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The third blog from our very own Chairman, Trevor Dawes sharing his fountain of knowledge on all things Talent Management. Enjoy the read!
Introduction
I have been working in the area of recruitment, skills and competencies, capability and talent management for over 30 years. In my previous blogs I have covered the fundamentals of skills and competencies and started looking at the complexities of Talent Management.
In this blog I’ll explore Talent Management in more depth. The links with Strategic Workforce Planning, will be the subject of my next blog.
Talent Management
I’m sure you will all be aware of the range of issues which could be covered under this title. I will limit myself to those which I think will best help us to decide how to prioritise and get the most benefit in the shortest amount of time. I have always valued a pragmatic approach.
Recruitment
Often the quickest way to get high-performing individuals into your team is to recruit, but what criteria do you use for selecting the most appropriate candidates? A well-presented CV can sometimes be seen as misleading when the actual performance of the candidate is later found to be unsatisfactory. Recruiting a “superstar”, like Ronaldo at Manchester United, may result in some disfunction if they don’t quite fit in the team you already have in place.
If you have a good idea of the strengths of your team – some detailed capability analysis, a team strengths inventory, an idea of the mix and diversity of your existing employees – then it is easier to follow a structured recruitment process to improve the match between your new recruit and the team they are joining.
‘A well-written job specification is clearly the best starting point.’
Trevor Dawes, OPL Chairman
A well-written job specification is clearly the best starting point. Then you can devise a structured interview or assessment process, using appropriate competencies, psychometrics, etc. which will certainly improve the result. A good briefing to any recruitment organisation working with you will certainly be an excellent starting point, saving you time and expense further down the line.
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An old colleague of mine used to say “People get hired for their skills and experience, but some are later fired for their behaviours or lack of performance”. If you can get recruitment right you can get a good team together quite quickly. Recruiting the right leadership will get that team performing to their best level. In the past I have developed a “recruitment toolkit” for clients, which has helped them get consistently high performers for their team. If you are recruiting across a lot of different managers in different departments they will appreciate you setting out the standards with a recruitment toolkit of your own.
Development
Many organisations miss a trick when they recruit and then fail to properly develop the individual. Expecting that the new recruit will just be able to rely on their experience, skills and knowledge to perform their role often leads to disappointment.
At the other end of the scale “sheep dip” training may get a quick result, but the best and most lasting results come from a carefully crafted personal development plan (PDP). This PDP needs to have the right mix of training, self-development, opportunities to practice and provide sensitive feedback to give more lasting success, but needs understanding and commitment from the manager.
‘Many organisations miss a trick when they recruit and then fail to properly develop the individual.’
Trevor Dawes, OPL Chairman
If you have a way of building a talent database which tracks an employee’s growing knowledge, skills, experience and performance, you will have a valuable resource which will help you to identify and provide exactly the right development to suit the needs of each individual. In organisations that we have worked with we see great benefits coming back to the employer from utilising this approach.
The greatest and most measurable benefits are seen when the employer adopts an “Academy Approach’’ to developing the capabilities of high value employees. We have worked with both UK and multi-national organisations to help them build and deliver value from single-profession academies, for project management, for commercial or other high value activities, where increasing capability and experience can be tracked and the most appropriate and capable individuals can be assigned to the most complex and challenging situations or projects.
An ‘Academy approach’ allows life-long development and tracking of the individual’s capability. With Shell we have seen how motivated their employees are by the recognition they get for increasing their levels of capability. A mixture of training, self-development, internal and external accreditation and qualification, plus the challenge of working on more interesting and absorbing projects, ensures that Shell retains its highest performing individuals and gives them excellent career opportunities.
Retention
As I have just mentioned, a thorough and measured approach, such as that used in Shell’s academies, has a significant impact on retention. Imagine yourself as part of such an environment. You are doing interesting work and feel you are contributing good value to the organisation. As you work, you are asked to keep your online capability profile up to date. Perhaps as you finish a project, or complete a development activity. You may have a mentor to offer support and advice. Once every few years you may choose to go for a higher level of accreditation. All your evidence will be available in the academy system. Your qualifications, experience, competencies and previous internal and external accreditations are all taken into account. Achieving the next level will allow you to go on to even greater adventures and achieve wider recognition. Great for you, maybe greater reward and benefits; great for your employer, in terms of retaining the best talent and achieving improved returns, higher levels of safety and certainty of outcome from its projects.
In my previous blog I highlighted a couple of key features which may positively affect the outcome of this approach to continuous development.
Photo by Tamas Tuzes-Katai on Unsplash
One is the use of a career map. Knowing what options there are and what opportunities are possible within an organisation are motivating factors for employees. If you join an employer who runs an academy approach you can see, in a very measurable way, how to progress your career and make the most of your talents.
The other key factor is to take into account the aspirations of the employee. Some people love the idea of a globe-trotting role, facing the challenge of working in other countries and other cultures. However, even for those people, there may be times when home and family commitments mean they have to be based in a certain location. These are important issues.
So, to make the most of the talent you have available, you may want to capture the aspirations and ambitions of each person. A few years ago we worked with Costain on their talent development programme. They had a strategy to identify and develop the talent they had within the company, taking a 10 year view. They did this very thoroughly and over that 10 year period their focus on people and talent has resulted in huge growth and success for the business.
‘…to make the most of the talent you have available, you may want to capture the aspirations and ambitions of each person’
Trevor Dawes, OPL Chairman
I was particularly pleased to note that Alex Vaughan, their CEO has recently won the CEO of the year award in the Building Industry Awards. I worked with Alex on their people strategy, helping them to embed their values into the process and supporting the talent management software that we implemented all those years ago.
It is satisfying to see that Alex, who was HR Director at the time, has achieved such great things with Costain’s far-sighted vision.
Summary
Long term ambitions to develop the capability of your workforce can lead to outstanding success, as they have at Costain. In this blog I have looked at some of the factors which contribute to excellent Talent Management and the benefits that this can deliver.
In concluding this blog I would like to focus on how successful organisations are the result of a successful talent strategy. In my experience I have seen many examples of the benefits that far-sighted organisations have achieved. In my next blog I intend to take this further and explore how organisations can take the next step and create success and benefits from Strategic Workforce Planning.
Would you like to know more about how OPL can help your organisation? If so, please do make contact. We’d love to hear from you!
Pick up the phone today and call us on 01455 550732 or email us on info@onlineprofiling.com