Talent management: a strategic approach _{3 June 2008}

Most business leaders would agree that talent management is vital to delivering business results and maintaining competitive advantage. However, two thirds of organisations have no way of identifying, developing, engaging or retaining their most valuable people. Once you have attracted talented people, to get a return on your investment, you have to close the backdoor to prevent them from leaving and taking their skills and experience elsewhere.

Despite their best intentions many organisations just do not have the time or resources in-house to focus on developing the employees that they say that they value the most. Talent management and retention remains one of those key issues that never quite makes it to the top of the priority list. We all know that having a competent and engaged workforce is the key to delivering business results and maintaining competitive advantage. Yet poor succession planning is wiping approximately £2 billion a year from the stock market value of FTSE 350 companies. Relatively low unemployment in the UK and changing workforce demographics means that good people are in short supply causing a talent squeeze. Organisations now have to compete to attract capable people only to find that they slip through their fingers.

The UK based Talent Pool launches its services to the business world on the 5th June 2008 as it recognises the challenge that getting this right can cause businesses. It offers a cost effective solution to help business leaders identify, develop, engage and retain their most talented people. It provides a development solution for future leaders and managers within organisations who find it difficult to juggle this challenge, along with the many others, that they are faced with.

The Talent Pool understand that taking people away from their day-to-day duties can create operational challenges for businesses. With this in mind, they have put together a solution that is flexible enough to allow people to juggle what they need to learn, alongside their day to day business priorities. The good news for businesses is that every member gets the chance to learn from each other, as The Talent Pool offers an exclusive development forum. This gives talented employees a breadth of knowledge outside of their current working environment. It encourages them to learn from and share best practice with other talented people. This is a unique approach for many organisations at this level, allowing employees to gain insights into how other organisations operate and think about this in the context of their own workplace. Most senior managers would recognise the benefits that their own network gives them and yet this is rarely encouraged or developed for groups elsewhere in organisations.

Over a 12 month period, members get a combination of flexible learning activities that allow them to learn face-to-face, online and with others. This gives the business an individual who is better equipped to deliver challenging corporate objectives. Members get to question a range of prominent business leaders, people who they otherwise would never get the chance to talk to, learn from or challenge. Deborah Meaden from the BBC’s Dragon Den will be hosting the first annual members conference, allowing members to learn from her experience as leading UK business figure.

Other really popular elements of the programme include the one-to-one coaching sessions where members can tackle both business and people-related issues that they are facing but maybe do not have the experience or knowledge to deal with. In addition to this members like the breadth of knowledge that they acquire of the commercial world – whether this be at the annual symposium where they have exposure to leading business figures or simply through the monthly online hot topic discussion forums.

If your business wants to hold onto it’s best people and is ready to move towards a more strategic approach to talent management, talent development or talent retention you can learn more about how The Talent Pool can help you at www.thetalentpool.co.uk.