Talent management is a true buzz word around HR these days, has been for a few years now. We all know the components of talent management: performance, compensation process, succession, recruitment, learning, competencies. All of these are major components to an overall talent strategy. Inclusive in this list should also be technology. But what really, is talent management?
Jim Holincheck gets it right. Talent management has nothing to do with the process, or the technology, but it’s about a philosophy and tactic that you use to get to your goals. The process and technology of talent management systems are only a tool you use to get to your strategy.
Instead of thinking about talent management as a set of applications, think of it as levers that managers and executives can pull to achieve specific business outcomes. If I want to improve customer satisfaction, then I should focus on how I recruit customer-facing employees, develop them, manage them, and motivate them. Recruitment, development, performance management, reward/motivation are the levers. ((Jim Holincheck, March 29, 2007. “All Talent Management All of the Time.” Retrieved from http://blogerp.typepad.com/ on March 29, 2007.))
Way back in the beginning of this site, I ventured to define HR strategy. This definition was as follows:
shaping the workforce around the organization’s business needs, and managing behavioral changes to match the desired environmental goals.
If HR strategy seeks to shape the workforce around the business need, then we can see how understanding the necessary set of competencies defined in our talent practices, and performing and compensating our employees towards the achievement of those competencies supports the strategy. We can see a direct path for our succession plans to shape our future executive teams, and how learning supports the future of our talented employees. We can especially see how recruiting and onboarding shapes the workforce by bringing on the type of skills the organization needs to grow and prosper in the future. There is a direct relationship between talent, the HR strategy, and the overall business objective. If you are seeking greater profits, or increased innovation, you can manage your talent to achieve those goals, but how you approach them may be very different.
So what is talent management? Talent management is simply one of the tools (one of the better ones) that we have in our goal of shaping the workforce to become what we need. Some of the other tools are change management and workforce planning, so you’ll see that talent management is only a part of the equation.
7 responses to “Defining Talent Management”
Defining Talent Management Talent management is a true buzz word around HR these days, has been for a few years now. We all know the components of talent management: performance, compensation process, succession, recruitment, learning, competencies. … [
compensation process, succession, recruitment, learning, competencies. All of these are major components to an overall talent strategy. Inclusive in this list should also be technology. But what really, is talent management? Read the whole post here
SystematicHR has a great post up today on Defining Talent Management: Jim Holincheck gets it right. Talent management has nothing to do with the process, or the technology, but it’s about a philosophy and tactic that you use to get to your goals. The process and technology of talent management systems are only a tool
What if every company had a guy with a big cigar who was the talent manager? The only way he would get paid would be to make sure that he discovered the stars, groomed them, and sold them to the right department at the right time.
Here’s my definition of TM, which I posted just before taking a week off (hence the delay in this response):
Talent management is:
Making capabilities match commitments
As you say Jim Holincheck has it right. Nothing there about technology, or even the processes of making this work. The approach is key.
I absolutely agree with you that it’s only one of a number of things (including change management) that are crucial to organisational success.
For more, check out: http://donaldhtaylor.wordpress.com/2007/04/04/what-is-talent-management-part-2/
[…] For anyone else reading this thread, you should check out Dubs’ posting Defining Talent Management at https://systematichr.com/?p=716 […]
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