Need for Talent Management Integration– Many companies consider talent management to be a linear process in which attraction, development, and retention are distinct. But often these companies find that a lack of connections between these different areas makes the entire process internally inconsistent and, hence, poorly aligned with the firm’s overall business strategy. Other organizations focus only on attracting and retaining people, but overlook the critical process of development. These companies tend to find themselves prisoners of short-term practices and policies.
For a talent management strategy to be successful, it should be treated as a process in which attraction, development, and retention are all interrelated. While each dimension has its own particular features, their co-ordinated interaction is critical for the coherence of the entire process, and hence for the performance of the firm.
They’re a few examples of how the silos in talent management impact HR, employees, managers, candidates, and corporate executives. The impact: companies waste time and money; they compromise on the quality of their talent; their employee engagement deteriorates; and, ultimately, their business performance suffers. Here are few well-intended but ineffective scenarios of siloed talent management:
- A company has a rigorous succession planning process, but the results of this process sit in binders in several HR business partners’ desks. Mary, a senior manager, has a critical vacancy, so she calls her recruiter, John, to fill it. John hires a retained search firm at great cost and expends a great deal of effort, but finally fills this critical but difficult-to-fill position. After the hire, John gets a call from his HR business partner, who asks, “Why were the three ready-now internal successors identified during talent reviews not even considered for this position?”
- A manufacturing site manager at Company Y, reviews his staffing needs on March 15 and determines that his plant is fully staffed. However, on March 22, he calls his recruiter, Jane, and tells her a change in business strategy has occurred, and he needs 100 new people at his plant by the end of April. Jane thinks, “Senior leadership must have known about this change three months ago. If only I had known ahead of time, I could have proactively pipelined external talent, and worked with Learning and Development and Succession Planning to pipeline internal talent. At this point, I’ll never be able to meet Brad’s timeline!”
