Future-proofing your talent pool

Drawing in the best and brightest in the field is just one part of the battle for talent. Engaging and retaining these prized employees continues to be a perennial challenge for many organisations looking to expand their businesses into the future.

In fact, talent management is one of the top issues keeping leaders awake at night. A majority of global CEOs (66%) fear that talent shortages will stunt their company’s growth, according to the 14th Annual Global CEO Survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers. This is prompting 75% of US CEOs to plan “some or major change” to their organisation’s talent management strategy over the next 12 months, the survey found.

Talent management and leadership development also continue to be the largest HR challenges in Europe. Yet 60% of executives who participated in a survey by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) said that they have no systematic or strategic approach in place to win, develop or retain suitable talents for future requirements.

The BCG survey also found that growing talent does not happen overnight. Some 53% of the top-performing organisations (measured by revenue and growth over the past three years) have already established an integrated strategy to recruit, develop and retain suitable talents. In contrast, only 27% of the less successful companies have done so.

“Talent development takes time. Companies need to take a long-term perspective and plan the size and composition of their talent pool in accordance with their corporate strategy,” says Dr Rainer Strack, senior partner and global topic co-leader for People Advantage and HR at BCG, and an author of the report.

Planning for the future

Helping employees map their career paths is not only critical for retention but also for an organisation’s continued growth. “Succession planning is important because it ensures we will have the talent we need tomorrow to support the strategies that we are investing in today,” says Alvin Chan Kit Wan, HR Director, Asia Talent Management and Learning and Development, Celestica.

Talent management could be described as the process of acquiring new chess pieces and polishing existing chess pieces, while succession planning would be the deployment of chess pieces on the board game, Chan explains.

It is critical that talent management is aligned with an organisation’s strategic objectives.

“We want to make sure that we have talent ready to be deployed in key growth areas that are going to be the future of the company,” says Chan. “That’s only going to happen if we have talent management in place to support effective succession planning.”

At Celestica, management identifies the positions that are critical to the execution of its strategy across all locations and functions. HR then works with the incumbents of these critical positions to create effective succession plans, says Chan. These are reviewed on a regular basis at a regional level, and then finally at a global level.

Identifying capability gaps

How ready is your workforce to meet future business needs? Assessing the capability gaps in your organisation will help you understand if an employee has the necessary skills and abilities for a future role.

It is necessary for HR to play a proactive role in identifying these gaps. Succession planning at Dow Chemical Pacific, for example, includes an annual exercise to identify key talents and roles where there are weaknesses or no obvious successor. Once these are identified, the company creates on-the-job experiences to fill the perceived gaps.

“We have assessment tools to help us, and the leaders identify these gaps and come up with ideas on how to close them,” says Butch Clas, HR Director for Southeast Asia, Australia-New Zealand and India at Dow Chemical Pacific.

Technologically-driven succession planning tools are becoming increasingly popular among organisations seeking a bird’s eye view of their workforce. Such tools can help determine the bench strength needed for future roles as well as highlight an employee’s potential, past performance, retention risk and training needs – all at the click of a mouse.

Training and development

Offering employees the right training and development opportunities is a critical component of talent management. According to the 2011 Employee Engagement Report by BlessingWhite, employees view opportunities to apply their talents, and for career development and training as top drivers of satisfaction.

When skills gaps are identified at Dow Chemical Pacific, it conducts training for key company-based competencies as well as functional and business requirements. The company also runs a week-long academy once or twice a year, where external contacts are brought in to talk about business and economics. Internal leaders talk about the challenges and opportunities in the Asia-Pacific. “It’s a very well-run curriculum which encourages key talents to open themselves up to new ideas and gives them face-to-face time with key leaders,” says Clas. The programme also allows leaders to look at the abilities of key talents and interact with them in a way that day-to-day business dealings may not allow.

It is never too early to start grooming employees for future roles. Some people are quick learners and have natural leadership skills and the ability to take risks while others need more time to mature and grow, says Clas. “The key is to make sure that people have discussions with their leaders, and that their leaders commit to the development and growth of their organisation.”

Soldiering on in lean times

HR experts agree that talent management initiatives should continue, even in lean times. The company has to prioritise and make the most of limited resources, says Clas. “You have to find pragmatic ways to get the most out of these initiatives and sometimes there are very low cost ideas which can be suitable short-term solutions,” he explains.

At Dow Chemical Pacific, when a senior leader like the Asia Pacific President or Executive Committee member visits a key location, the company ensures that they meet up with top employees to discuss organisational strategies and their views on specific initiatives. “This is a very low cost way to reach out to key talents and make them feel appreciated,” Clas says.