Analytics That Protect Your Talent Management Processes From Failure
Every company should have a solid, measurable strategy for both developing the talent already working for them, as well as identifying the best new recruits for the future of the business.
Why You Should Care
A McKinsey study found that only 5% organizations' talent management strategies were effective.
Talent management fails when there is inconsistency with who and how people in the business adopt it.
Learn how to base your TM strategy on talent analytics and data to create an objective and fair process.
At a time when we can access data on everything from web traffic to our sleeping habits, why do so many businesses still put their faith in “gut feeling” over scientific method and talent analytics? It is well documented that many sectors are facing talent shortages. Despite this, many businesses still fail to tackle the problem in a structured way and depend instead on a mixture of blind faith and luck. Here’s your speed read on how to move towards a science based strategy.
Moving towards a solid, measurable talent management strategy
Research by McKinsey has found that only 5% organizations’ talent management strategies were effective at improving company performance. Meanwhile, those that did were much more likely to say they outperform their competitors.
The reason so many fail in practice is down to inconsistency across organizations, with some managers following the strategy (if there is one), and others jettisoning it in favor of less scientific approaches such as “gut feeling”.
The mind boggles. We live in an age when data analytics is everywhere. Combine this growing understanding of the importance of analytics with proven psychological methodology and there is no reason why every company shouldn’t have a solid, measurable strategy for both developing the talent already working for them, as well as identifying the best new recruits for the future of the business.
Read more:
- Are You Investing In A Talent Pipeline?
- The State of Talent-ism: Becoming an HR Anarchist in the Talent Management world
- Workplace Analytics Lie in Humans, Not Real Estate
Start with a talent vision
The way to make a talent analytics model sustainable is to link it to the long-term strategic goals of a business
The first step an organization must take towards a data-driven talent strategy is to start with a clear vision of what success looks like.
They need to know:
- What they want to measure
- What they can measure
- How that measurement links to the data available
- How the talent data gathered is linked to the organizational strategy.
It is critical that organizations create sustainability within the process, in order for the metrics to be useful in the longer term. This analytics model needs to be sustainable so that results can be resilient to the passage of time, ensuring that there are outputs that can be reliably compared year on year.
The way to make a talent analytics model sustainable is to link it to the long-term strategic goals of a business. By linking the definition of talent to the organization’s longer-term strategy, it is more likely to be relevant to the future needs of the organization.
Keep good data
The identification of high performing and high potential employees is a perfect illustration of why hard personality and performance data should be given preference over a manager’s intuition
However, one of the biggest issues in the industry today is the quality of internal performance metrics and data.
In particular, there is a lack of performance data robust enough to be mapped to external metrics – a process that is necessary to create a clear understanding of talent within the organization and identify high potential employees.
While everyone is talented and has different strengths they can offer an organization, high potential employees are those individuals who can be identified as highly likely to be successful in accordance with an organization’s strategic goals. They have the greatest ‘fit’ with the future requirements of the organization.
The identification of high performing and high potential employees is a perfect illustration of why hard personality and performance data should be given preference over a manager’s intuition. Managers are prone to under or over-estimating the potential of their employees due to biases and other errors in judgement.
Talent analytics can also have a wider organizational impact by helping establish a ‘best fit’ between the future requirements of the organization and the strengths of the individuals being assessed.
They help organizations answer the question about which of their high performers have the right combination of strengths for the future and have the potential for long-term success.
Future proof your strategy with proven scientific method
The best way of ensuring that personnel decisions are driven by sound performance data is to implement standardized, repeatable talent assessments based on proven psychological methods.
The best way of ensuring that personnel decisions are driven by sound performance data is to implement standardized, repeatable talent assessments based on proven psychological methods.
Eliminate subjectivity by using a holistic model that examines a candidate’s aspirations, motivations, engagement and commitment. Gain objective insights on their level of intelligence; emotionally, socially and cognitively.
This is the closest method to fool-proof talent management there is…and it’s a far more successful way of doing things than relying on “gut feeling” and luck.
