People and Talent Management: Concepts, Frameworks & Practice

Introduction and Definition of Talent Management

Talent management is defined by Stockley (2011) as "a conscious, deliberate approach undertaken to attract, develop, and retain people with the aptitude and abilities to meet current and future organizational needs." Stockley further states that talent management "involves individual and organizational development in response to a changing and complex operating environment. It includes the creation and maintenance of a supportive, people-oriented organizational culture" (2011).

Talent management is reported to bring together "a number of important human resources (HR) and management initiatives" (Stockley, 2011). Organizations that make a formal decision to manage their talent are, in effect, undertaking "a strategic analysis of their current HR processes" (Stockley, 2011). Organizations that adopt the talent management approach focus on the coordination and integration of the following:

(1) Recruiting — ensuring that the right individuals are attracted to the company.

(2) Retaining — developing and implementing practices that result in employees being supported and rewarded.

(3) Development of employees — ensuring that continuous learning and development takes place, both informal and formal.

(4) Leadership and high-potential employee development — specific development programs for present and future leaders of the organization.

(5) Performance management — processes that provide support for performance, including measurement and feedback.

Why People and Talent Management Have Become Important

(6) Workforce planning — planning for business and general changes, including addressing the needs of older workforce members and current and future workforce shortages.

(7) Culture — the positive and progressive development of a high-performance approach and making this a standard method of operation within the organization (Stockley, 2011).

Talent management is increasingly critical to organizations today, in large part due to the need to plan for managing an older workforce that includes members of the Baby Boomer generation. Skill shortages are cited as one of the primary reasons talent management has become a critical issue. As Stockley (2011) notes, in the future "it may not be possible to simply go out and recruit new people to meet operational needs. Many leading companies have decided to develop their own people, rather than trying to hire fully skilled workers."

Competition for talent is also growing, and "workforce demographics are evolving" (Stockley, 2011). The context in which organizations conduct their operations is "increasingly complex and dynamic" (Stockley, 2011). More efficient capital markets have enabled the rise of small and medium-sized organizations that offer opportunities few large organizations can match. Financial markets and boards of directors also demand more. Furthermore, "the mobility of personnel is quickening in part with changing expectations. Talent is hard to find; it is becoming harder to keep" (Stockley, 2011).

The people strategy is reported to include elements that go beyond what is commonly referred to as talent management. These elements include the following:

Components and Enablers of People and Talent Management

Target segmentation — identifying the critical pools of people in the organization and determining how they will be managed, compensated, trained, and hired differently. The company's "people strategy" must include things that go beyond traditional talent management.

Understanding pivotal talent — the concept of pivotal talent is not new; it involves the organization understanding which roles are of the greatest value today and in the future.

Integrated compensation or total reward strategies — most talent management teams are heavily focused on organizational development and do not directly integrate with the compensation function. However, once an organization has defined its business strategies, talent segments, and pivotal talent, it becomes important to consider compensation within the same framework.

Diversity — this dimension asks how the organization will align its diversity strategy with its talent management strategy.

Talent planning — how the organization will plan, model, forecast, and manage the pool of people it has, the people it needs, and the requisite skills and capabilities. The use of highly skilled contingent workers is a business strategy, not merely an HR accounting matter.

Career models and deep specialization — most organizations recognize that their core business depends on deep levels of skill within certain critical roles.