People, not organisations, create value and ultimately, revenue.
It is important to understand the humans within your organisation and how to unlock their potential to put your business performance into overdrive. Simply, this arm of the organisation manages and optimises the organisation’s most important asset – its people.
What are talent management frameworks?
Talent management frameworks are custom-designed structures created to meet the various human capital needs of an organisation. The aim is to increase the efficiency levels within an organisation’s talent pool and to increase the attraction and retention of talented employees.
Recruitment, training and development come at a significant cost to organisations along with demanding a considerable amount of time to execute. A talent management system enables the organisation to clearly identify the skill gaps and the human capital required to fulfil its business goals.
That being said, the organisation’s objectives and strategic outcomes are central to this identification journey. This custom framework is also informed by several other strategies including the employee experience strategy, employee engagement strategy, training and development strategy, business strategy, retention strategy as well as the overall talent management strategy.
This much-needed framework then moves forward by selecting the right people with the right skills (as identified). If the relevant executive leaders of the organisation recognise and buy into talent management as a strategic driving force,that could help them gain a competitive advantage over their competitors.
Your human resources department should really encourage the organisation to use this framework as a strategic lever for organisational success. Another important reason to implement a talent management framework is to retain and develop your employees. This framework is holistic and is built around specific strategies relating to your employees’ rewards and retention.
It’s more than just HR…
You would be mistaken if you reduced talent management to the HR department, however. With the new world of work a current reality, your people are your biggest assets and the war for these talented employees is waging intensely.
It should be a strategic function; as it is critical to the organisational strategy – and why wouldn’t it be? It’s part of the plan for managing your biggest asset. It’s, therefore, important for human resources to effectively develop their capabilities to be able to retain and attract their employees.
Why you really need a talent management framework?
Investment of financial capital has always been seen as a key propeller for organisational growth and success. Lesser known is the value that investing in human capital could have to drive organisational growth.
Results from a survey by McKinsey highlight the real value that talent management has on achieving business goals. According to these results, organisations with effective talent management systems are better poised to outperform their competitors with publicly-owned organisations in this category being more likely to deliver higher returns to its shareholders.
Implementing an effective talent management framework is not a one-size-fits-all approach, however, what the McKinsey survey does illustrate is that when organisations assign the right talent with the right skills and leverages HR insights it not only drives a positive employee experience but it has a significant impact on human capital management.
Having an effective talent management framework matters because there is a consequential relationship between organisational performance and talent management.
According to the survey, only 5% of organisations’ talent management is effective at increasing organisational performance. For organisations who are indeed getting this right, 99% of organisations cited that they are outperforming their competitors.
Here are 7 reasons you need a talent management framework:
- Attract the best talent
- Effectively engage and motivate your employees
- Identify skills gaps using an ‘always on’ approach
- Boost employee performance
- Engage your workforce
- Retain the most talented employees
- Drive organisational performance
Your talent management framework must be rooted in the concept that talent is linked to organisational value. Let’s look at some other attributes your framework should meet:
- It should drive value for the organisation.
- It should develop the capabilities to build a culture necessary to build strategic talent frameworks.
- It should be driven by data and advanced analytics.
- It should be able to strategically assign talent to cross-functional projects across the organisation.
As cited earlier in this article, talent management frameworks vary depending on your organisational goals and outcomes. Regardless, a good talent management framework can assist you to:
- Attract
- Effectively assess employee performance, and recommend learning and training opportunities, if needed.
- Retain top talent.
- Assign the right employees with the right skills to right roles.
A talent management framework has the ability to apply strategic HR insights and tools to enable your organisation to realise its goals.
As HR, you need to recognise the link between your employees and the organisational outcomes. Aligning these aspects will certainly lead to differentiation within your organisation particularly as it pertains to competitive advantage. Your ability to attract and deploy talent as strategic business opportunities arise, can be the differentiation your organisation needs to become the leader in your sector. HR is the key to this competitive advantage, use the talent management framework provided in this article and grow from being a business partner to being a strategic business unit within your organisation.