How to Create a Talent Management Model

Organizations that expect to remain competitive in the 21st-century marketplace cannot overlook the importance of talent management. That is, unless they don’t mind losing star employees to the competition. Today, the role of talent management is about more than just attracting and recruiting the right candidates. In reality, it’s a concept that should impact employees from the time they walk through your doors until the day they choose to leave the company. It describes every step along the way, from the composition of the job posting until the employee sits for their exit interview.

For those new to the objectives of talent management, it goes like this: A company creates an informative job listing that’s designed to promote the right internal candidates. Once the ideal applicant is found, they’re transitioned, oriented, and placed in the desired role. Once in the role, they receive the support and coaching necessary to fulfill the desired job responsibilities. Along the way, they’re rewarded for outstanding work in ways that are meaningful specifically to them. Their performance is accurately measured, and they receive appropriate feedback, so both management and the employee are on the same page. If and when they choose to leave the company, an exit interview is performed that accurately records their impressions.

This is the definition of an effective talent management model. While it sounds easy enough to implement, a surprising number of HR departments aren’t utilizing talent management practices to their full potential. This is where top-notch talent management software becomes vital.

So, what is a good talent management strategy? It’s more personalized than you think. Let’s begin with the process of rewarding and incentivizing your workforce. Back in the day, it was all about salary. And that’s still somewhat true today. The best candidates aren’t going to accept offers that don’t feature adequate compensation. However, today’s applicants are looking for more than just money. What’s important to the current workforce?

• A good work/life balance
• Corporate values that align with their own beliefs
• Job flexibility
• The opportunity to exercise their strengths
• Job stability
• Job security
• Diverse and inclusive working environments

If you dig deep, you’ll find these practices in play in the talent management strategies of leading companies. Companies such as Adobe, Ringcentral, Microsoft, and Peloton boast some of the most satisfied and happiest employees in the world. And they do it by offering perks other companies won’t entertain, including things like company-wide days off and free mental health counseling. Microsoft, for example, is known for hiring people with autism. Not only do they hire differently-abled applicants, but they train their general workforce in appropriate ways to interact with them.

Rewards are a vital part of every top talent management framework. But the rewards must be ones in which employees find value. In the 21st century, pizza parties and priority parking spaces are no longer enough to keep top talent satisfied. In reality, it takes much, much more. This is where your talent management software can help.

So, how do you do it? As a company, how do you attract, satisfy, and retain the best workers? You make the talent management process a priority within your organization, and you integrate it seamlessly through a series of eight steps.

Talent Management Process: 8 Steps

1. Create a killer job listing
2. Build an impressive applicant pool
3. Hire the best candidates
4. Provide clear expectations and orient new employees well
5. Provide opportunities for learning and advancement
6. Accurately measure work performance and provide positive feedback
7. Offer valuable rewards and incentives
8. Collect feedback from employees who leave your organization

If you’re actively managing your workforce, from the day they onboard and through every level of progression, you’ll have a better idea of how satisfied they are. And early detection is the best way to avoid losing key performers. If you’re aware that there’s a problem, you can sit down with your employee and discuss solutions before they begin searching elsewhere for a new position.

So, what do the best talent management approaches look like? They look like success. You have only to research the top companies in the world to see the best talent management examples. These companies have high expectations of those they place in leadership roles. These team leaders, supervisors, and department managers have been well trained. As a result, they’re fair, impartial, inclusive, and they have a solid working knowledge of the job. Considering that ineffective leadership is a top reason why many employees become dissatisfied at work, directing time and money toward training and development is a sound investment.

Additionally, these companies have strong diversity, equal-opportunity, and inclusive hiring and advancement policies. It’s clear from their job postings that everyone who is qualified is invited to apply, and their records of hiring and retention attest to this dedication. These top companies also excel at granting employees a balanced work/like experience. Perks such as allowing employees to work from home, offering unlimited vacation days, providing a free lunch, or establishing on-site child care are valuable incentives they use to keep workers engaged and happy.

Often, the companies who are best at promoting, training, developing, and retaining talent follow their own exclusive approach to talent management. Usually, it’s made possible by innovative software that alerts management when a step has been skipped.

Overall, for talent management models and theories to be successful, they must be deployed as integrated processes. An integrated talent management strategy is one that guides the employee experience from beginning to end. When implemented well, it results in higher employee satisfaction rates, more focused job performance, and better retention of star employees. By integrating all the functions of HR into one consolidated software program, companies essentially have a “hub” or control center. Here, they can plan, schedule, monitor, train, and retain employees. This is a tremendous improvement over the old-school, traditional talent management model that relied upon communication between multiple departments to complete even the smallest task.