I have often come across the term Talent Management stated as a critical driver of organisational success. But really what is it? Does it exist in our organisations or it’s a nice to have in our strategic narrative? Firstly, here is one of the commonly used definitions of talent ‘those individuals who make a difference to organisational performance either through their immediate contribution or in the long-term by demonstrating the highest level of potential’ Tinsley et. al. 2007.

It is, however, interesting to note that inclusivity is becoming a predominant talent philosophy resulting in talent being defined as all employees of an organisation. Once you have defined talent for your organisation your context of developing a Talent strategy becomes clear. This will also help in skilfully crafting a Talent strategy that is aligned to Organisational strategy which is the context within which Talent Management will take place.

Talent Management is about identifying/attracting, developing and retaining talent. At the heart of the most effective professional organisations are a handful of best practises for managing talent. Since people are at the heart of the organisation it is important to hire the right talent and keep them in sync with the firm’s business goals. Organisations should have a task of branding themselves to job aspirants. What we have experienced is organisations battling for talent that often move from one organisation to another after being offered higher perks. This is because organisations know that they need to leverage on talent because it creates successful organisations or make lesser one’s flourish. Exceptional talent like Albert Einstein put an organisation called Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study on the map. Marvin Bower essentially created McKinsey Company while Gordon Mooor spawned Intel. It is not coincidence that these organisations picked these top professionals that changed the faces of their businesses. There is need to make use of effective hiring methodologies to filter and get the right kind of talent for the organisation. Selected candidates need to fit perfectly into their roles as well as in the culture of the organisation.

Another key strategy to managing talent is early development. A human being’s know- how is developed most rapidly through repeated exposures to the complexity of real problems. On the job training, mentoring and peer pressure can catapult professionals to the top of their knowledge ziggurat. Additionally, effective performance management are critical when managing talent. With the advent of millennials, performance appraisals are evolving at a rapid pace. Millennials demand a process that is objective and continuous and this category of talent has placed so much hope in performance appraisals. They rightly want it used as both as an evaluative tool against set objectives as well as identifying their needed training, advancement while providing a forum to compete with peers. Evaluation and weeding are necessary in this regard.

Clearly, differentiated workforce management strategies become a prerequisite in managing talent for excellence. Under such strategies employees are likened to an investment portfolio where choices are made to invest in different areas depending on the likely returns that the investment would give after assessing the risk associated with the same. With some employees, organisations will need to constantly increase their professional challenges. The reason is because talent grows most when professionals buy into serious challenges. Gordon Moore at Intel, set stretch goals and almost doubled the number of components per chip each year.

Mentoring is another very good talent management technique as it helps employes in garnering   higher skills and move to the next level. By so doing employees feel a good sense of belonging. Also work on overcoming professionals’ reluctance to share information. Information sharing is critical because intellectual assets unlike physical assets increase in value with use. Properly stimulated knowledge and intellect grow exponentially when shared.

Organise your employees around exceptional talent. There is a tendency by each profession to regard itself as elite with certain social cultural values. This becomes a challenge that may get in the way of Talent Management and affect information sharing. In aid of achieving business goals despite the odds, use organisational connectedness techniques. Develop internal local area networks that link all your employees. Some organisations refer them to as knowledge networks. Such nets have often allowed for tapping into dormant capabilities. These also help problem solving capacities through centrally collected and carefully indexed subjects. Such high organisational connectedness   has been found to be effective in organisations. When organisations use such practices they would have embraced one of the key imperative to managing talent for excellence- embracing technology. Embracing technology in all aspects of a business plays a major role in facilitating all the aspects of business from hiring at the same time replacing all the traditional methods with real time and on-going pulse tools.

However, no one management approach is a panacea. Many different forms often co-exist successfully and if properly used each helps a company attract, harness, leverage and deploy talent for excellence. Each practice needs to be carefully developed with its norms and systems to support it.

Emmanuel Jinda is the Managing Consultant of PROSERVE Consulting Group, a leading supplier of Professional Human Resources and Management services locally, regionally and internationally. He can be contacted at Tel: 263 773004143 or 263 242 772778 or visit our website at www.proservehr.com