Tips for Strategically Developing Talent for Business Growth
There's one important thing to remember in business; people are at the heart of what you do. Not just customers. The people on your team, external stakeholders, and the people in your base community are all important.
It's easy to focus on the needs of customers and shareholders. Of course, their needs are important and form a big part of keeping your business alive. But the needs of your team matter too.
We recently had a conversation with a GenZer who left her job. The reason she left was concerning. She said, "I feel I’ve done enough. I don’t feel like I’m growing."
I don't feel like I'm growing.
How many of your employees are saying that right now? How many of them feel stagnant, overwhelmed, and undervalued?
The truth is that talent development is no longer a fancy buzzphrase. It's what employees expect. It's what helps businesses grow.
In fact, companies that manage talent well produce nearly 50% more revenue than those that don't! Managing talent isn't about giving orders and checking off to-do lists. It's about empowering and developing teams to do their best work.
We recently spoke with learning and development specialist, Tameka Stewart , about how strategic talent development can help with business growth. This newsletter issue will focus on two aspects of the discussion. You can watch the full episode by clicking the link below.
Challenges With Talent Development
Tameka highlighted three challenges with talent development. The first relates to the hiring process. Businesses often can't find the right talent and waste a lot of time hiring the wrong people.
When done well, talent development solves this problem by supporting succession planning. You will have a group of employees who are well-trained and equipped to take on vacant roles. Your time-to-hire will be shorter and these employees will reach productivity more quickly with the support of effective crossboarding.
Talent development also helps you create an effective hiring strategy. Tameka recommends starting with psychometric testing and then having two rounds of interviews. In the first round, the HR team tries to determine knowledge gaps and training opportunities, among other things. The final round includes HR and the hiring manager where more job-specific questions are discussed.
The second talent development challenge that Tameka mentioned relates to training not being aligned with business goals. All of your teams must work in sync for talent development to be effective.
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Let's say your business goal for Q4 is to increase revenue by 20%. There must be clear communication about this goal from the top down to ensure alignment.
The HR team then has to work on finding the right talent and upskilling the existing team to make that revenue goal possible. Managers and team members have to support each other to make that goal a reality. Everyone has to work in sync.
Finally, Tameka mentioned that the third challenge with talent development is infrequent training. Employee training isn't a Band-Aid you put on to cover an immediate problem. It's an ongoing process that helps your employees continuously grow.
4 Essential Components of a Successful Talent Development Strategy
Tameka also mentioned four essential components of a successful talent development strategy.
You can watch the full episode to get a deep dive into each of these components. But we'll leave you with this success story she shared.
In a previous learning and development role, Tameka had weekly meetings with employees in training and their leaders. These meetings were part of each employee's Continuous Improvement Process (CIP). These conversations focused on the challenges the employees faced and each employee's data from the HRIS and learning management system.
There were cases where the numbers were saying that the employees understood the content, but their performance wasn't improving. After further analysis, it was discovered that the real issue was with the leaders, not the employee's skills. The solution in these cases is often to give managers the leadership training they need to better empower and guide their teams.
The lesson? Dive deeply into the problems within your organisation before developing a training program. This will help you provide the training that's actually needed so that the problems can be resolved.
Make Talent Development a Business Priority
Your employees are people too. They want to grow and develop, and their growth and development will help your business thrive.
Carefully consider how you can improve talent development within your organisation. The tips Tameka provided in our discussion are a good starting point. Check out the full discussion to learn more.