Talent management encompasses recruiting, onboarding, performance and goals, compensation, learning, and succession and development. Effective talent management goes beyond traditional processes to deliver talent experiences that enable organizations to hire, develop, and retain the best talent. It can include local and global talent sourcing, a great candidate and employee experience, effective learning and development, an optimized compensation and recognition program, and more.
There are many key components of talent management. They include aligned goals and metrics, a strong employer brand with values that engage employees, and a focus on the employee experience. Effective talent management also encourages a high-performance culture and provides a single-source view of employees.
Talent management processes support the entire employee lifecycle, from recruiting to succession and development. For example, the recruiting process to identify top candidates falls under talent management. It could also include developing a highly skilled internal talent pool as a succession planning process.
A talent management strategy helps identify and fill missing key skills, supports a productive, engaged workforce, and drives business results. As the workforce increasingly expects a consumer-grade employee experience and employers engage in a fight for talent, an effective talent management strategy will provide employers with higher retention and the ability to compete in the global economy. These organizations can more nimbly adapt to new opportunities and disruptions.
The ultimate objective of talent management is to achieve the business goals of an enterprise. To do so, talent management strives for high-performing employees and the retention of top talent. Though different organizations have varying business goals, the best outcomes of talent management include higher employee satisfaction, internal mobility and promotion rates, and a more diverse and inclusive workforce.
A company creates its talent management model to support the goals of the business. How a company attracts, retains, and develops its employees should align with the vision of how and where an organization wants to lead and grow. The model should also account for future disruption or downturns, and how people and new technologies can be redeployed to sustain company growth amidst challenging macroeconomic conditions.