You’ve likely heard the term “workforce management,” a common descriptor for the day-to-day work of human resources departments. Though this term works for general use, it falls short of describing a company’s commitment to attracting, developing, motivating, and retaining talented and dedicated employees. Read on for reasons why your team should start using “talent management” to describe your playbook, and how this shift in perspective will result in stronger, more productive teams.
What is talent management?
The philosophy of talent management (versus traditional workforce management) is built upon four principles: attract, develop, motivate, and retain talented employees. It’s the idea that increased performance makes a business more sustainable. This approach provides a sustainable competitive advantage and a method to outperform the competition.
Given its importance, talent management requires a defined set of practices and processes that engage a business’s workforce by way of its mindset. Talent management is a “key function of human resources [HR],” according to the Academy to Innovate Human Resources.
Why shift from workforce to talent management?
First, a definition of “talent” in contrast to “workforce:” talent suggests that your employees are intrinsically motivated, connected to the organization’s mission and vision, and display commitment. When companies treat their employees as numbers in a replaceable workforce, the culture will inherently breed only extrinsic, or outward, motivation.
When an organization shifts toward a talent management mindset, they begin to treat each employee as a valuable member of their team. Though this philosophy should impact every department of an organization, it starts with human resources. Johns Hopkins University has defined talent management as “a set of integrated organizational HR … processes designed to attract, develop, motivate, and retain productive, engaged employees.” Talent management strategies are integrated with HR so that the process of attracting, developing, motivating, and retaining employees is an inherent part of an organization’s culture.
What is effective talent management?
Effective talent management addresses four critical areas:
Recruitment
Examine how your business is attracting, retaining, and developing your talent. Are you offering benefits they desire? Rewards they’re proud to display? Or is everyone offered the same package and same rewards, with no chance to tailor it to their needs?
Sometimes making room for new talent comes with reboarding current talent. Keeping your current talent happy is an important part of the reboarding process.
Performance management
How does HR measure and improve talent performance? Do the measures go beyond performance reviews, one-on-one meetings, and recognition ceremonies? Does company talent feel comfortable contributing to the company culture? If the answer is ‘no’ to any of the above, then your organization may need to consider more up-to-date practices.
Learning and development
Charting a path for talent toward future development goals is known as career pathing. HR needs to know what knowledge, skills, personal characteristics, and experience are needed for any given position and talent need to examine whether they possess the qualities required for the internal position they want to pursue. Offering clear career pathing helps an organization set itself above the competition. One way to do that is to make sure that opportunities available within the company are highly visible.
In addition, companies that offer their employees chances to grow and develop have higher success rates when it comes to recruiting and retaining employees.
Retention
If a company continues to progress in offerings, skill development, and cultural progress, then employees will likely find it unnecessary to change companies to progress in their careers. If talent can find what they need where they are, then retaining them is that much easier.
Avoiding costs and losses
The costs related to the attrition of current talent, plus those costs that come from hiring and training new talent, can be considerable. Losses to performance, effects on the employee experience, and missed opportunities for growth and development add to the drain on an organization. Conversely, developing a talent management strategy focused on employee experience, growth, and development can lead to increased success in recruitment and retention of talent, which can lead to those positive business results you really need.
One way to attract ideal candidates to your company and keep current talent in your company is to offer relocation services. With Point C, the benefits can include lower relocation costs, high-quality hires, and boosted employee engagement.
Interested in getting your organization up to speed with current and new talent? Give us a call today at 888-251-2825 or visit our Contact Us page.
