How talent development can be crucial to your business

Learning about talent management gives you the tools you need to spot and bring talented employees onboard in your business. You will then want to look at how to effectively train talented employees to the best of their abilities, so that you can incorporate their unique skill-set and contributions into your long term business strategies. Talent management should be part of your overall strategy for building a high achieving environment, where learning is a central focus for all employees regardless of skill level, and your employees can develop their abilities further. The first step for you here involves planning an outline for employee development, which will involve identifying employees who bring talent to your business. So now you will be wondering how to identify talent in employees. The definition of what talent management is constantly changes with new insights, but should always remain a crucial part of your overall strategy.

Definitions of talent management

All organised business leaders have their own idea of what talent looks like. Your definition may depend on whether you want to consider talent an attribute of individuals in your team or how your teams work together. Sometimes, you may use the word talent to describe prospective hires who have an outstanding skill-set. However, for the purposes of describing what talent management looks like in terms of effective strategy for developing individuals in the workplace, consider the following definitions of ‘talent’ and ‘talent management’:

• Talent is used to describe the contribution that an individual with an above average set of abilities brings to your business, leading to a measurable boost in workplace performance. This may be to a department of your business, and can be seen in both short-term and long-term contributions to the functioning of your business.
• Talent management involves a step process where talented individuals are attracted, identified, developed, engaged, retained and effectively deployed.

Reasons to use talent management

When running a business, you will have objectives that you hope to achieve in the long-term and short-term. In order to achieve these objectives, your employees must be appropriately aligned with tasks that suit their skill set and enable them to grow professionally. Some employees have a set of capabilities that contribute greatly to your achievement of your long-term and short-term objectives. Creating an appropriate talent management strategy will help you to harness their unique ability profile in a way that gets the most out of it.

How to build a talent management strategy

Before you can make an effective talent management strategy, you will need to look at your workplace planning, which involves analysing your current workforce, and the future of your workforce. You will need to consider whether there are certain roles in the organisation that need filling, or if a new position needs to be created. As a process, talent management is most effective when it is aligned with your overall business strategy and plan for your workforce. You should consider talent management as a range of activities that benefit individual team members and the business as a whole. This can include, but is not limited to

• Leadership training schemes;
• Creating a talent panel to select and monitor talented employees;
• Integrating talent criteria into the hiring process;
• Analysis of employee feedback following training and in the long-term;
• Promotions, bonuses and other rewards for high performing employees who continue to make excellent contributions.

A successful talent management strategy should help both your employees and business to grow. You may choose to focus on particular individuals who bring talent to your business, however there are two talent management models you can use: the inclusive and exclusive approaches to talent management.

Exclusive approach

An exclusive approach to talent management involves focusing on one individual’s contribution to your business. This is a useful approach when you are in the stage of identifying which individuals within your business are making an important contribution. However, it is most effective when combined with a more holistic, inclusive approach to talent management.

Inclusive approach

With an inclusive approach to talent development, your aim is not to focus solely on an individual’s skill-set; you look at their relationship to the whole team, and in turn what their team brings to your business. This approach combines elements of the exclusive approach, whereby you can focus on an individual’s performance, but you also consider their relationship to their team. It could be that an individual with a useful skill-set needs some assertiveness training; their contributions to the team are highly integral to the success of their team, but they do not feel confident with frequently contributing to team meetings. Depending on the size and structure of your business, consider building a ‘talent panel’ of experienced senior employees or designating a senior employee to help you decide which employees are suitable for leadership training schemes. For employees who have not been selected for talent schemes, make sure to give them positive, constructive feedback that may help them be selected next time. Ensure that every line manager across your entire business has a strong awareness of talent, as well as good awareness of when employees are ready to be put forward for schemes. Your HR team should also be heavily involved with managing training programmes, making sure that the selection process for training schemes is fair.

Step-by-step talent management strategy

There are various steps of an effective talent management model, which you should consider in the long-term and should be referred to on a regular basis.

