- Two-thirds of all US companies are doing no workforce planning at all.
- 40% of newly hired executives fail due to poor acculturation.
- Development approaches haven't changed much since the 1950s.
- Retention is a tricky area; I don't have any specific broad-scale data on this one but I wonder if companies are retaining executives not so much because of some targeted activities but rather because employees aren't keen on taking risks at this time.
I read a great article by Peter Cappelli "Talent Management for the Twenty-First Century" and it appealed to me because as a Lean practitioner he suggests that organizations consider borrowing some principles from supply chain management (in particular just in time manufacturing) to manage talent. Here are a few of his ideas coupled with a few of mine:
- Make and buy to manage risk. He likens a deep bench of talent to holding expensive inventory and, with people, its inventory that can decide to leave. Lean thinkers instinctively understand this logic. This doesn't mean that we abandon internal development; this is incredibly important! But it does mean that we carefully decide when to build and when to buy.
- If you're not already doing so, consider creating talent pools that span the entire organization and develop employees who have competencies that apply to several different jobs.
- As with any other investment, the organization should expect a return on its investment when it spends money developing its employees. Development should be aligned with organizational objectives and measured.
Since this is a blog and not a book, I only have so much room for this topic. My hope is that organizations will look at talent management in much the same way as they look at any other investment - when the data reveals that the ROI is not adequate then measures are taken to first understand then address the problem. It seems a good place to start is by actually listening to managers and employees and looking at internal data (e.g., performance discussions, cultural surveys, exit interviews, etc.). When you "see" the problem, you can solve it.
Jack Welch has said "getting the right people in the right jobs is a lot more important than developing a strategy". I think developing the strategy is incredibly important but that strategy will be nothing without the right people in place to execute it so I'm in complete agreement with Jack!
