One thing about working with and within HR teams over many years is I know the notion of Talent Management can sometimes be viewed as a secret club for those ‘in the know’. However, this often only leads to talent management becoming an elitist offering where there’s very little transparency or measurable success. More than anything, this approach leads people to view talent discussions as a tick in the box exercise, focusing on the tools rather than the outputs.
A senior HR client of mine recently asked ‘Seriously Victoria, what can we do to make Talent part of our day-to-day business culture?’, which is what inspired me to write this blog. Simply put, you don’t need a PhD in rocket science, but what you do need is leaders who understand ‘why’, consistency in approach and tools, and managers who are good at prioritising and asking the right career questions. Here are some top tips for getting started:
Start with Leaders
It seems obvious to start at the top, but once your leaders are all on the same page Talent Management is a lot easier to cascade and deliver in a business of any size. All it takes is one leader who doesn’t believe in ‘sharing talent’ or who discredits the process by saying their people ‘don’t have time to have regular 121s’, and you can kiss goodbye to any sort of positive cultural change (and actual outcomes).
Getting access to leaders can be hard, but if you take the time to do this properly I promise you will reap the benefits. My trick is simple: Speak to them all 121 to help them understand how a new or enriched talent approach will impact their part of the business positively. Bring it to life; help them see that this will support the engagement and development of their people which will, in turn, see positive commercial results on their bottom line. Show them how simple talent management is – help them understand how they need to rate potential transparently, where to document the results, and most importantly, ‘the so what’. Often, most leaders will have a real light bulb moment here as they’ve never seen any more than time consuming rating processes with very little outputs. Once they see that the information leads somewhere other than a black hole (succession plans, development needs analysis, engagement strategies and talent pooling), they will be hard pushed to reject your proposals.
Once you’ve got your leaders all on the talent management bus, there’s what I class as the ‘easy bit’. Get a short slot in an Exec/Board meeting to bring them all together, agree collectively what you’ve already discussed, get the green light, and off you go. Simple. Just make sure that you contract with them that you will return at specific points to discuss outputs, and that they are all responsible for upholding the positive intent and transparency around your organisational approach to Talent. Oh, and that they will also be rated by their boss!
Talent Management Tools
You may love it or hate it, but the 9-box model works wonders when it comes to the simple rating and grouping of those you see as ‘talent’ (my definition of this is those who have the potential to take on more or broader responsibility). I regularly have clients ask me how to create ‘simpler 9-box models’ but my view is this – the 9-box isn’t broken so don’t try to fix it. If leaders and managers understand what they’re looking for and why, they won’t go far wrong when using it.
My advice to clients around tooling is usually: get clear on what you’re looking for when it comes to potential (i.e., have a crystal-clear potential model), and share it with everyone. (Internal comms channels, town halls, leadership messages, posters!). When people know what they are rated against, they will a) be less suspicious of this type of activity), but b) they can have a good go at demonstrating and talking about the things you’re looking for. When written like that it seems obvious doesn’t it?
Once you’ve got your potential model, combine that with your 9-box grid. Don’t mess about with it, don’t tinker per department, just roll out one single version with directions on how to use it. All you’re missing now is the vehicle for where these discussions are had.
In a previous role I designed and rolled out what we called ‘People Committees’ – we did this across 28 countries, and it worked. The principles were simple – aligned to annual the performance process (negating the need for multiple conversations), leaders from all departments came together to present their talent identified and discuss each of their development plans. (In 9-box terms: those in boxes 8, 9 and 6). This was a half day meeting, hosted by a member of the HR team who in turn fed the outputs back into the Talent team for analysis/reporting/action. The onus was on the business though, this was not a ‘HR owned process’. We of course coordinated central development activity as well as measurement and reporting, but Talent was definitely not something ‘done to’ the business by HR.
To achieve the smooth running of the Committees and to ensure quality of conversation/outputs, this process had to be replicated throughout all the lower tiers of the business, right down to Manager level. No easy feat, right? However, with transparency of ‘why’, a call to action from the SLT, and simple talent toolbox, we did it by supporting the business. From that point onwards we saw much greater cross-pollination of talent and skills across the business, people with excellent development plans who felt valued and engaged, and opportunities to spot groups of people (talent pools) where we could focus activity against the backdrop of the future strategic needs. In one year we turned around the whole culture of talent.
Managers – the key to unlocking your talent
I have written a number of blogs about how important Managers are when it comes to people strategy and talent management success. It’s simple – if your managers aren’t given the time to understand your talent management approach, develop their career conversation skills, or actually have the discussions with their team members, then you may as well save your time and money by not bothering with attempting to identify or develop talent at all. Honestly, I mean it.
Manager capability is paramount, so if you’re thinking about where to start then perhaps consider some of the following:
– How could you communicate your talent strategy and their role to your managers? Can you and your SLT arrange physical or virtual road shows which are mandated they attend? (Remember, everyone must be on the bus). Can you set up a manager channel internally, or a part of your intranet dedicated to helping them be best-in-class at this? (Guidance, tools, training). Most important is that they understand their role, and that part of their own performance will be measured on how they engage with the process.
– Can you set up some internal manager training on how to have great career conversations, and how to use the tools? Videos from experts, short lunch and learn sessions with local HR team member/leaders, sharing worked examples of how to use the potential model and talent identification grid? You could send 3-5 minute videos out once per week in the run up to the process starting – bite-sized definitely works best.
– Finally – last but certainly not least – do your managers really know what’s expected of them? You may need to go back to basics, communicating the ‘Role of a Manager’ which isn’t just to record absence or process holiday requests, but also to foster and develop talent through regular and meaningful conversations. Making sure your managers know how much they are needed and valued is critical after all – they will be some of your talent too! You may even consider a single ‘manager objective’ for all those leading people – as soon as it appears on their own objectives, the stage is set.
Summary
Talent Management doesn’t need to be smoke and mirrors. If you tell everyone what you’re looking for and why, develop your managers to have brilliant conversations, and use consistent tools to capture information before being discussed in the boardroom, you will develop a high performing and engaged workforce where people feel valued and love coming to work.