Resource Article Talent Management: Seven Keys to Success

Resource Article Talent Management: Seven Keys to Success

Talent management: seven keys to success. Lee Iacocca is quoted as saying In the end, all business operations can be reduced to three words: people, product, and profits. Not surprising, people are first. Without the people, there are no profits. The problem is most companies do not know how to utilize the people within their own companies. While profit is always the bottom line, companies strive for a dynamic, driving workforce with little turnover, high productivity and profit maximization. Few, however, know how to strategically link the people with the profits. Moving an organization to recognize and realign their workforce to increase productivity and thereby profit, is a challenge. Companies often lack a defined talent management process with pools of talent around their company. They also often lack the strategy, development, and the investment in personnel to bring it all together. Companies that can clearly define talent management will have the right employees in the right roles with the right tools for the job. When a company can align its strategic plan with the talent within its walls, it is moving away from human resources and migrating to Talent Management. Talent Management is integrating the organization s business strategy with employee talent by developing a process for attracting, training, retaining, and maximizing the workforce to meet current and future needs. By realigning the workforce, companies are able to increase productivity while reducing overall costs. Ernst & Young recently report that companies with integrated talent management programs delivered 38% greater return on equity than companies not engaging, or only partially engaging, in talent management practices. Additionally, companies that aligned talent management to business strategy experienced an average of a 20% higher return on equity. While a many executives are aware of the value of investing in talent management, the issue, according to a study by the Human Capital Institute in partnership with the IBM Institute for Business Value, is an inability to determine where to put human capital investments. To help narrow the focus, below are seven key components to help executives determine where to invest to achieve integrated talent management within their corporations. Strategic Employee Planning. Before a company can assess the talent in its workforce, the strategic plan and goals of the organization must be developed, in other words, start with the end results in mind. Only after the organization knows what it wants and where it is going can the workforce be aligned to meet the desired end results. In outlining the strategic plan of the organization, management can determine where gaps remain in personnel talent. If there is no one skilled to move specific goals forward, there is a gap in talent that must be filled. If an employee s skills aren t in line with the organizational goals, can they be better utilized in a different department or retrained? This planning process is key to Talent Management and organizational success. Talent Acquisition and Retention. Attract the right people and keep the one s you have. It is great to bring in new talent and skills, but don t overlook internal talent. Companies often fail to recognize that all of the employees within their organization are also part of the talent pool. It is more cost efficient to hire from with, even if it means retraining, than to hire externally. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, it costs one third of a new hire's annual salary to replace them. Consider this, if your firm has a turnover rate of 25% (about the national average, even in this economy), and 40 employees each earning $25,000 annually, your costs will be at least $83,000 over the course of the year. What could your company do with that kind of extra cash? Performance Management. Organizations that practice talent management have frequent, open discussions about employee performance. It s not

