Nurture Talent for Business Results

"Organisations need to identify talent much earlier than they did in the past so that there is time to provide relevantly, tailored, and targeted development to equip them for the career-defining challenges that lie ahead,"

says Dési Kimmins, Senior Partner and Head of Leadership Development EMEA at Korn Ferry

In the given economic, social, political and other business-related challenges coming in the forefront. The development and enrichment of the ‘Specific Talent Pool’ in an organization is and always has been a differentiator for business sustainability, competitive advantage, outcomes and profitability. Therefore, it is hugely critical to strategize and stay invested in long-term Talent planning for organizational growth and sustainability. To keep the focus on career development & progression through all stages of the employee life cycle. According to Mercer's Global-Talent-Trends, 2020 - 'Accomplishing equitable future means radically redefining Talent practices to stay in step with changes in the external market and freeing up internal talent flows to enable workers to move into these opportunities with gusto. Those that fail to create fluid talent structures will be left behind as markets settle around a new world order.'

Let us look at Why is this required and What makes the Talent Management and Development process unsuccessful in some organizations.

At this point in time, we need to look into 4 important questions to ask-

1. How is the organization meeting it’s bottom-line and what are the challenges (What’s keeping the CEO, COO, CFO awake at night)?

2. What and Who are the key contributors to the business goals and profitability – how to nurture and retain them?

3. How to be Agile and Adaptive with cost-effectiveness, to sustain in the current and future PESTLE scenario and keep making money?

4. What is the Senior Leaderships commitment, engagement and endorsement in recognizing and building Talent faster to meet the business demands?

Some of the potential ‘Red Flags’ on Talent Development are: -

1. To start with is the organization having a dynamic SWP- Strategic Workforce planning aligned to the Business Objectives, which is continuously reviewed and outcomes measured?

2. The right recruitment strategy and balanced mix of ‘Build vs Buy’ with clear Understanding of which jobs create the value as ‘critical roles’ versus ‘support roles’, is the right areas being in focus- People Analytics (data mining)?

3. The Onboarding process for new hires and also those for leaders moving into higher and key job roles – have they been provided adequate support and resources for the transition process?

4. Then the skilling and reskilling requirements (key competencies) – how to fast track the learning curve followed by continuous performance review and coaching support is in place or not?

5. Then the most important question of the ‘Demand and Supply’ planning matrix for the Talent Mobility and Succession Management - to make it an effective business-impacting process and not a nice to do OR tick mark activity?

Creating a self-sustaining, psychologically safe and agile Culture of Talent Development for business results embedded with critical demand and supply of home-grown talent (cost arbitrage to bottom-line margins) with their ‘Success Stories’

“You can have the best strategy and the best building in the world, but if you don’t have the hearts and minds of the people who work with you, none of it comes to life.” – Renee West, Luxor and Excalibur Hotel