Goodbye "Business as Usual", Hello "Business as Unusual" - 4 Imperatives for Talent management in 2017

I had the pleasure to attend a recent seminar with CEB sharing their latest research on Talent Management. The Four imperatives for Innovation in 2017 struck a chord specially given the surprising results on the readiness of some organizations and their adaptation to the fast changing digital & disruptive landscape.

Some of the findings were:

"Only one third of organizations are adapting quickly enough to meet their goals." Self-awareness is one thing, but putting the right strategy, resources and momentum is key when we think that "91% of organizations are experiencing significant change".

What implications are there within an environment of getting used to "Business as Unusual" ? It's no secret that the demands that have changed from the workforce. Changes require employees to learn new skills, more collaboration, but interestingly enough these changes are also "likely to cause disagreement among the leadership team".

Talent management is becoming the center, and it's great to see how leaders are turning to our function to support their transitions. I enjoyed hearing CEB insights on the 4 imperatives for talent management innovation which are:

1- Win the Wars for Talent in the Era of Hyper-competition.

This is done through the Candidate Experience, Hiring Effectiveness & Hiring Efficiency. This has an impact on the business performance - reducing turnover and time to hire but we also must think of candidates as clients.

2- Move from Talent Pipeline to Talent Portfolio.

The 4 most common succession pipeline failures is a must read for any HR professional. I personally used it for some business cases. It helps the mind-shift from discussing how to manage the talent pipeline to managing a portfolio which is more demand-driven planning, supports broader sourcing strategy (improving diversity too), changing the vertical career paths to more deliberate diversification and re-balancing of senior leadership against strategic goals.

3- Guarantee Leaders that Lead Across The Enterprise

With confidence in business leaders of not being equipped to handle the future needs being only 27%, there's certainly a lot of opportunities for HR to make an impact! The new leadership environment is increasingly complex with both peers and direct reports. 61% of leaders have more stakeholders to consult, 85% leaders have increased responsibilities.There's also 50% less time with direct reports so it's imperative that leaders build a culture that enables collaboration, autonomy, and trust.

Important questions to ask: Are your leaders driving cross-team collaboration? Do they consider organization-wide needs when making decisions? Are they supporting the performance of their peers?

4- Capture the Full Value of High Potential Talent

Even though there's sometimes a debate on Hi-Po programs, it still seems like there's a long way to go to show the real impact of this process. 95% of HIPO programs fail to drive development follow-through so HIPOs reach their potential. But is the identification of HIPOs the issue? might be as people tend to confuse High Performance with High Potential. psst- only 15% of High-performers are actually HIPOs!

Sounds basic- but accurately identify HIPOs & support their learning capabilities is the way forward.

Overall, I walked away with optimism. It's a cross-road for HR & talent management professionals as opportunities arise to create value to our leaders!

More on their research can be found here