Introduction

I am passionate about Talent Management and have worked in various roles with the NHS as a Talent Lead including NHS England.

Before I started my Talent journey in 2019, I wanted to ensure that I knew what Talent Management was and how this could inform my practice with the NHS and our people. I wrote an extensive literature review and used this to begin to build the Talent Management infrastructure/foundations in my first Talent role and then inform future roles. I will share some of my research here, starting with Talent Management Terminology as it is like learning a new language for those who don't know what it is all about! 

Talent

The word ‘talent’ is considered an everyday term, however its application in learning and development is diverse and can understandably cause confusion (Stewart and Rigg 2011). Some definitions, although not exhaustive, of ‘talent’ are shared in date order below to give a taste of the extent of variation and progression of the term in the context of Talent Management:

‘Talent is inherent in each individual, one person at a time’ (Rothwell 1994 p6).

‘The superior mastery of systematically developed abilities (or skills) and knowledge in at least one field of human activity, to a degree that places an individual within the top 10% of age peers who are (or who have been) active in that field’ (Gagne 2000 p67).

‘Talent means everyone at all levels [working] at the top of their potential’ (Redford 2005 p20).

‘Talent consists of those individuals who can make a difference to organisational performance, either through their immediate contribution or in the longer term by demonstrating the highest levels of potential’ (Tansley et al 2007 p8).

‘Talent refers to highly talented individuals with the potential to create disproportionate amounts of value from the resources that the organisation makes available to them’ (Goffee and Jones 2009 p57).

‘Talent is the combination of doing something good and doing something you like to do. This generates an automatic passion to get results. When developing talent, the right context, support and a proper fit with individual, societal and organizational goals is necessary’ (Flemish Government 2012 p9, cited by Buttiens and Hondeghem 2012).

‘Someone who has a natural ability to be good at something, especially without being taught’ (Cambridge Business English Dictionary 2019).

Talent Management (TM)

The term ‘war for talent’ was first used by the American consultancy firm McKinsey in 1997, referring to a key driver for corporate performance and the recruitment of the most valuable employees to an organisation (Stewart and Rigg 2011 p27), or in other words, Talent Management (TM). TM is considered a proactive approach to the development of skills and careers and is particularly useful when an organisation has difficult to fill roles due to varying reasons (Garrow and Hirsh 2008) such as the current supply shortage of specific occupational groups including nurses. The NHS Leadership Academy (2016 P4) emphasised that ‘effective talent management is a critical component of NHS Strategy, since the organisation will depend on having talented people in a wide range of leadership, management, technical and operational positions to achieve its objectives’. TM approaches are dependent on how an organisation views talent and their reasons for managing talent (Stewart and Rigg 2011). Various definitions/explanations of TM are shared below:

‘The systematic attraction, identification, development, engagement/retention and deployment of those individuals with high potential who are of particular value to an organisation’ (CIPD Change Agenda 2006; Tansley et al 2007 p9).

‘A comprehensive and integrated set of activities to ensure that the organisation attracts, retains, motivates and develops the talented people it needs to now and in the future’ (Baron and Armstrong 2007).

‘About positive things – doing things for your best people, investing in developing them, building on potential and, therefore, helping people make the best use of their strengths and improve on their weaknesses’ (Garrow and Hirsh 2008 p389).

‘Enhancing of an employee’s ability to cope with changing work demands’ (Garavan et al 2009 p267).

‘A set of organisational processes designed to ensure an effective flow of human resources, including leadership resources’ (Garavan et al 2009 p266).

‘Talent management is an integral set of processes, programs and cultural norms in an organization designed and implemented to attract, develop, deploy and retain talent to achieve strategic objectives and meet future business needs’ (Silzer and Dowell 2010 p18).

‘The recognition and acceptance that all employees have talent, together with the on-going evaluation and deployment of employees in positions that give the best fit and opportunity (via participation) for employees to use those talents’ (Swailes et al 2014 p5).

To further add to the understanding of TM and to guide potential interventions, Silzer and Dowell (2010 p96) developed the Integrated Talent Management Model (see figure 1 below). This is considered a comprehensive Model with interconnected processes which align well with organisational culture and values (Csilla and Klar 2018).

Talent Strategy

Preparation of a Talent Strategy should be an ever changing, dynamic process which is based on ‘iteration, dialogue, challenge and response’ (Tansley et al 2007 p12), and aligned closely with other relevant corporate strategies. The Strategy must be well-defined, and aim to address three key areas of enquiry including: ‘what’ part of the organisation (e.g. types of job role), ‘where’ and ‘when’ in of the organisation or outside of it (e.g. what areas need immediate focus such as those with hard to recruit posts and when are these needed by), and ‘what’ does the organisation want to focus on with regards to development outcomes (e.g. goal setting to guide identification of existing talent pools and recruitment needs) (Garrow and Hirsh 2008 p391).

Talent Development

‘Talent development focuses on the planning, selection and implementation of development strategies for all or part of the talent pool to ensure that the organisation has both the current and future supply of talent to meet strategic objectives and that development activities are aligned with organisational talent management processes’ (Bratton et al 2017).

‘Talent development pathways are the career steps that are required to progress to more senior roles. It is acknowledged that there may be some variation in pathways between organisations depending on what is needed to meet models of care and patient pathways’ (DH 2007 p21). 

