The death of talent management
Is talent management delivering what it promised or is there a better way of identifying and nurturing talent for the future?
Our June Forum sparked a tremendous amount of interest, no doubt because of its intriguing title, ‘The death of talent management’, and the promise of some lively and provoking debate. Hosted by the ICAEW in their historic Chartered Accountants’ Hall, the event drew interest from fifty senior HR professionals and business leaders from a wide variety of sectors.
Initial table discussion centred around the notion of talent management and its connotations: part of the issue here is, perhaps, that the term means different things to different people. Here’s a quick overview of some of the initial points raised:
- Performance/talent management is often talked about, but in the end is there an outcome or change?
- Who does it well? It seems however it’s done, the model/method gets criticised
- What’s the definition of ‘talent’? Is it the top 5% or is it everybody?
- Considerations for those managing a global team, and expectations for those who want an accelerated career
- Does something need to die for something new to come and if so, what?
- Organisations often struggle to let go of their views and ideas for and against talent management
Our first guest speaker, Stevan Rolls of Deloitte, focused on some of the specific issues that led to over 60% of organisations citing ‘leadership gaps’ as their top business challenge in a 2014 Bersin by Deloitte study. A mere 13% of the organisations surveyed rated themselves as ‘excellent’ at leadership development. He asked, ‘Where did it all go wrong?’ and identified four key areas, including a ‘scalability problem’ due to careers becoming far less linear, and a much more complex process therefore being required to manage this. Stevan introduced the concept of the birth of ‘transparent succession management’, including thoughts around how we define success, new definitions of paths to leadership, and developing a new career dialogue.
Sandra Evans then led us into a vibrant discussion with the question, ‘In terms of talent management, what might ‘awesome’ look like?’ And, related to this, another question: ‘Are there things you have seen or heard about or use that you could share?’ A taste of the discussions and reflections:
- Why not have a performance review that does not include a rating?
- A focus on what is possible rather than what is ‘required’
- Being brave enough to recognize that maybe 50% of employees, in some sectors, will want to be somewhere else in five years’ time…but does that mean there is a problem?
And a final thought for the group: Is your talent management process fit for purpose? If not, what do you need to stop, start or improve to make it fit for purpose?