Streamline Training & Documentation: Filling the Talent Pipeline

Sunday, June 03, 2007

Filling the Talent Pipeline

Despite their dispiriting business-speak writing style, Douglas A. Ready and Jay A. Conger, currently visiting professors of organizational behavior at London Business School, offer a good analysis of how to manage your company's talent pipeline in "Make Your Company a Talent Factory," published in the June 2007 issue of the Harvard Business Review.

Ready and Conger argue that there are two essential aspects to the job of talent management:

Functionality — i.e., talent processes that support achievement of the organization's strategic and cultural objectives.

The processes in question cover sourcing of talent, assimilation into the organization, development, deployment, performance management, rewards, engagement in the organization's work, and retention.

Vitality — i.e., commitment by all constituencies to the job of acquiring, developing, and retaining talent.

The four constituencies are top management, line management, human resources personnel, and the talent pool itself, i.e., the group of employees who have been assessed as having high potential for progressive advancement.

Each constituency needs to be assessed separately in terms of commitment, hands-on engagement in the work of talent management, and accountability for results.

By assessing your own organization's handling of the eight functionality tasks and its level of vitality among the four talent consituencies (Ready and Conger provide a straightforward assessment tool), you can determine where there are weaknesses in need of concerted attention.

To help you see how the talent management model works in practice, Ready and Conger describe the experience of two exemplary companies — Procter & Gamble and the HSBC Group.

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Labels: Employee development, Employee performance management, Management practices

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