Talent development is the practice of helping employees build the skills, experiences, and opportunities they need to grow—while aligning those goals with the organization’s long-term strategy.

Done well, talent development gives employees a sense of direction and confidence in their future. At the same time, organizations benefit from a workforce that is prepared for new challenges, equipped with the right skills, and ready for leadership roles when the time comes.

Talent development vs. talent management

Talent development and talent management are closely related but distinct concepts:

• Talent management covers the entire employee journey—from recruiting and onboarding to performance, learning, and retention.
• Talent development is a specific focus area within that journey. It emphasizes career growth, succession planning, and talent mobility.

Think of talent management as the wide lens on workforce planning, while talent development zooms in on how employees progress inside the company. Organizations that integrate the two create a more complete experience: employees understand what’s possible for their careers, and leaders can see where the next generation of talent will come from.

SAP brings these perspectives together in a newly combined career and talent development solution, which unifies succession planning, career pathing, and talent mobility into one experience.

Challenges in talent development

Building strong career and talent development programs isn’t without obstacles. Common challenges include:

• Fragmented systems: Many organizations rely on separate platforms for learning, performance, succession, and mobility. The lack of integration creates silos that limit visibility and make it harder to align employee growth with business goals.
• Unclear career pathways: Employees may not know how to move from their current role to the next. Without visibility into possible paths, they assume leaving is the only option. This perception undermines retention and engagement.
• High turnover and competition for talent: When top performers don’t see opportunities internally, they are quick to accept offers elsewhere. Replacing them costs far more than retaining them and often results in a loss of institutional knowledge.
• Reactive workforce planning: Without integrated data, organizations frequently address skill gaps only after they’ve become urgent. This reactive stance leads to rushed hiring, higher costs, and misalignment with long-term strategy.
• Managerial inconsistency: Managers play a critical role in guiding careers, but without standardized tools and processes, their ability to support employees varies widely. This inconsistency can create inequity and erode trust.

Talent development and talent management strategies

Modern talent development relies on a mix of strategy, data, and tools. The most effective strategies are built around three core components:

1. AI-guided personalization

AI for HR supports career growth. Instead of offering generic development paths, modern tools analyze employee histories, identify patterns, and recommend roles, mentors, or projects that align with individual skills and goals. For employees, this creates clarity and confidence about next steps. For HR and managers, it makes personalized recommendations scalable across the workforce and aligned with business needs.

2. Skills-centric planning

Job descriptions often lag behind the reality of what work requires. A skills-based view provides a clearer, more dynamic picture. Mapping employee skills helps organizations anticipate future needs, target upskilling and reskilling, and understand where internal talent already has capabilities that are in demand. With detailed skills data, HR can pinpoint gaps and direct learning investments more effectively, while leaders can model future workforce needs and assess readiness before change happens. For employees, this visibility strengthens the employee experience by making development opportunities clearer and more connected to real career growth.

3. Succession planning and mobility

Succession planning used to focus only on executive roles, but today it extends across critical positions at all levels. Linking succession planning with internal mobility creates a system where employees see a long-term future within the organization, and leaders know who is ready to step in when key roles open. High-potential employees can be identified earlier and developed through project assignments or mentorship, while managers gain confidence that they can fill critical positions without relying heavily on external hires.

Tools and approaches

Talent management strategies succeed when backed by practical tools that turn plans into action. A modern talent development platform provides:

Career path exploration

Interactive career maps allow employees to explore multiple routes forward. The maps highlight which roles may be attainable, what skills are typically required, and how long progression might take. This transparency helps employees plan their careers with more confidence and gives managers concrete data to guide career discussions.

Opportunity marketplace

A talent marketplace matches people with short-term projects, rotational assignments, or mentorship opportunities such as pairing with senior colleagues or subject-matter experts. For employees, it’s a way to broaden experience without switching employers. For organizations, it’s a way to tap into hidden capacity, fill urgent needs, and increase agility.

