TALENT MANAGEMENT       INNOVATION

Singapore - The upcoming third generation of talent management practices will require leaders and managers to be more disciplined about making better decisions on talent.

The first generation of talent management practices was about attracting and retaining the best people. It evolved to the second generation which focused on developing talent management processes such as succession planning, career planning and performance management and integrating them from an HR perspective. As companies move to the third generation of talent management practices, Mercer's global leader of talent management consulting Jason Jeffay says leaders should learn some "talent discipline". This means leaders have to make better decisions on "talent that will have a significant impact on where the organisation gets to from a talent perspective to the business results it achieves".

Jeffay says there are three critical decisions organisations need to systematically look at if they want to enhance their talent management practices. First is looking at the role and the talent who would be assigned to it. "When the organisation has significant initiatives or strategies, who do we put in place to lead those efforts? That's a huge decision that will impact whether the effort is successful," he says.

The second decision is around how organisational goals and standards are set. Questions Jeffay poses include, "Are we challenging our people to perform at an appropriately high level? Are we focusing them to do the things that matter most to the organisation?"

The third decision is how an organisation handles its our top and bottom performers. Jeffay says, "Are we doing jobs that are continuously moving our top performers into roles and assignments where they can have a bigger impact? Are we challenging our bottom performers to improve or moving them into roles they are better suited for?"

But surprisingly, Jeffay says it's not HR who makes those decisions at the end of the day. It's business leaders who should be taking charge. But he adds, "How do we get those leaders to do a better job at making good decisions with the right data, the right strategy and with accountability so they own the decision in the same way they make a financial decision?"

Designing an appropriate talent management framework would start with educating leaders and managers to have a common mindset around the organisation's perspective of good talent. Organisations also need to start applying statistical modelling and rigorous data analysis, as well as, good governance to improve the decision-making process in talent management. "That's how organisations move up this curve."

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