Planning for Talent Management in Your Organization

Organizations should acknowledge that their greatest assets are the people (human capital) that make them work. Whether these are the stakeholders, employees, customers, suppliers, or partners, the business does not exist without their active participation. Creating a successful business involves capitalizing on your people. To take it a step further, successful human capital management can be defined as effectively sourcing, attracting, selecting, onboarding, training, developing, assigning, steering, promoting, and retaining people in your organization.

The primary problem with doing this effectively lies in the disconnected solutions currently being deployed by most organizations. The human resources department hires recruiters or headhunters to add to the human capital pool. The training department identifies knowledge and/or skills gaps and sets up one-time classes to fix the employees. Supervisors, Managers, and Directors manage the performance of individuals through assignments and feedback. Human Resources then posts vacancies that ambitious employees apply for (even though the boss’ buddy may get the promotion). Of course, nowhere have we mentioned the critical competencies needed by the organization for employees at different levels. Hopefully, those just happen to be present in the people who move up the organization.

The solution begins with an accurately defined vision, strategic initiatives, and organizational values. If an organization knows where it wants to go, the other pieces more easily fall into place. From the goals, the executive team can derive the major tasks and the critical competencies (i.e. knowledge, skills, aptitude, experiences, personality traits, abilities, and attitude) of the leaders required to achieve those tasks. The leaders then cascade the same process down through their organizations. This creates a road map for management to identify up and coming stars and for employees to identify areas for development that could present them with lateral move or promotion opportunities inside the organization. This also creates measurable performance metrics and facilitates the creation of hiring qualifications. Finally, it unifies the language of the organization so that, for example, the definition of "active listening" is consistent during hiring, training, and performance appraisal documentation.

The other side of the solution involves the organization's culture. The culture must be quantified as accurately as possible. The necessary organizational values to realize the vision must be drawn up and cross-referenced to the current situation. From this document a list of attitudes, beliefs and behaviors can be extrapolated that define the type of person that is most likely to ensure the success of the organization. Of course, an organization's culture matures and cycles occur, so significant diversity should be promoted when these attributes are applied to selection. This process must be repeated over time to keep up with changes.

If the organization is young or reinventing itself this process can be implemented without too much resistance. If the company is established or extremely stable this process should be introduced as part of a change initiative. In either situation this process must be thoughtfully planned and organized. Driving and restraining forces must be identified. Action plans must be devised and implemented to tackle each restraining force and to reinforce each driving force. These plans must include:

· Methods for creating a need in the eyes of the current employees

· Methods for communicating the objective to current employees

· Methods for securing commitment from current employees

· Process steps that create necessary change through elimination of anticipated restraining forces and how the elimination steps will be specifically implemented

· Process steps that create necessary change through modification of existing restraining forces and how those steps will be specifically implemented

· Process steps that create necessary change through reinforcement of existing beneficial driving forces and how those steps will be specifically implemented

· Process steps that create necessary change through creation of missing beneficial driving forces and how those steps will be specifically implemented

· Observable milestones to measure the levels of success that describe what will occur along the way

· Timelines that target deadlines for each milestone

· The format for reporting milestones and to whom

· Resources required to implement each process step (people with their roles and responsibilities, capital, tools)

· Contingency planning meetings to evaluate progress and make course corrections if the organization is dysfunctional (moving against the changes) or nonfunctional (moving away from the changes)

· Next steps meeting after the process steps have been implemented

· Create incentive by planning how success will be celebrated and rewarded