Talent management: Looking down the road ahead

If taken seriously, these recommendations will have implications for everyone involved in talent management.

What about the individual?

In our survey, we asked: What advice would you give to someone starting out in their career about how to handle their own talent?

The responses were quite candid. Some were linked to the need to self-promote, others focused on the need to self-manage, balanced with humility and a need to embrace change and be open and responsive. Above all, was a recognition of the need to learn and to set ambitious targets for yourself.

Individuals need to take responsibility for their own development. They need to recognise the unique set of talents they have developed and to have the confidence to manage their own careers.

Through developing a clearer understanding of their individual strengths and areas of development, they can help their managers support them. They need to be curious and develop the courage and wisdom to push against the corporate boundaries to make a difference within their organisation and in the wider community.

What does it mean for managers?

Managers will need to develop a different set of core skills and emotional intelligence in order to identify, recruit and retain talented people and to give honest, open and supportive feedback on performance.

Teams will need clearer objectives that will underpin day-to-day performance. Groups will need to identify critical activities matched to individual competencies.

Technology and other systems will need to be exploited to undertake tasks that would otherwise be undertaken by individuals.

Trivial duties and non-essentials should be stripped out of day-to-day activities.

Managers will need to take responsibility for developing new talent and creating a coaching and learning culture.

What does it mean for organisations?

Organisations will need to clearly define their brand, and to recognise that talent management will be one of the core pillars of their organisational development.

Organisations also need to demonstrate their values and brand in the way they conduct their business.

They need to create an infrastructure that allows individuals freedom to innovate, generate ideas and to receive feedback.

An analysis should be carried out to identify what should be kept in-house and what could be outsourced. Core strengths should be identified and built on, while non-core opportunities can, potentially, be dealt with through other business relationships.

Organisations need to work to create a diverse and multi-talented workforce.

They should also recognise how their corporate social responsibility can enhance their organisation brand and their links with the local community.

We asked Whitbread for an update on their community investment. In this financial year, its community investment will total more than £2m, comprising direct cash contributions, donated employee time and recycled furniture and equipment. Employees have raised a further £1m. Whitbread's revitalised community investment programme has the core theme of 'helping young people achieve their potential'.

As well as specific projects throughout the Whitbread businesses, including supporting Comic Relief and Sport Relief, the company has its own specific programmes such as Whitbread Young Achievers and Whitbread Action Earth.

It also has a Match Funding programme, which was introduced in 1995 to demonstrate the company's support for the tremendous volunteering work carried out by the Whitbread people. Anyone employed by Whitbread can apply for an award of up to £200 every year to donate to a charity the company supports. This year's Match Funding budget totals £50,000.

What it means for recruiters and headhunters

In an environment where talent is a scarce resource, recruitment professionals need to nurture and develop their relationships with both their clients and their candidates. It is important to recognise that someone who is a candidate today, may become a client tomorrow.

They too need to develop an understanding of their client's brand and seek to meet their unique needs; they need to make both the candidate and the client feel special. They need to consider their own brand and their own talent management process and to mirror best practice.

Talent management - the future

This was the final question we asked in our survey. Here, our respondents gave valuable advice, covering areas such as the need to overhaul appraisal systems, to encourage increasing self management, more mobility of talent between departments, organisations and even sectors.

They also highlighted the need to identify and retain talent, as well as the need to recognise the talent they do have earlier in their careers.

Another very important suggestion was the need to adopt more of a portfolio approach to careers. The need to develop flexibility in systems and ways of working that bring high rewards for high results may mean that people spend less time in the office, but are far more productive.

None of this will work without increased personal responsibility. One of the pluses of the dotcom environment was a huge release of potential which was so potent because the individuals felt empowered and in charge of their own destiny.

They were primarily young, energetic and enthusiastic and what they created was awesome in terms of focused output. Imagine what could be achieved if similar energy was released within more traditional working environments.

As we emphasise throughout this guide, talent management is primarily based on common sense, but it also needs systems and focus. Above all, it needs the whole-hearted commitment of everyone within the organisation to make it work.

Finally, we return to Bennis and Biedermann in Organizing Genius:

"Recruiting the most talented people possible is the first task of anyone who hopes to create a great group. The people who can achieve something truly unprecedented have more than enormous talent and intelligence. They have original minds. They see things differently. They want to do the next thing, not the last one. . . Great groups are headed by people confident enough to recruit people better than themselves. They revel in the talent of others. . . Being part of a group of superb people has a profound effect on each member. . . Participants know that their inclusion is a mark of their own excellence. . . People in great groups are always stretching because of the giants around them . . .. Great groups always believe they are doing something vital, even holy."