How well are you managing your talent?
Talent Management Survey Results
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In a fast changing, highly competitive business environment
organisations should be looking to people, rather than products or
processes, as a source of differentiation.
Sage asked 200 HR professionals how well their talent management
strategies are suited to the current economic climate.
The following article analyses our findings and looks at the
practice of talent management in businesses today.
The Results are in!
Tactical
•30% of organisations feel they do not have the levels of
resourcing to fund the encouragement of staff to volunteer within
the local or wider communities
•Nearly 60% of organisations do not have training policies in
place and their training requirements and development programmes
are driven by individual requests
•Nearly half of the businesses do not actively develop talent
pools around certain skill-sets
•Over half of the businesses do not have a proactive approach to
succession planning
Personal
•Only 11% of businesses feel managing their staff’s career
progression is of enough importance that they represent HR at board
level meetings
•6% of businesses view talent as a departmental resource rather
than as a corporate resource
•Only 33% have a pay and bonus structure that is fundamentally
tied to the performance of each person
•10% have a formal fast track scheme for 'rising stars' to
attract and retain talented staff
•Just 8% actively encourage staff to volunteer within the local
or wider communities
Shared
•No businesses felt that they were viewed as a leader and they
got to pick "the best of the best" employees
•Only a third said that talent management was matched to
business needs as it was integral to the maintenance of their
brand
•Only 2% of organisations said that they don’t need to keep the
CV details of good applicants on file as they have an immense
amount of interest from very talented potential employees
•Just 9% provide employment experiences to actively prepare for
the succession of certain roles
Strong
•13% of businesses do not offer opportunities for staff to
rotate roles
•A quarter of businesses do not have any performance-based
pay/bonus structure in place
•35% focus on trying to develop talent from within, rather than
bringing staff in from the outside
•15% say that HR is always represented at executive level
meetings as the internal development of talent is tied very closely
to their budgeting strategy
Tactical
Half of the businesses surveyed said they are not fully linking
HR practices with corporate business objectives and the role of the
HR director is unlikely to be a board-level position. 20% said that
strategic business analysis does not feed into HR forecasting and
they are not yet using data in such a way that it can help HR with
strategic planning. However knowing what you’ve got, and what you
need, in terms of talent is a core capability for HR departments
that want to become more strategic. Organisations should start by
assessing whether there are ways in which they can develop a better
way of retaining and analysing employee data.
Nearly 60% of organisations do not have training policies in
place and their training requirements and development programmes
are driven by individual requests. In the current economic climate
HR professionals should be looking to focus on training and
developing their staff to retain talent within their organisations.
Losing a member of staff costs an organisation and average of
£7,000.
A third of businesses react to talent requirements as they are
presented by lines of business rather than forecasting staffing
requirements to closely match the market opportunities that they
are likely to be exposed to.
Tactical thinking organisations are probably able to identify
for themselves a range of actions that would enable them to become
more strategic. A good starting point is to assess better ways of
retaining and analysing employee data.
Personal
Only 10% of the businesses surveyed have a focus on personal
development. These businesses are likely to be an employer of
choice, and 10% of the businesses had an exclusive talent
management approach for “rising stars”. Developing, managing and
retaining those individuals as part of a planned strategy for
talent is equally important, as is adopting systems to measure the
return on this investment. Typically, professional services
companies (consultancies, law firms) fall into this category.
Only 13% of businesses look to quickly identify high-flyers and
commit resource to accelerating their development but a fifth of
businesses proactively encourage mentoring opportunities,
especially for staff they consider to be talented.
The organisations with a focus on empowering staff to lead are
highly evolved in terms of talent management, particularly when it
comes to buttressing the career progression of their 'shining
stars'. However there is a tendency for recruiting the same types
of people with similar qualifications and even personalities
therefore there is probably more that could be done to improve the
mix and diversity of talent within these types of
organisations.
Shared
A fifth of the organisations that were surveyed have a shared
approach, with a strong emphasis on aligning talent management and
brand management. This organisational type is a brand leader in its
market. It is a brand that employees are strongly attracted to. Of
the businesses surveyed nearly half said that HR was represented at
executive level meetings and HR is driving many of the relevant
business strategies.
There is a strong emphasis on aligning talent management and
brand management, so that the two work closely to create a
workforce that reflects and enhances the brand values. 35% of
businesses said that high quality talent is integral to the
maintenance of their market-leading brand. Over a fifth of
businesses look to enhance employee opportunities by providing
mentoring support, sabbatical opportunities, supportive work/life
options, sponsorship of external training and so on. For these
schemes to work, company-wide buy-in at every level is required;
something that does happen because HR is a strategic role within
shared brand vision organisations, with a seat at the board room
table.
In only 9% of businesses HR analytics are used to forecast
skills requirements and help with succession planning however over
a fifth are have training programmes that are renowned within the
industry for their excellence.
Strong
Nearly a fifth of organisations surveyed have a strong internal
engagement model and is a pacesetter for inclusive models of
listening and communicating with employees. A fifth of the
businesses surveyed look at the 'talents' of all staff and works on
ways to develop their strengths and create broader talent pools
from which to draw. Their approach to talent management is driven
by policies around equality, scaled career progression and the need
to carefully manage staffing costs.
A quarter of businesses do not have a performance-based
pay/bonus structure in place, instead they have a grade-assessed
pay structure that pays according to skills and experience.
35% of the organisations surveyed do not fast-track staff, but
they do focus on trying to develop talent from within, rather than
bringing staff in from the outside.
So what's next?
Our research shows that the majority of organisations, across
all industries and all sizes of organisation, have processes and
policies in place, but are not fully linking HR practices with
corporate business objectives. Furthermore, the role of the HR
director is unlikely to be a board-level position. It is essential
that business managers recognise that workforce and talent
management can directly impact a company's profit and give them a
competitive edge so board level buy-in is essential.
For all organisations types there are areas for improvement but
one of the key things is to make sure that organisations are
capturing the right data in their HR systems and then making use of
that data to make it into useable and insightful information for
informed decision making. Organisations should be building talents
maps of their businesses from the data, highlighting areas of
expertise and talent deficits.
HR departments need to take a long-term approach to their
analysis and look ahead five years in order to attempt to predict
what may happen in the workforce rather than just looking at the
present situation. Being prepared for the future direction of a
business, with the right skills and expertise in place will give a
business that competitive edge.