Talent management

Talent management is the process of ensuring that the organization has the talented people it needs to attain its business goals. Most talent management researchers agree that the beginning of the concept is the study of Michaels et al (2001, xii).  The term ‘talent management’ became popular in the late 90s, but ‘high potential employees’ or simply ‘high potentials’ had been studied in management literature much earlier.

The beginning of the 21st century was characterized by high industrialization of China and the need of exceptionally good workers became apparent at that time. It was China that reported the ‘lack of talents,’ but the war for exceptional employees occurred earlier, for example, in the USA in the form of campus recruitment.

Talent was defined by Michaels et al (2001, xii) as ‘the sum of a person’s abilities... his or her intrinsic gifts, skills, knowledge, experience, intelligence, judgment, attitude, character and drive. It also includes his or her ability to learn and grow. The phrase ‘the war for talent’ has become a familiar metaphor for  talent management which  identified five imperatives that companies need to act  , 1- Creating a winning employee value proposition that will make your company uniquely attractive to talent. 2- Moving beyond recruiting hype to build a long-term recruiting strategy. 3- Using job experience, coaching and mentoring to cultivate the potential in managers. 4- Strengthening the talent pool by investing in A players, developing B players and acting decisively on C players. 5- Central to this approach is a pervasive mindset – a deep conviction shared by leaders throughout the company that competitive advantage comes from having better talent at all levels.

Talent management starts with the business strategy and what it signifies in terms of the future demand for talented people, the aim is to develop and maintain a pool of talented people through the talent pipeline, which consists of the processes of resourcing, career planning and talent development that maintain the flow of talent needed by the organization. Its elements are Talent planning – the process of establishing how many and what sort of talented people are needed . Resourcing − the outcomes of talent planning are programs for obtaining people from within and outside the organization. Talent identification – the use of talent audits to establish who is eligible to become part of the talent pool. Talent relationship management – building effective relationships with people in their roles.  Talent development – learning and development policies and programs . Talent retention – the implementation of policies designed to ensure that talented people remain as engaged. Career management – concerned with the provision of opportunities for people to develop their abilities. Management succession planning –  the objective is to see that the organization has the managers it requires  to meet future business needs. The talent pipeline – the processes of resourcing, talent development and career planning that maintain the flow of talent needed to create the talent pool. The talent pool – the resources of talent available to an organization.

Conclusion:

HSBC has created a system of talent pools that track and manage the careers of employees. Employees  in these pools are selected initially for new assignments within their region or line of business and, over time, are given positions that cross boundaries in order to demonstrate that they have the potential to reach a senior management role. They can then be placed in the group talent pool, which means that they have the potential to reach the senior executive level in three to five years and top management in the longer term. Ready and Conger (2007)

References:
Armstrong, M. & Taylor, S (2014), 13^th ed , Hand Book of Human Resource Management Practice ,Talent Management ,pp 263-279
Kogan Page, UK.

Michaels, E G, Handfield-Jones, H and Axelrod, B (2001) The War for Talent, Boston, MA, Harvard Business School Press

Ready, D A and Conger, J A (2007) Make your company a talent factory, Harvard Business Review, June, pp 68–77