Elizabeth Craig

"Co-authored by Elizabeth Craig and Robert J. Thomas<br />
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Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it. This remark, attributed to Mark Twain, captures the essence of the problem that companies have today when they consider the question of talent. Most top executives spend a lot of time talking about the importance of their people to long-term success, but few know what they need to do to make talent an asset that allows them to outdistance competitors.<br />
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This knowing-doing gap is especially critical today, when changes in demographics, the global economy, and the nature of work itself have transformed talent into an organization's most important competitive asset. <br />
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One major problem holding companies back is fragmentation. Systems, processes and practices designed for talent management have received insufficient attention from many organizations, and lack of integration is one result. While many companies are now accelerating spending on talent-related processes and programs, they have much ground to cover.<br />
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Only an organization that has developed the capabilities required to use and multiply its talent in the service of high performance can be described as "talent powered.<br />
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To truly compete on talent, companies must be prepared to do more than just fill in gaps by adding people, or by investing in talent according to the winds of economic change (investing when the economy is up, then cutting budgets during recessionary periods). They have to be able to multiply their talent to generate superior levels of effort, imagination and creativity. And they need to do that by concentrating on five talent imperatives: <br />
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1.       Develop the mindset from the top of the organization and down that approaches talent as a strategic issue, and includes a human capital strategy as an intrinsic part of any business strategy. <br />
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2.       Recognize and nurture diversity as the organization's greatest asset, and the ability to attract and work with diverse talent as a critical competitive advantage. <br />
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3.       Build workforce learning and skills development as a critical organizational capability. <br />
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4.       Increase the alignment and engagement of people in their organization and its mission. <br />
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5.       Make sure that all people in the organization, especially those at senior levels, see talent management as part of their job and responsibility. This is responsibility is not limited to HR.<br />
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1. Talent as a strategic issue<br />
The idea of talent as the force that powers companies is taking center stage. An organization's people are emerging as the prime source of value, sustainability and, in most companies, of cost. The shift in many of the world's developed economies to more services-based and knowledge work has altered the way in which value is created and measured. Yet a deeper understanding of how people add value, how to invest in their development for best effect, and even how they work and what motivates them, remains surprisingly elusive to many organizations. <br />
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At the same time, challenging workforce demographics, changing attitudes of the workforce, skills shortfalls, and the never-ending requirements for new skills and capabilities has also significantly raised awareness of talent issues at the tops of organizations. Business strategies that don't account for the challenges of how and where to grow the workforce and access the talent and skills needed are built on sand. Despite the apparent global abundance of talent from the expansion of many of the world's developing economies, there are nevertheless real shortages and intense competition for talent everywhere. <br />
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2. Leveraging a capacity for diversity<br />
Talent-powered organizations build strong capabilities in defining critical workforce capabilities, anticipating talent needs, discovering new sources of talent in diverse and dispersed talent pools, and managing a global, ethnically diverse and multigenerational workforce. In an increasingly diverse world, talent-powered organizations use demographic and geographic diversityand new ways of working globallyfor competitive advantage. <br />
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In much of the developed world, birth and fertility rates are falling faster than at any point since the Black Plague. Within a number of industry sectors, including the public sector, large percentages of the workforce population are approaching retirement. Companies now have to look much harder at how they ensure that valuable knowledge capital does not leave their organizations forever, and they are getting more creative at retaining older people in their workforces. <br />
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Discovering and attracting talent for many organizations has become a lot more complex and difficult. Growing numbers of educated and skilled workers are coming from developing parts of the world such as Asia, Central Europe and South America, and for many organizations it is critical to be able to tap into these new talent pools. However, with limited real experience and presence in these markets, companies face many new challenges, not least in figuring out which specific cities or locations to select given the rapidly changing competitive environment. Segmenting and targeting specific groups of talent, being more creative and innovative in providing employee brand propositions and connecting to younger generations through the internet are newer capabilities that talent-powered organizations are developing. These organizations are leading the way in learning from other disciplines such as marketing and supply chain management in thinking through these new paradigms. <br />
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3. The importance of learning and skills development<br />
Although recruiting new talent is critical, building skills in the existing workforce is equally essential. In many parts of the world, talent shortages caused by changing demographics are being exacerbated by skills shortages caused by general educations that are not always delivering young people to the workforce fully prepared to be contributing members of a knowledge economy. There is already evidence that Europe and the US are failing to keep up with the demand for the skills needed to drive long-term success. <br />
