5-Step Approach to Creating a Talent Management Strategy

One of my contacts recently asked for help on how to design a Talent Management strategy/roadmap. I shared with him the following 5-step approach and some notes:

1. Define the business/organizational context for your talent management strategy. What are the precipitating conditions for the roadmap? Growth, innovation, turnaround, M&A, globalization… possibly a combination of two or more?
2. Based on the business need, define which competencies are needed – start with general ones and move to level- or function-specific clusters – focusing on the “mission-critical” roles that need to be filled. Competency model should be short – 7 competencies at most. There are good libraries of behaviors out there so you don’t have to waste weeks on wordsmithing. But the final model should feel “close to home” and use language that everyone can relate to.
3. Conduct an “ideal/current” assessment of your talent management portfolio of processes and programs and based on the results define a few talent management priorities to focus on and link these priorities to key business goals. For example, if your organization is facing a dramatic turnaround, focus on a talent review process and transition management initiatives (e.g., onboarding AND outplacement), working closely with the team leading the business and organizational transformation.
4. Gauge the balance of recruitment vs. development efforts that can be inferred from the talent review process and staff multifunctional work teams to take on the work. Pay close attention to governance of these work reams which can easily get out of hand. Leadership must be affirmed from the start. Make timelines short, check-in frequent, metrics as tangible as possible.
5. Keep a systems view of your Talent Management Portfolio, looking for opportunities to establish linkages between the different areas of work. Here is a list of typical items that form a Talent Management Roadmap:
   1. Recruiting & selection
   2. Performance management
   3. Career planning
   4. Learning and Development
   5. Succession and Transition Planning
   6. Retention
   7. Rewards and Recognition

I would add Social Networking as a discipline which transcends all 7 listed above. This is not about putting everyone on some sort of Facebook or Linked in. Talent Management Officer should work closely with leaders to create networks of professionals that align with the business priorities, and overlay – not coincide - with the formal structure and processes of the organization.

Some additional points about the process:

• Senior leadership - not HR - MUST lead this work. But HR has a strategic role to play as the Steward of this work. The CEO and Key Opinion Leaders have to be on board with this work. Make sure to define who is accountable for what deliverable on your roadmap.
• Don’t try to boil the ocean. Assign different levels of resources to different streams of Talent Management but revise frequently priority level s based on new data.
• Learn a thing or two from your marketing stars. Be planful about how you engage and communicate with internal customer segments about Talent Management. For example, keep the unavoidable complexity of high-quality work invisible to the business partners (e.g., short and focused performance review instrument should still be validated with scientific rigor).
• Measure progress and ROI in creative yet rigorous ways. Brinkerhoff’s “Success Case Method” is a great resource for how to do this.