Is your organization managing its workforce – its most vital and valuable asset – strategically? While most corporate leaders would respond affirmatively, in reality few organizations actually do. What does it mean to manage talent strategically? Fundamentally, it means proactively managing the organization's leadership, talent, and workforce in a way that keeps it closely aligned with corporate goals and strategies, even as these change. To more clearly understand what distinguishes an enterprise that practices strategic integrated talent management (ITM) it helps to examine several characteristics that set these leaders apart.
The most significant distinction is a close alignment between the firm's workforce and its current and planned strategic direction. Management and staff have the experience, knowledge, and skills needed to keep the company at the forefront of its industry. Just as important, the organization either has – or can quickly attract – the talent it will need to pursue its near-term and long-range strategic objectives. While industry-leading organizations seldom find it difficult to attract top-tier talent, other organizations often find strategic plans thwarted by the lack of appropriate talent. And even industry leaders may have a hard time finding the best people – because they may attract so many prospective employees that it's hard to actually identify top talent.
Transparency of workforce information is a primary driver of integrated talent management solutions. Many organizations cannot identify, nor leverage existing talent, and even fewer utilize leadership development or succession programs across their organizations. Although the benefits of ITM may be productivity improvements and more predictive insight into talent gaps, workforce benchstrength and organizational health, these benefits are predicated on transparency of and access to organizational data which is stored in a myriad of paper folders, multiple versions of spreadsheets and "silo" applications.
A highly engaged and transparent workforce and management team is also an important point of differentiation. This situation results when the majority of managers and staff:
- Derive substantial satisfaction from their work,
- Believe they are being fairly compensated,
- Sense they have a say in the organization,
- Share information to achieve meaningful development and career growth opportunities,
- Know that management has access to data on their performance, skills, competencies and career goals, and
- Feel their contributions and talents are recognized and appreciated.
These conditions result not only from careful and effective management of people at the individual level, but also from a nimble workforce, applications to support rapid alignment to meet the organization's strategic objectives, and a consistent data model to support talent optimization "from hire to retire." Misalignment with corporate goals often breeds job dissatisfaction and, ultimately, workforce instability. But more often, lack of workforce transparency leads organizations towards misalignment of their talent assets. Transparency allows workforce data to be utilized across lines of business and organizational silos. Talent and competency data must be accessible and available for planning, not just for merit and compensation cycles.
Firms that strategically manage their talent are more likely to have high rates of internal hiring, competitive compensation and benefit plans, and high quality training and career development programs. They also possess comprehensive and up-to-date succession plans that extend deeply into the organization and cover all critical positions, regardless of level.
