Member Article

Joined-up talent management thinking needed in 2015

Senior HR Directors must focus their attention on aligning talent management initiatives in 2015 to take people strategies to the next level, or risk reversing the progress made so far, according to Rethink Talent Management.

Following a year which arguably saw greater investment in people strategies – with Oxford Economics reporting that talent management topped the agenda for CEOs in 2014 – the talent management consultancy has called on HRD’s to push this further in the New Year.

“While the last twelve months have seen some fantastic examples of people initiatives – the Barclays Life Skills campaign, for example - these often occur in silos to other activity. If organisations are to see a real benefit from talent strategies, all activity must be aligned in the very near future” Iain Blair, Managing Director at Rethink Talent Management, comments.

According to Rethink, this will require HR Directors, with the back-up of the rest of the senior team, to truly align the three core elements of talent management: workforce planning, employee engagement and staff attraction. Without this approach, the movement achieved so far will only stagnate.

Blair continues: “I’d predict that in the future 2014 will be seen as the year in which strategic talent management really began. In the last twelve months HR professionals have successfully put talent at the top of the agenda for businesses – a real achievement in my view. In order to realise this, innovative talent attraction initiatives have been developed, workforce plans have, in general, been drawn up for organisations and more has been done to engage with – and ultimately retain – employees. However, this progress has occurred in silos, which will limit success.”

“For example, there are too many cases where hiring activity is taking place without the consideration of succession plans. What needs to happen to move this forward and create a truly strategic approach to talent management is for HR Directors to pull all this activity together and connect every element of existing people strategies.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by ReThink Talent Management .