In talent management in companies has two major tasks. The first is to identify qualified candidates for current and future leadership positions. The second is to prepare leadership development programs in specific ways focused on the selected leaders. While leadership development in organizations used to be limited to only a few selected individuals, today it is possible to implement systematic company-wide programs.
HR departments can easily manage and track their leadership development programs using modern, interconnected technology platforms for talent management which include recruitment, employee assessment, performance management, succession planning, career planning, etc. Every successful talent management initiative should, however, always be linked to the corporate strategy which defines the desired leadership style.
An interesting article on this topic was published by John Hansen from Oracle on hcmag.com. The author described seven steps that are needed to identify, recruit and retain the best talent.
1. Start with the strategy
The leadership style you want to apply in your company should be based on its business goals and culture. You can use psychological and behavioral assessments of current leaders. Also ask your management, employees and customers what they see as the basis qualities of successful leadership in your company.
2. Find current and future leaders
Define the desired leadership skills and competencies. Then, create a performance management system based on competency models that include clearly defined measures of success. Compare the costs and time involved finding leaders from inside to outside the company. Leaders who can be found within the company reach productivity in about one half the time of leaders from the outside.
3. Find leadership gaps
Compare the current and future requirements of your organizational leadership. Then, focus on how to overcome the identified gaps via succession planning and recruitment.
4. Plan successions
Identify critical job roles not only in corporate management, but in all parts of your organization. Use information systems to help you work with the data obtained during job and assessment interviews and career planning. Your system should also be able to compare individual talent profiles among employees based on their skills, competencies and performance.
5. Plan careers
Develop individual employee career plans linked to their career development opportunities.
6. Create skills maps
Once you identify employees with a high potential to become future leaders, you will need maps of skills these workers still need to acquire. Work with both formal and informal learning, including the latest tools such as social networks.
7. Keep your leaders
Linking employee performance and salary is not enough. Focus on how to link employee compensation with the fulfilment of corporate goals.
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