These steps (which do not have to be adhered to in a strict order) include:

Acquisition

Acquiring talent means working out what a talented individual looks like in the hiring process. It is a good idea to consider holistically your candidate’s overall skill set, examining their soft skills and leadership abilities.

Soft skills include:

• Strong verbal communication skills;
• Creativity;
• Active listening;
• Critical thinking skills;
• Conflict resolution.

Leadership skills compliment soft skills well and frequently intersect with them.

These include:

• Integrity;
• Goal setting and planning;
• Decisiveness;
• Team building .

Conflict resolution is both a soft skill and a leadership skill. This is because all team members benefit from knowing the different conflict resolution styles, but a strong leader will be able to guide other employees through them authoritatively and make final decisions if necessary.

Identification

Identifying talented individuals in your workplace, and the unique skill-sets that they bring to your business, is vital. It could be that one individual is a talented diplomat, and another is excellent at contributing creative ideas to campaigns. As their employer, it is up to you to spot the different ways in which an employee can be talented. Identification of talent should be included in your initial step to create an employee strategy for your business, where you outline your goals and the complimentary roles that each staff member plays within their team.

Engagement

Following on from identifying talented individuals and their skill-sets, you should then make sure that you engage talent by assigning the right individuals to the right goals in your business. Make sure that they have a clear understanding of business targets and how to reach them, and that they feel valued and secure in their relationships to other colleagues and your business as a whole.

Development

Development is crucial for making sure that talented individuals are consistently learning on the job; with the correct skills, individuals are able to become more independent in the role. Training could include introducing new soft skills such as leadership training to talented individuals, so that they can harness their full potential when working alongside their team. Professional development helps your employees become an authority on their skills and will be able to share their knowledge with their team. They may even have future potential for training new talented individuals as they rise through the ranks of your business.

Retention

Talented individuals who work hard to boost your business may not expect compensation for their efforts, but it is good to reward them in order to retain them as an integral part of your company. Having goals in place which are rewarded with bonuses is a great way to keep talented individuals happy and fulfilled, while convincing them to not look elsewhere if they feel like their work is not adequately rewarded.

Future planning and talent deployment

Make sure that talented individuals receive the correct training for their skill set, and that they are assigned to roles integral to the success of your business. You will want to track the progress of talented individuals, rewarding them with promotions or bonuses as you see fit. As they become more experienced, you may want to send employees on leadership courses. Having your most talented staff in leadership orientated positions will help them carry their team through projects and campaigns in the long-term.

Analysing and tracking your talent development plan

In order to make sure that your talent development plan is running as effectively as possible, you will need to collect data from the full range of activities that form your overall talent management model. The kinds of data that you should collect include:

Quantitative data

This includes numerical data such as employee salaries, and is helpful as it can help you decide whether an employee is at a stage where they should be promoted or could receive a bonus.

Qualitative data

This involves gathering feedback from employees on training sessions and any other data that is not numerical. It is most useful in creating a picture of what employees themselves find to be most effective, and what motivates them on a personal and emotional level.

Employee retention data

Employee retention data gives you an indication of how fast your employee turnover is, and whether you need to look at new ways of retaining staff members in the long-term. After all, you should make sure that you are holding onto staff that you have invested time and money in through training and promotion.

A talent management programme involves identifying, engaging, developing and retaining talented individuals, both during the hiring process and within your team. The overall success of your talent management strategy involves your talent panel and HR department responsibly mentoring and monitoring employee development in the long-term. Your long-term strategy for talent management should include collating the data on employee progress through your programmes, taking seriously their feedback on training schemes and other benefits linked to high achievement. When you understand the processes that are the foundation of an effective programme, you will be able to maintain a talent development programme as part of your long-term business strategy, and incentivise your employees to get the best out of their skill-set. With the right training and a conscientious HR team skilled in developing talent, you will acquire and retain top employees, creating a work culture where everyone knows that their contributions are valued and adequately supported.

Further reading: How to Manage Employees 11 Tips to Effectively Manage Remote Employees