necessarily about if the employee performing well, but where the talents of the employee are in regards to the organization and the employee s team. A talented person on the wrong team cannot thrive. Organizations must have a process that nurtures and supports performance with useable and measureable feedback. Learning and Motivating. Companies that engage in talent management are strategic and deliberate in how they develop and integrate employees. It s more than just training, but setting up of activities and tasks that will promote the corporate culture and the requirements of the position. Employees that are in line with the strategy of the organization are continuously learning how to maximize their skills to improve the organization. Employees know what is expected of them and are given the tools and skills to continuously move forward. Employees are motivated knowing that their contributions are meaningful and sustainable. Talent without motivation gets bored and leave the company. Compensation. Every business owner depends on key employees to excel at their jobs, keep things running smoothly and make significant contributions to the success of the company. In return, the employee receives an incentive in the form of a compensation package that is competitive to other businesses in the industry. More than just money, compensation also includes other benefits such as insurance, flex time, work options to balance home and family, and PTO time rather than sick time. Compensation in talent management aligns incentives with the strategic goals of the organization. For example, if a goal of the corporation is increasing long term value for shareholders but bonus are tied to short term performance, the goals of the organization are not in line with the compensation. This may be great for employees but not for the organization. Reversely no providing an incentive for a team that has consistently outperformed may cause employees to look for other opportunities where their talents are better recognized. Compensation in a talent management environment provides opportunity for employees to be recognized and allowed to move up and take on greater responsibility for a greater share of pay. Career Development. Ideally, organizations would not need to hire leaders from outside the company, but could hire from within. What a company often fails to do, is help a potential leader develop a new skill set to become a leader. If a person is moved up into a supervisory position but doesn t have the skills to supervise, the person will falter and most likely leave the company. In Talent Management, leaders are nurtured and provided the tools to develop in their career. Integrating career development with talent management provides an obvious corporate benefit. However, organizations must understand each person s ability as it relates to the strategic plan of the company. Garnering and maintaining employee data enables the organization to focus on a tailored development plan for each employee, thus increasing the probability of success. The higher the success, the better return on investment. Succession Planning. Every organization has key people and key positions that are important to the success of the company and achievement of its goals. Simply achieving goals isn t enough. Being prepared for the next wave of talent challenges is also important. There are plenty of organizations that fail to address succession planning. Talent management proactively identifies key people in the organization and develops a plan to manage these employees and positions crucial to the organizations operations. if we aren t nurturing and developing the next level of leaders now, knowledge and experience will be lost along with those tidbits of information that give a competitive advantage. With Succession Planning, we re really discussing the next generation of talent management. Developing a succession plan to have robust leadership pipeline is crucial for organizations to remain competitive. With four generations in the workforce, developing talent management programs that are attractive to everyone will be

difficult. What is valuable to Baby Boomer workers will not align with Gen X ers or Y s wants in needs. This is not just in compensation and benefits, but how positions evolve and change. Whereas a Baby Boomer may not care about a Blackberry, personal laptop or wearing sneakers to the office, the Gen Y s may expect these things. Expectations, roles, compensation; everything must be flexible to allow for the next generation of talent to emerge, grow and lead. Successful organizations are utilizing these seven key components to have the right talent in place at all levels. The economic climate is forcing companies to realign their employees in a way that increases productivity while reducing overall costs. They are looking beyond today by taking an integrated approach to talent management to keep the business focused on the future. Talent Management is truly breaking down the roles of traditional HR activates and may well be the only competitive advantage of an organization. Overall, utilizing talent management creates a circular effect. Nurture employees with strategic performance development programs allows organizations to attract and retain talent, improving overall performance, increasing profits, allowing more resources for nurturing employees. Ultimately, talent management goes to the crux of the organization, developing people who move the company toward its goals. Reach360 www.myreach360.com

About Reach360 If administrative tasks and systems integration of back office functions are challenges that you are facing, Reach360 can help. Small and mid sized organizations are always looking for efficiency and cost effective ways of doing business. One of the greatest cost savings opportunities is outsourcing non core processes to high quality expert providers and technology applications whose combination of people and systems do more for less money. Reach360 is an integrated back office provider of human resource, accounting and IT solutions. Our processes cover everything from HR administration, recruiting, payroll, benefits, regular accounting functions and IT programming and support. We are accessible both on and off site our client locations. Upon implementation, new clients can expect a full assessment of their existing human resource, accounting and IT operations to determine opportunities for efficiency and cost savings. Then, an action plan is developed by Reach360 s experts who dig deep into files, roles, technologies and processes to identify opportunities for streamlining and cost savings. A team of two to three Reach360 experts is assigned to each client for ongoing support. Team members have relevant knowledge of your industry and structure. We live in the Michiana area, are active community and civic leaders, and aim to help business owners and managers focus their energies on creating long term, sustainable advantages. Contact us today to see how we can help your business grow. 426 N. Main Street Elkhart, IN 46516 p. 574.389.5400 f. 574.389.5463 info@myreach360.com www.myreach360.com