People Development: Shaping Careers & Developing Talent

DOC 21st June 2012

Concept of Career

From• An organisationally driven route through the tiers of management• Mainly vertical

To• Number of emerging career models e.g. Specialist models provide

progress for those who do not want/are not cut out for the management route; they focus on developing technical/professional expertise.

• Lateral moves that broaden perspective and experience• Higher level of responsibility not necessarily in tier

Concept of Career• Shift from Career Management to Talent Planning

– Developing potential in a generic rather than individual sense• Organisations are keen to build Talent Pools and are concerned with on-

boarding the best resources– Talent Management increases organisational efficiency and effectiveness and

has a proven strong link to financial returns (high performing companies, across industries and geographical sites, are 5 times more likely to run a mature career development process, than bottom performers1)

– TM can be focused on an ‘elite’ subgroup of future leaders / those capable of progressing (individuals at the top, or with high potential/performance to get to the top); but what makes ‘an exceptional strategic manager’ who makes the difference?

OR– TM can take an inclusive approach accounting for professional staff, technical

specialists and knowledge workers

1 Managing and Maximising People to Achieve High Performance. SAP HCM White Paper, 2005

Talent Management – Simple not Easy

• Talent as a complex amalgam of employees’ skills, knowledge, cognitive ability and potential; also values and work preferences

• Filling positions with the Right people – knowledgeable, productive, right attitude and behaviour

• Promoting High Potentials to increase their impact on the organisation’s performance

• Developing employees to increase efficiency within their role• Increasing performance and consistently Retaining the best employees

– Interestingly, studies show only 13% of organisations believe they have a clear understanding of the skills and roles they will require in the next 3 to 5 years 2

– CIPD have found in a survey in 2011 that retaining talent is the most prevalent reason for implementing career management (following are meeting strategic objectives, enhancing organisational capability and matching skills to future requirements)

– CIPD’s 2012 Annual Survey reports a stronger focus on developing talent in-house, retaining rather than recruiting talent and redeploying people into new roles. Concurrently, however, more organisations report recruiting for key talent/niche areas in 2012 (60%) compared with 2011 (50%)

2 Unlocking the DNA of the Adaptable Workforce. IBM Global Business Service, 2008.

Talent Management - Prerequisites

• Culture of acceptance– HR lead Professional Development to establish

independence, fairness, validity and acceptance within the organisation (takes time to build trust and seconds to destroy it). Coaching is considered a valuable tool for talent management of senior posts 3

– Internal appreciation of Talent within a performance culture

– Link performance and potential to pay and career growth consistently

3 Talent Management: Understanding the Dimensions, CIPD, 2006

Talent Management - Prerequisites• Processes

– Run an toolbox of integrated processes that enable embededness within the business context e.g. competency model, linked with JD, desired behaviours, recruitment tool, performance tool, high potential identification, succession planning and development programmes (Linked to long term health of the organisation)

• Structure – Set guiding principles that will challenge company politics

between functions and levels, avoiding the pitfalls of the Peter principle, enabling empire builders or the advancement of underperforming employees

Peter principle - where promotion is based on achievement, success, and merit, that organization's members will eventually be promoted beyond their level of ability. The principle is commonly phrased, "employees tend to rise to their level of incompetence."

Focusing on the Future• Organisations capable of identifying and

developing talent (building a supply of HR), but is enough being done to understand the kind of roles required in the future to maintain business success?

For strategic TM shift is required to meet business needs

Being Demand Lead

• To identify and manage high potentials, to develop the leaders required in future, we need to close the gap between demand and supply– Ensure the right number of people, of the right

quality, are ready when the organisation needs them– Need to understand the requirement for matrix jobs

that lack clear boundaries (e.g. conversion of IT and engineering, people driven manufacturing leaders)

Why is it important to get TM right?

• Equipping the business for tomorrow – ongoing life-force of the organisation, addressing

the gap between what a company has and what it needs

• Keeping up with the pace of change– 80% of companies don’t believe they have enough

of the right people to meet the demands and challenges of senior roles; a further 75% report similar concern at middle management level 4

4 Hay Group Research, Corporate Soufflé. Is Middle Management giving Way?, 2006

Why is it important to get TM right?

• New roles are emerging– Matrixed jobs demanding different operating

structures– Roles cannot be filled with the quality of

traditional leaders who are climbing the ladder• It pays dividends– Companies that manage their talent consistently,

outperform their peers in terms of return on share price 5

5 Hay Group, Chief Executive Magazine Survey, 2006

What are the hurdles?• Business strategy is not adequately linked to people strategy, and in

larger organisations there is a lack of operation wide approach to TM (difficult to trade talent on a group basis)

• Lack of vision by senior management of the role of TM and what success ‘looks like’ for the organisation

• Poor TM infrastructure – Only 20% of CEO’s in UK companies surveyed were confident their TM

process would deliver the leaders required in future 6

• Lack of Management Know-How and accountability– TM as a function of HR rather than supported by HR

• Failure to address underperformance• Lack of appropriate time dedicated to TM• Management confuse performance with potential

6 Hay Group and Human Resources Magazine joint survey, 2007

TM Success

• Looking at businesses that do TM well, 4 key components arise:

1. Strategic Orientation – define strategy in terms of something meaningful for TM

2. KNOW – measure and address the gap between future demand and the people on board by talent review

3. GROW – bread success through leadership development and supported role placements, where high potentials are enable to take supported risks and build innate leadership. Develop people for the long term

4. FLOW – push talent where it is needed in the organisation and where it can grow best

People are not your most important assets; the right people in the right roles are

Thank You!