This document discusses talent management strategies. It explains that talent management involves attracting, integrating, developing, and retaining skilled employees to meet business goals. The author provides a 7-step process for implementing an effective talent management strategy including benchmarking talent, succession planning, internal talent reviews, coaching managers, and continually reevaluating the strategy. The goal of talent management is to differentiate the company, increase employee productivity and retention, and properly develop a pipeline of future leaders.

1. Chelsea Newton
A blog about things I'm passionate about - employment branding, social media, talent
management, onboarding, networking and defining myself as a professional in an ever changing
space!
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Talent Management 101
Talent Management is a HOT topic. It is really about managing your talent proactively, aligning
talent to organizational values and opportunities, and succession planning to keep your top
talent happy at YOUR Company. According to Wikipedia (the best definition source) talent
management “refers to the skills of attracting highly skilled worked, of integrating new workers,
and developing and retaining current workers to meet current and future business objectives.”
As the article calls out, “companies engaging in a talent management strategy shift the
responsibility of employees from the HR department to all managers throughout the
organization.” HR is a lead player in working with a company’s senior leadership team to align
on a talent management strategy but ALL managers must then take accountability for
developing their direct reports. Thus, training & organizational education is also a key part of a
talent management strategy. Talent management also goes hand in hand with recruiting so you
can acquire the right talent to meet your business needs once you create a language to discuss
skill gaps or needs. Talent management is increasingly a point of differentiation as happier
employees are more productive and it helps you keep your high performers/high potentials
happy and not seeking (or being open) to other opportunities.
The economy is picking up and the market for strong talent is getting hotter than ever. Many
companies are failing to bench mark their talent, create guidelines for talent management
development, and build succession plans for top performers. This puts your talent at risk when
other’s come calling and puts you in reactive mode dealing with counter offers or potentially
being too late in the game to keep your high performers.
Here is Talent Management 101

2. If this is a hot topic for you, please let me know so I can build out further posts on the topic.
Step 1: Determine bench marks for talent. What are the key pillars involved in each role & at
which level to you want each manager (based on title) to be an expert? This is an exercise in
itself that takes time.
Step 2: Make a companywide plan on succession planning & create guidelines for promotions,
bonus plans, talent reviews, and learning & development.
Step 3: Internal Talent Review. Work with all of the senior managers to bench mark your
employees (aka your talent) & identify the top performers/high potential candidates. Ensure
that all managers are aligned. There are many tools/processes/templates out there to help you
with this process. This should be an executive/senior manager discussion so you can really
compare talent from multiple teams and have a consistent evaluation among all employees.
Start with your most senior managers and work your way through each level. HR should manage
these conversations.
Step 4: Coach your managers on how to have conversations with all employees – especially
those high potential individuals and take them through template succession plans to determine
their 1-3 year plans. Work to have a consistent strategy on getting these candidates additional
exposure & opportunities based on their long term talent to truly grow them into your
company’s future leaders. Templates, training & education is very important at this step as
some managers may be leading high potential candidates but they themselves might be more a
“steady Eddie” – also people important to keep happy & developed.
Step 5: When new business is secured or a promotion is justified, ensure that you look to those
ready & willing candidates who have the right skills & the right aptitude to move into the role.
Base your promotions on fit & talent versus things like tenure.
Step 6: Visit your talent review annually to revisit how you are doing on your strategy & re-
evaluate your team’s growth over the past year.

3. Step 7: repeat repeat repeat. Remember that training & development of your managers &
support from a strong HR Talent Manager/Lead is very key to lead all of the change
management necessary to properly build & execute a strong talent management strategy. This
is different way of thinking and thus this strategy will take time and needs alignment between
HR and Sr leaders in developing the organizational plan and managing this change for your
organization.
There are many assessments/processes out there to support your talent management strategy.
Remember to use tools & research research research! Have a plan & then work that plan.
For those of you with existing talent management strategies, what is working? What have you
learned? What would you do differently? For those just starting, how are you doing in your
planning?
Below is just one visual example of an important talent management strategy as it should
include everything from Acquiring Talent, to Developing, Aligning, & Assessing Talent.
Wikipedia definition of Talent Management: http://bit.ly/oDuhlt
Talent Management Process Example <via Taleo>: http://bit.ly/q3q3hE
Posted by Chelsea Newton at 9:45 AM
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Labels: Employee Engagement, HR, Mentorship, Onboarding, Recruiting, Talent Acquisition,
Talent Management
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1 comment:
BrahmaJanuary 14, 2013 at 9:04 AM

4. I agree with the tips..... how important the employee engagement plays role in TM.
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About Me
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Chelsea Newton
In a few words: Employment Branding fanatic. Volunteer. Social Media Maven. Lead Speaker.
Multi tasker extraordinare! I love exploring new things from countries, cities, to new
technologies and ways of building up brands. I love sharing my insights and learning from others
and thus love to attend/speak at conferences, share online & make those great in person
connections. I want to use my blog to discuss hot topics I think are relevant in the categories of
Talent Acquisition and Marketing including: campus recruiting, social media, onboarding & the
latest and greatest in the experiential marketing world. My background is in marketing but I
have ventured into Employment Branding over the last 5 years. To keep up with the most
cutting edge technologies in building employment brands, I look to Experiential Marketing &
Social Media outlets to stay ahead of the curve. I hope you find some of my learnings/insights
useful!
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