A recent article published by Borys Groysberg and Deborah Bell of Harvard University was titled “Talent Management: Boards Give Their Companies an ‘F’”. The dunces are found in the sectors of industry and energy. Those who fared best are telecoms, IT and the health sector. However there is no room for complacency there either because the numbers are quite scathing. To sum up, companies have progressed in attracting talents and in recruitment but they are missing the target for retaining and developing manpower in addition to the nearly non-existent promotion of diversity. But what is HR to do?
Boards are not kind to their companies but they could also be asked what they are doing to remedy it, themselves? On the issue of diversity, one look at diversity on Boards and you feel like crying…
Why do companies have difficulty developing and retaining these so carefully (and difficultly) acquired talents? The talent war is still underway, according to these authors http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/06/new_research_where_the_talent.html. And guess what? It specifically strikes the IT and telecom companies and the health sector. Some have quickly realized that it is in their interest to take steps if they want to survive a shortage in the near future. But recruiting is good, keeping talents is better and developing them is the best! What’s missing? Professional development programs abound and there are numerous offers. Executive programs in the universities are crowded. However, it’s not working. Training is no longer the right response for developing our talents. The response lies elsewhere.
On second thoughts, the old “buddy system” formula worked well. A junior working along with an expert created a form of mentorship. The junior person learned from his mentor who followed him for several years. Although the principle still exists today, the buddy system only relates to very specific and especially manual trades . It may be that we need to rethink all academic training. Although reformed regularly, university training doesn’t change. We still send our young people to the university benches for 3 years (for a Bachelor’s degree) or for 5 or 6 years depending on the Master’s or specialty, then throw them into the deep end of the business world. It’s not clear that this is going to work much longer. The gap is widening between the academic world and the professional world, in other words “real life”. Programs are not following the speed of economic or social changes. In short, managers are lost and don’t know where to start to manage their staff. Suddenly we’re talking about the “generation gap”. A few years later, young people will be getting older and repeat the same errors with their younger ones and so on. How can we therefore ensure an optimal level of retention and adequate talent development when we’re not starting from a good foundation?
Managers must regain management of their workforce. They must take full responsibility. They should be assessed on their staff’s performance and their ability to develop their talents. Instead of promoting bosses mainly on the financial results they should be compensated according to the number of talents they have promoted and developed internally. This would also prevent them keeping the best for themselves. On the contrary, each team, each division or business unit should be a recruitment pool for the others. Each external recruitment should almost be considered as a failure – that of the manager for not having been able to develop internal succession and that of the organisation that has been unable to give them tools to do it. A Human Resources Manager confessed this to me one day. Even though fresh blood is sometimes necessary, it’s at such a high cost that it really has to be worth while…
Developing an individual takes time and energy but especially having passion and confidence in themselves and in each other. Allowing for errors and encouraging risk taking. Building on diversity (not only of gender), promoting internal mobility. Pushing our employees to excel by demonstrating to them that we have confidence in them and that the organisation will make every effort to help them succeed. Utopian? Lack of time is too often brandished as the ultimate reason that prevents this kind of corporate behaviour. We want to recruit the best so that they are performing immediately and creating instant value. This is wishful thinking. Talent management is a long term investment. This is what Boards of Directors need to understand. Administrators should mingle more frequently with operations, visit plants and the employees. Listen, see, feel what’s happening in the company instead of solely relying on reports from management. Management is drowned in reports and it doesn’t have enough of a chance to develop a global long-term vision of what it needs to do to align its HR strategy with the business objectives.
The Deloitte study on the issue of talent development provides some interesting elements of response. Among them are:
- Recruiting talents for their future potential, not only to plug existing holes
- Creating career models that rely more on projects than processes
- Improving employee engagement
Is this enough to supply your summer thoughts and prepare for September? Have a good summer!