Succession dashboards

Dashboards consolidate information on talent pipelines, readiness levels, and risk areas. HR can quickly see where critical roles lack successors and act before vacancies cause disruption. Line managers can understand who is ready for stretch opportunities and who needs further development.

Skills matching SAP

AI compares individual skill profiles to the skills required for open roles, projects, or strategic initiatives. Employees see tangible suggestions for growth, while organizations identify pools of talent that could pivot into new areas with targeted learning.

Workforce planning analytics

Analytics link today’s development activities to tomorrow’s needs. Leaders can simulate workforce scenarios—for example, what happens if demand shifts toward digital sales—and assess whether internal pipelines are ready. This prevents talent shortages and reduces dependency on external recruitment.

Benefits of talent development software

Talent development software turns career growth into a structured process, improving the employee experience and delivering measurable benefits for the organization. With AI for HR, these solutions can surface personalized recommendations, anticipate future skill needs, and make development more impactful. Potential benefits include:

• Closing skills gaps faster: Organizations can identify gaps early and reskill employees before shortages disrupt operations. Instead of defaulting to external hires, they make better use of internal talent.
• Strengthening succession pipelines: Dashboards and readiness data allow leaders to plan transitions smoothly. Employees in succession plans receive targeted opportunities, helping ensure they’re prepared for future roles.
• Improving retention and engagement: Transparency into career paths gives employees confidence that they can grow without leaving. This reduces voluntary turnover and boosts engagement scores.
• Boosting agility and resilience: By connecting skills data with business needs, companies can pivot quickly. Redeploying people into emerging roles keeps the workforce aligned with shifting priorities.
• Supporting workforce planning: Real-time data on skills and readiness allows HR to align workforce planning with strategic objectives five to ten years out.

Use cases and real-world examples

Talent development looks different in every organization, but the goal is the same: help people grow while aligning skills with business needs. The following examples illustrate how companies across industries are applying career and talent development strategies to strengthen pipelines, improve retention, and respond quickly to change.

• Accelerated leadership pipelines: Resonac uses SAP SuccessFactors Succession & Development to create succession plans at the department level, run talent reviews that include turnover risk, and build individual development plans—giving HR clearer visibility into leadership readiness.
• Employee retention through clarity: Delta was an early adopter of the SAP SuccessFactors talent intelligence hub. Employees maintain a growth portfolio that maps current skills to learning and career opportunities with personalized recommendations.
• Agility in workforce redeployment: American Honda is shifting to a skills-based workforce model with SAP SuccessFactors across learning management systems. The unified HR environment supports upskilling and reskilling to meet EV production demands and informs workforce planning.
• Manufacturing upskilling for Industry 4.0: Grundfos, one of the world’s leading pump and water solutions companies, is shifting toward a skills-based workforce model with help from SAP SuccessFactors. By building a single view of employee skills and connecting them to training and career opportunities, the company is helping workers transition into higher-value roles.
• Workforce planning in financial services: Eurobank is moving away from role-based workforce management and toward a skills-based approach. By building a common skills framework and connecting it to workforce planning, the bank shifted from simply filling vacancies to preparing for future capabilities.

What to look for in a talent development platform

When evaluating talent development and talent management systems, the goal is to find tools that both meet today’s needs and prepare the workforce for what’s next. Key considerations include:

• Unified career and succession planning so HR, managers, and employees all work from the same data
• Skills-centric tools that provide visibility into current capabilities, gaps, and readiness
• AI for HR surfaces meaningful, realistic opportunities for each employee
• Talent mobility features like gig marketplaces and project matching to increase agility
• Workforce analytics that connect today’s actions to long-term strategy and scenario planning
• Integration with learning and performance systems to make development part of daily work rather than a separate process
• Scalability and usability so employees, managers, and HR teams can easily adopt and expand usage across the organization

Take a deeper dive into talent development

SAP’s combined career and talent development solution brings succession planning, career pathing, and talent mobility into one unified platform. It gives employees visibility into their future and equips organizations with the insight to act with confidence.

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