision-making processes. Increased retention can reduce recruitment and training costs.

Transitioning

Transitioning is changing the individual mindset to work as a collective and transformative team. It entails ensuring the growth of individual employees and making them feel essential for the operation and survival of an organisation. You can nurture this mindset by providing retirement benefits and exit strategies. These enable employees to feel valued and important to the organisation.

How to manage talent in an organisation

Here are the top steps you can follow to manage talent in an organisation:

1. Craft your job descriptions clearly

To attract the right candidates to your interview, ensure that your job descriptions are clear, concise and well descriptive. Perform extensive research to find out what candidates can fit the position and the minimum budget. List the job requirements, responsibilities and minimum years of experience. Placing your job description in the right channel can help you attract the most qualified candidates. You can also use software to help you choose candidates if you have lots of applications.

2. Evaluate candidates to find the most fitting talent

One key factor to consider when interviewing a candidate is whether they can fit into your company's culture. This may require using your best judgement based on how the candidate behaves, responds to questions and dresses. Note how the candidates express their passion for the job, industry or company, how they speak, their tone of voice and their personal values.

Perform research to find the series of interview questions you can ask to better assess the candidate's behavioural patterns. Then interview the candidate to find out whether they possess the skills purported in their CVs. This can involve asking questions to assess the candidate's research skills, what they know about your company and why they think they're the best fit for the job. Although nurturing talent can involve training and coaching recruits, it's important to have a standard.

3. Offer to mentor employees

Once you've recruited the most fitting candidates in your organisation, ensure to mentor them to provide the skills you desire. Offer constructive feedback, encourage them and listen to their opinions. If they're working in a team, follow up on their progress and inform them how to best perform with others. This can help you develop a good culture amongst employees to help each other succeed even as they compete within the departments.

4. Encourage professional development

When you challenge employees to develop themselves professionally, they often appreciate the opportunity to prove themselves. They may stay with your company for extended periods to learn more. Employees and supervisors can meet regularly to find out what they've done and how they can improve. Encourage them to look for external opportunities to enhance their skills and offer training and guidance to help them grow professionally.

5. Offer a rewards program

Rewarding employees shows you acknowledge their skills and recognise and value their talent. This helps them to feel appreciated, especially when they work to exceed your expectations in the role. Some types of bonuses you can offer include cash rewards, bonuses, promotions or gifts. For instance, if an entire team exceeds their set goals within a financial year, you can offer bonuses.

6. Provide career path assistance

Employees often stay in a company for longer when they can see their long-term career growth. Work closely with employees to identify their skills, discover their potential and help them develop their career paths. However, it's important to be honest with employees and avoid giving promises you can't guarantee about their future development opportunities. As a leader, guide them through the right path to reach their desired positions but guide them correctly if you find their skills lacking.

Why is talent management important?

Here are the top reasons why talent management matters:

Attract top talent

Talent management helps you to attract the most qualified candidates to your organisation. An exceptional talent management team can build a reputable employer profile, making people desire to get employed in your company. This can help you attract more applications, allowing you to find the ideal talent.

Find people to cover critical roles

With a well-trained workforce, you can ensure that your organisation is well prepared to fill critical roles if an employee is dismissed or leaves a position. Since team members have adequate training and possess the critical skills required to fill the roles, the company's plans and operations are less likely to be interrupted when the employees leave their positions. This also ensures that the rest of the employees are not overwhelmed with extra work, leading to burnout.

Increase employee performance

When you nurture employee talent, you ensure they work to their full potential. You can find fitting candidates more easily and ensure that your organisational strategy remains in line, despite employee changes. Since employees may stay for longer in your company, you can reduce time spent on recruitment and focus on building your teams. This can help boost employee performance with fewer performance management issues and grievances.

Engage employees

Consistent communication with employees can help them understand what the company is planning. This way, they can feel involved in the decision-making processes. Since the talent force in your organisation has the skills that align with the organisation's culture, they can help you make systematic decisions about staff development. In addition, when employees feel engaged, they'll work in the company for longer and ensure that the organisation meets its targets.

Improve business performance

When employees feel valued and engaged, they become more motivated to work within your organisation and for the greater cause. They'll show more enthusiasm when dealing with clients and customers and share your products and services with more confidence. This can attract more clients and referrals to your company and yield more business.

Improve client satisfaction

With the right talent management team, you can develop a performing team that ensures client satisfaction on every project that they perform. They can ensure an organisation-wide integration between employees and the teams, understand their roles and helping others succeed. With higher client satisfaction rates, you can confidently increase your pricing, and with more qualified personnel, you can ensure the client's needs are met faster.

What Is Talent Management and How Can You Implement It?