Talent Pool

‘A talent pool describes a collective of talented employees who have been identified as talented. They can take different forms, have different memberships and be used for example as a means of resourcing project work, secondments, and internal recruitment’ (Tansley et al 2007 p9).

‘A talent pool is a term for a collective resource of talented employees, with selection for membership of a talent pool being based on performance review, assessment centre, 360-degree appraisal or line manager nomination’ (Pilbeam and Corbridge 2010 p103).

A variety of methods can be used to place employees in specific talent pools such as the appraisal/performance review process, the 360-degree appraisal, management nomination and learning and development centres/training cohorts. However, it is important that the selection process is transparent and that the talent pools are ‘dynamic entities’ which ‘flex and change depending on business requirements’ (p25). In their case-study, Tansley et al (2007 p25) highlighted various types of talent pool, such as just one individual designated talent pool; several designated talent pools with different memberships; no formal designated talent pool, but nonetheless a pool of talent built up as a result of talent management activities, or like Google, universal talent pools with different ‘streams’ reflecting its inclusive ‘open to all’ approach to TM (e.g. one stream consists of customer service staff, and another has IT specialists who develop new products). They also shared that some organisations classified different talent pools including rising stars, local talent, emerging leaders and exceptional talent (see figure 2 below for an example of a talent pool hierarchy which may be usual within Health and Social Care settings):

Talent Pipeline

‘The talent management pipeline refers to the different elements that make up the talent management process which includes acquiring, retaining, developing and managing of individuals identified as talent. The talent pipeline can provide a framework to inform the design and application of systems for tracking talent and measuring talent management interventions’ (Tansley et al 2007 p9).

Talent Bank

‘A talent bank consists of speculative enquiries and also applications retained from previous recruitment activity, and provides a pool of potential candidates that can be accessed when a vacancy occurs’ (Pilbeam and Corbridge 2010 p171).

Succession Planning

‘A management process by which one or more successors are identified for key posts (or groups of similar key posts) and career moves and/or development activities are planned for these successors’ (Hirsh 2000).

‘The planned replacement of key staff’ (Tansley et al 2007 p10).

Talent Review Panel

‘A talent review panel is a group of individuals drawn from across an organisation which includes representatives from senior management, line management and the HR function, as well as individuals with particular expertise in the area. The responsibilities of the panel could involve reviewing the selection of individuals into the talent pool, tracking their progress, evaluating the success of talent management initiatives across the organisation and identifying areas for future action and adaptation’ (Tansley et al 2007 p9).

References

Baron, A., and Armstrong, M., 2007. Human Capital Management: Achieving added value through people. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

Bratton, A., Garavan, T., D’Annunzio Green, N., and Grant, K., 2017. IHRD and global talent development. In: Garavan, T., McCarthy, A., and Carbery, R., (Eds). The Handbook of International Human Resource Development: Context, Processes and People. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.  

Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD)., 2006. Change Agenda: Talent Management: Understanding the Dimensions. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

Csilla, C., and Klar, V.V., 2018. Individual Coaching in the Service of Retaining Talent in Private Businesses. Human Resource Management. 6, 83 – 96.

Department of Health (DH), 2007. The Operating Framework for the NHS in England 2008/09. London: Department of Health.

Flemish Government, 2012. Up to a policy of talents in the Flemish government. Brussel: z.u. Cited in: Buttiens, D., and Hondeghem, A., 2012. Talent management in the Flemish public sector. Positioning the talent management approach of the Flemish government. [Online].

Available from:

https://journals.openedition.org/pyramides/885

[Accessed on 14^th October 2019].

Garavan, T., Hogan, C., and Cahir-O’Donnell, A., 2009. Developing Managers and Leaders: Perspectives, debates and practices in Ireland. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan.

Garrow, V., and Hirsh, W., 2008. Talent Management: Issues of Focus and Fit. Public Personnel Management. 37, (4), 389 – 402.

Goffee, R., and Jones, G., 2009. Clever: Leading your smartest, most creative people. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press.

Hirsh, W., 2000. Succession Planning Demystified. Brighton: Institute for Employment Studies. 

National Health Service Leadership Academy, 2016. Talent and Talent Management Insights: Insight 7. Talent Spotter. Talent Manager. Talent Developer; The Role of Line Manager. NHS Leadership Academy.

Pilbeam, S., and Corbridge, M., 2010. People Resourcing and Talent Planning: HRM in Practice (4^th Ed). Essex: Pearson Education Limited.

Redford, K., 2005. Shedding light on talent tactics. Personnel Today. [Online].

Available from:

https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/shedding-light-on-talent-tactics/

[Accessed on 8^th October 2019].

Rothwell, W.J., 1994. Effective Succession Planning: Ensuring leadership continuity and building talent from within. New York: AMACOM.

Silzer, R., and Dowell, B., (Eds) 2010. Strategy-driven talent management. A leadership imperative. San Francisco: Wiley.

Stewart, J., and Rigg, C., 2011. Learning and Talent Development. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

Tansley, C., Turner, P., Foster, C., Harris, L., Sempik, A., Stewart, J., and Williams, H., 2007. Talent: Strategy, Management, Measurement. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel Development.

The Cambridge Business English Dictionary, 2019. [Online].

Available from:

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/talent

[Accessed on 17^th October 2019].