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Addressing these challenges requires the talent-powered organization to take several actions along parallel tracks:<br />
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"       Re-skilling workforces. Although there are certainly some wider issues in education, the reality is that around 70 per cent of the workforce that will be available in 2020 has already completed their education. Businesses and governments must therefore develop adult learning and development programs to properly skill these workers.<br />
"       Transforming learning design and delivery. In too many organizations, learning and development investments are not well focused, measured or leveraged effectively through blended learning approaches. Unfortunately, investments in human capital are managed as operational expenses, and therefore often at the mercy of cost cutting and other short term measures. Today, every organization needs to approach learning and skills development as a critical capability. Investing in your people has been shown to be critical to talent attraction and retention, but it is equally critical to maintaining the knowledge capital of the business and efficiently and effectively growing new skills. Technology is now playing a huge part in improving knowledge capture and learning effectiveness, and the increasing use of collaboration tools or 'wikis,' if managed in the right way, can add new value. <br />
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Assigning work and helping people gain the right experience is also a critical component of workforce development. This is much more than succession planning -it is about how talent is deployed and even how work is organized to best make use of the available talent as well as building the skills of the workforce. Again, technology and the internet are now playing a huge part in innovative approaches to these important questions.<br />
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4. Improving performance and retention with higher levels of engagement<br />
Aligning and engaging employees to maximize their contribution has never been more important, or arguably more challenging. The expectations of the new generation of workers, issues of work/life balance, greater levels of job mobility and changing patterns of work, have all put increased pressure on keeping employees motivated and aligned to the objectives of the organization. <br />
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Talent-powered organizations are utilizing more innovative approaches. More flexibility in employee value propositions, compensation programs, and career options and direction are becoming important levers in managing more diverse workforces. Talent-powered organizations are learning from the marketing concept of mass customization to better identify individual needs and priorities, and tailoring their work experience accordingly. <br />
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However, one of the most important drivers of engagement is the individual's immediate supervisor of boss. As is often said, people join organizations but they leave bosses. If the person who has the most influence on an employee's day to day work, performance, and career direction is not able to coach, advise, provide feedback, and motivate, then there is little hope of that employee staying. Yet most organizations don't do enough to train and improve line managers' and supervisors' people management skills. Leadership development is too often confined to the top of the organization, and perhaps the small stream of designated future leaders, yet basic leadership skills are essential at all levels. <br />
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5. Making talent management everyone's job<br />
Given the strategic importance of talent and the ability to create and develop it, talent management must become everyone's responsibility. In talent-powered organizations, organizational capabilities in discovering, developing, and deploying talent must empower and charge everyone in the organization with identifying and nurturing talent in ways that drive high performance. This has to begin with top leadership being closely engaged themselves, and helping to create a talent mindset and culture in the organization. Indeed, according to the most recent Accenture High-Performance Workforce Study, those organizations identified as "human performance leaders" are much more likely than laggards to have the heads of their top workforces highly involved in human capital management initiativessometimes by as much as a five to one margin.<br />
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The HR function must work efficiently and effectively to enable the talent management processes and to create adaptive and flexible employee value propositions. But people at all levels must also approach attracting, retaining and nurturing talent as part of their job and their own success.<br />
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Marshalling the resources and best thinking of an organization<br />
Very few organizations currently have the right resources in place to meet the new talent challenge. Their methods and basic approaches to talent issues, supporting infrastructure and management focus are too often inadequate for the task in the rapidly changing talent environment. Both internal and external metrics often fail to recognize talent as the new manifestation of value in the business, let alone provide guidance to good investments to increase it. The specialist department usually assigned to talent issues, Human Resources, must be retooled and equipped with the skills, capabilities, confidence and credibility to support the full spectrum of talent management issues and treat them strategically. <br />
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Now, as top executives become more and more aware of the strategic nature of talent management, they must refocus their leadership teams and marshal dedicated resources to talent management practices, capabilities and measurement. <br />
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<font size="1">This article is excerpted from The Talent Powered Organization: Strategies for Globalization, Talent Management and High Performance, published by Kogan Page.<br />
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About the Authors<br />
Peter Cheese is the managing director of Accenture's Human Performance practice. He has more than 25 years of experience in management consulting, and consults with clients around the world on talent management issues. Robert J. Thomas is executive director of the Accenture Institute for High Performance. Specializing in leadership and organizational strategy, he is a published author with several books in this field. Elizabeth Craig is a research fellow at the Accenture Institute for High Performance, and specializes in organizational behavior and human resource management.<br />
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