Why is Talent Management Common Sense but not Common Practice? _{6 February 2009}

We know that employing hardworking, trustworthy, competent employees can make a massive a difference to the smooth running of any business. This creates a problem for many businesses as UK employees are amongst the most likely in Europe to actively consider leaving their job in the next 12 months. It is reported that 53% of employees are leaving to meet their career development needs and greater development opportunities outside their own organisations. So what can you do to motivate engage your best employees so they to want to stay and fulfil their career plans with you?
Many of us have read the management theories that surround motivation.

Common sense and our own experience tell us that we must:

• value
• engage
• develop, and
• retain

our best employees. This is critical to business success and is especially important if we want to stop them leaving and taking their skills and experience elsewhere.

“Intuitively, business leaders know that talent retention and talent development is a real business problem however many organisations struggle to give it the time and resource that it deserves. It makes good common sense to give it some focus, but in my experience it isn’t common practice”, comments Sally Rixon, Director of The Talent Pool.

With two thirds of organisations having no way of identifying, developing, engaging or retaining their most valuable people it is easy to see why some organisations may struggle in a challenging economy. If we accept that that there is a link between the quality of our employees and our business performance, we might start to give it the time and energy it needs.