Latest Seminar Highlights
What is the secret of successful talent management?
Despite years of being at the top of the HR agenda, organisations are far from being open and transparent in their approach to talent management.
The reason?
Line managers lack the skills to handle the fall-out.
On 23 April 2008, Human Qualities ran the latest in our series of seminars. This was our 19th event and the topic was ‘Talent Development Centres: Unlock the true talent in your business’.
We were back in The Old Laundry near Baker Street for the second time, which again proved a hit with the talent professionals from the 16 different organisations who attended. We were delighted to welcome our guest speaker Sheena McColl, Director of People Development from Smiths Medical, to share her experience of working with Human Qualities on talent development in her business.
How do organisations measure up against the benchmark?
Shane Pressey, founding partner of Human Qualities, began by introducing delegates to our ‘Talent Strategy Indicator (TSI)’ in a lively and interactive session. The TSI is Human Qualities’ latest tool designed to audit and benchmark an organisation’s approach to talent. We used it as a temperature gauge in the room on the day and revealed some clear and interesting themes, the most striking of which was ‘secrecy’.
It seems that despite years of being at the top of the HR agenda, organisations reported that a high level of secrecy still surrounds talent management. Many agreed with one delegate as they shared how their talent process was not openly communicated because of a lack of skill in line managers to tackle the challenging and difficult conversations that come from communicating about talent.
How do you overcome the line manager issue?
Line manager skill and involvement continued to be a central theme of the main session, led by Carolyn Bogush, titled ‘Creating a full and flowing talent pipeline’. Together with Sheena McColl, Carolyn shared how Smiths had developed an embedded talent development process, with Talent Development Centres at its core, involving, engaging and skilling up line managers along the way.
They explained how a series of powerful interventions, such as our ‘Discovering your Potential Development Centres’, ‘Developing Talent Workshops’ and ‘Talent Development Toolkit’, had enabled managers to master the language and skills of talent development and how this had completely turned around how talent management was viewed and tackled internally. They witnessed a significant shift in the proportion of external to internal hires to senior leadership positions as a result of the project. Sheena showed how she was able to keep senior leaders interested and on board by demonstrating the bottom line value in developing talent in time and money saved on recruitment and training.
Responses to the ideas presented in this session were positive and prompted several questions. We will share two key topics below.
What happens to people left outside the talent pool?
Firstly, when organisations have a clearly defined pool of talent, how do you handle people who do not make the grade? This challenge presents itself time and time again in organisations that have a defined group of individuals they focus talent development time and budget on. From our experience, there are a few key principles that should apply:
Most importantly, talent development should take place within a context of development for all. By providing engaging development opportunities for everyone, people feel invested in and developed, regardless of the promotion potential they show. Be clear about the criteria for the talent pool. One of our clients is very clear that just because you are not in the talent pool doesn't mean you are not talented, it means that you have not yet shown the potential to progress to a senior leadership position. They review the talent pool regularly and keep it open and fluid. It is possible to get into the talent pool with the right drive, commitment and development. They communicate this to keep people motivated, whilst managing expectations.
Finally, train your line managers to handle conversations sensitively. We have witnessed, as a result of open and honest conversations, individuals selecting themselves out of talent pools when they truly understand the implication this has for their careers, as well as their own values and motivations. A strong manager will build relationships with their people so that they feel able to have these conversations. They will help an individual to truly understand what they want from their career and guide their development journey towards this.
How do you fight indifference?
A second interesting question that arose presented a different level of challenge: how do you keep line managers from becoming complacent about talent development? This came from an organisation that had expected their managers to develop talent for several years and had evolved a talent process. Now managers were beginning to lose interest. Our response to this? There has to be a ‘burning platform’, a reason for managers to develop talent. The key here is in identifying what is in it for your managers – a sustainable long-term business, more opportunities for their own careers or the buzz of making a difference. You also get what you reward. If managers are expected as part of their performance objectives to develop talent, they will probably do it and keep on doing it.
Our conclusions
This seminar reinforced Human Qualities’ belief that talent management is a leadership issue. Line managers hold the key to unlocking the potential of the talent in your organisation and engaging them in talent development is essential.
If you are interested in finding out more about how Human Qualities can help your organisation to develop and manage talent, please contact helen.fosh@humanqualities.co.uk or call us on +44 208 566 1661.
