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Performance Management

Published July 2009

Integration: The Key to Talent Management

 

  Lois Webster

Managing talent always has been a priority, but not necessarily a strategic role for human resources departments. That is changing. In many companies, talent management is often its own division within HR — a division likely to encompass recruiting and hiring, training and development, aligning and measuring employee performance against corporate goals, determining compensation, planning successors to critical positions, and gracefully moving employees from active to retirement with little or no negative impact on the organization. Strategically directing and integrating this talent ultimately supports companies in achieving their business objectives.

The definition of talent management can differ widely from company to company, since each organization's structure and implementation is unique. Accordingly, there is no industry standard for talent management or significant research to define its best practices. In some companies talent means only high-performing and high-potential employees. In others, the word talent includes all employees, who, through careful selection, placement, ongoing development and engagement, have the capability to drive the company's performance. These disparate definitions determine the activities and configurations companies establish and then implement when developing their people.

Structure

The structure of talent management has changed in the past decade. Then, HR functions were managed as stand-alone departments. HR employees worked independently, without much collaboration or knowledge of what the functions and groups required. Worse, talent management lacked integration with the company's direction for the future. This meant employees rarely received direction and support to help them understand how their roles impacted the organization's goals and outcomes.

On the other hand, interdependent human resources efforts can be highly effective. In this design, all talent management assets fall under one senior HR leader who coordinates these roles and promotes business strategy execution. For instance, the competencies that are used to ensure the company has the right set of skills for future success are the same ones that form the foundation for selection, learning and development, performance management and management succession.

In 2004, John Deere consolidated several of its HR functions into a talent management organization. "We made a number of fairly visible gains. We upgraded our succession planning process and created more awareness and knowledge of our succession planning pools. We now have 38 standing talent teams to review high-potential employees and succession planning, where previously we only had one or two groups," said Rick McAnally, director of human resources, compensation, benefits and integration at John Deere. To be most effective, all talent management functions work together toward the singular goal of preparing a company's workforce to meet future business objectives.