Active Talent Management

I had the opportunity to speak with a Talent Acquisition Partner with one of the Big Four (banking) recently and got some interesting insights into best practice human capital acquisition and development.

The main item I got out of the discussion was that turning what some organisations do passively into an active and planned process can bring a wealth of benefits. By active and planned I am referring to not simply considering these items at recruitment time but having these as ongoing processes that exist alongside other business functions.

Below are some thoughts:

1. Understand and (know how to) seek out the company values.

There's a difference between simply stating the values and ticking a box to having a conscious criteria in order to identify and select talent that displays them. Talk to senior leaders to unpack what the core values mean to them - you might be surprised. In any case it's important that the business is consistent in its understanding when it builds culture around a values piece.

I was listening to a podcast this morning on HR Examiner where Jason Averbook (thought leader and CEO of The Marcus Buckingham Company) referred to engagement specifically driving performance. Here he was talking about measuring engagement however in relation to my point here - if a company's values are a true representation and platform from which the company culture grows; then one should be able to successfully identify talent that will engage with those values.

2. Understand and assess managers' needs. 

A natural progression from the point above. What does the manager need tactically and strategically in order for this role add further value to the team and the organisation? When a vacancy arises, this is an excellent opportunity to move things around with greater ease than you can with an incumbent already in the role. However going back to my point on being active around talent - this shouldn't only be considered when a vacancy arises. It can involve development plans for current employees.

Through a manager considering their human capital strategy, they can paint a better picture of what talent they have now and what that needs to look like 12 - 24 months down the line. With that knowledge a talent professional can then integrate that into their function when screening, providing gap analysis support, advertising to candidates etc (Whatever their touch point in the function happens to be).

3. Build a talent pool both internally and externally. 

Expressions of interest for non-live roles can be a useful way to assess the market both internally and externally in the organisation. Just make sure that you are honest and upfront about the process however so you don't unwittingly mislead external candidates or internal employees.

Having a talent pool internally allows you to identify high performers and act on development opportunities within an organisation. If we take a hypothetical example, let's say Manager A is has an upcoming project and you know Employee B (situated elsewhere) is keen to develop in this area and has relevant, transferable skills. This could be a great opportunity for development via a secondment across the business however it may not have eventuated if systems were not in place to identify and capitalise on it.

Sure Manager A would have solved the issue one way or another but it may have come at the expense of an internal development opportunity. Let's not forget that this can also foster cross pollination of skills within the business.

5. As a side point on Graduates - Look beyond just the grades.

Finally, an as an aside to the flow above... this is something I assumed however it was nice to hear it from another professional in the field. Graduates are interesting because they often (due to their very nature) don't have the same amount of work experience to build off when justifying their competence. Given this, a natural point to turn to can be academic grades.

Is academic ability important? Certainly. However academic grades are one dimension of picking a successful candidate and shouldn't come at the expense of the correct values and culture fit. A disengaged employee is a disengaged employee regardless of their Distinction average.

Graduates are an investment an organisation wants to make over the long term - which would explain why so many graduate processes are particularly rigorous!