Talent Management for the Individual

The “bird in the hand” philosophy of employment has taken hold, with employee movement decreasing both within and between organizations. A statement I keep hearing, “you do what you need to,” reflects the sentiment across many sectors. This applies to job-status (employment vs. contracting), responsibilities, pay and almost every aspect of work. People are making tradeoffs that they would not have even considered five years ago.

On the company side, managers and HR may be overstressed, but it is still a buyer’s market for talent. As one indicator, some organizations have opted to put variable pay on hold and break the pay for performance link. When I asked an HR executive recently about the rewards and consequences associated with the company’s goal setting program, his response was that no rewards had been discussed and that employees should feel lucky they still have their jobs. Things have definitely changed.

So what does this all mean for talent management, especially given that automated talent management “matured” during a time of hyper-active movement between jobs, when employee retention was the key driver? Job-centric, competency-based, talent management software has become the norm, but does it fit the new management challenge?

While talent management software has become both scalable and function rich, it remains a relatively impersonal, standardized assessment tool, often with an emphasis on helping managers and employees complete an on-line form with as little effort as possible. Unfortunately, these tools that were intended to drive retention, are now being associated with reductions in force, and once this association has been established, it’s a extremely tough to break.

The opportunity, however, is to get beyond the one-size-fits-all feel of automated talent management, and to have managers put the emphasis back on the individual. Managers need to understand employee’s strengths and aspirations? They need to know their motivations and how they like to communicate? But automated talent management will only serve these objectives if these are the objectives that companies stress in their programs. If the emphasis is placed on completing forms, then managers and employees will continue to focus on completing forms.

Now is the time to make your talent management process an interaction focused on the individual and to use it as an opportunity to re-engage your workforce. Now is the time to train your managers on how to have an effective coaching conversation, and to make this interaction the centerpiece of your talent management approach. While automation has made it easy to forget some of the basics, good managers have always managed to the individual. This is where we should start.