What talent wants
We spoke to a wide range of leadership, creative and technical talent along the length of the talent pipeline to find out what talented individuals really want from their relationship with their employer. We also asked senior HR professionals drawn from a cross-section of private and public sector organisations what they offer talented individuals, and how they address the challenge of accelerating development for the next generation.
The research suggests that great talent management is all about differentiation – with tailored employee value propositions (EVPs) for those individuals who are your organisation's main source of competitive advantage. In other words, giving talented individuals what they really want.
In particular, the research revealed that there is a significant disconnect between what talent wants and what organisations offer. This mishandling of talent is costing UK businesses millions of pounds each year.
The research showed that many organisations don't know talent as well as they think they do. This causes a significant disconnect between what talented employees really want from their employers - in terms of development, progression, nurture, management, compensation, working environment and opportunity - and what employers offer, based upon their perceptions of what these needs are. Because of this disconnect, many talented employees don't get the opportunities and care that they want and expect from their employers.
A differentiated, personalised approach to talent management delivers positive results to the bottom line.
Cross-referencing the research responses to declared financial figures from the participating organisations revealed that businesses that have done formal work to segment their talent pool and have differentiated development for these individuals exhibit up to 66% higher levels of Total Shareholder Return (TSR) than those which do not.
Talent segmentation is the tool that enables organisations to obtain a greater degree of talent differentiation. It helps an organisation to not only choose who to focus on (key value-generating talent), but also to really understand what talented individuals want from their relationship with the organisation.
Developing bespoke EVPs for each talented employee – especially within big, multi-national corporations with large talent populations – could be an extremely complex and time-consuming task. However, detailed analysis of the research has led to some important new thinking about what best practice talent management should look like and greatly simplifies the task of developing differentiated EVPs for each member of the talent population.
Talented individuals can be clustered into one of six distinct Talent Interest Groups according to their individual needs, wants and personalities:
- Brand Enthusiasts ("Impress me") - will seek to work in a company that has a strong reputation or brand image. They seek opportunities to be stretched and challenged, and want the necessary support to make this happen.
- Career Ladderists ("Promote me") - want promotion and they want it fast. They are attracted to organisations with a more traditional corporate approach to upward development and progression, and value opportunities to develop. They believe their status should increase in line with their development.
- Connectors ("Support me") - appreciate a friendly working environment and enjoy the social aspect of work. Development is about having a range of opportunities and experiences, as well as having the right collaboration and support in place to ake the most of them.
- The Nurtured ("Guide me") – want organisations to get to know them, respect them and take a large role in their development. They appreciate tailored development that meets their individual needs and are probably the least likely of all the groups to seek development opportunities themselves.
- Opportunity Seekers ("Challenge me") - like Career Ladderists, also value upward progression. What makes Opportunity Seekers different is that they value the opportunities to be stretched and challenged more than the status of an upward move.
- Planners ("Understand me") – primarily see their career as a kind of anchor that gives them a sense of stability and a pathway through life. They seek a clear plan for their career, but this does not necessarily mean upward progression or promotion, more so a path with a sequence of developments over the long-term.
We believe there are six steps organisations need to take in their journey to talent segmentation. The first three focus on the organisational journey, looking at how an organisation defines talent, and the last three focus on the individual journey and how to differentiate what organisations offer talented individuals based on their needs.
- Focus - Organisations need to ensure that talent management processes are informed by their strategic direction. In order to do this, an organisation must be clear on its source of competitive advantage and what the current market conditions are.
- Define - Moving away from the assumption that talent is just about leadership, organisations need to look at the types of talent that will deliver the future value they really need.
- Refresh - Having worked out the type of talent that really drives success, the next step is for the organisation to develop the processes and tools that will allow them to identify these individuals among their employee population.
Taking a differentiated approach to talent management leads to a need to look beyond the 9-box grid, to consider not just leadership talent and performance and potential, but also who the value generators are. To do this we recommend using a Talent Action Grid, which would encourage a wider, deeper conversation about the talent pool and who should be in it. It is designed to help organisations think through the actions they need to take in order to engage and develop their most-valued individuals.
- Group - Once the organisation is confident that it is looking at the right population of talented individuals, it needs to get to know them and better understand their different needs and wants. This can be done by allocating each individual into one of the six Talent Interest Groups.
- Align - Organisations can use the detailed knowledge about the needs and wants of the six Talent Interest Groups to create EVPs that are tailored and aligned to each group.
- Accelerate - Accelerate development for talented individuals using the on-job and off-job experiences that they find the most useful.
Our findings show that by adopting a more strategic and personalised approach to talent management through talent segmentation, organisations can improve their performance. To get started on this journey you need to think beyond your future leadership talent and to identify the types of talent that will deliver competitive advantage for your organisation in the future.
The full story was originally published in the August 2011 issue of The Grapevine.
