How you identify and promote talent in your company

Almost every company can relate to the struggle for talented professionals. For some time now, companies have been facing the challenges posed by demographic change, global competition, structural transformation as well as technological advances and digitisation. Here, as elsewhere, Covid-19 has acted like a burning glass on an existing deficiency, leading to loss of sales in many industries. How can companies prevent this? Well, proactive and strategic talent management is the right approach.

The basics of professional HR development

However, talent development and retention cannot be integrated into a company structure from one day to the next. After all, it is not only budgets that need to be planned, but also a clear communication strategy at all levels of the company. What good are the best measures if the employees don’t know about them? There is, then, need for a finely tuned interaction between managers, the HR department, and potential talent.

But first it is necessary to identify candidates with potential, and this task clearly lies with HR and the managers. Current literature specifies four criteria as crucial for recognising the talent of tomorrow: potential, performance, volition, and ability.

Let’s start with the skills of your employees. In addition to cognitive, emotional and social competences, they should also have the ability to manage staff in the current work context. This ability can, then, be used as a starting point to monitor performance, derive an actual status and observe it over an extended period of time. On such a basis, you can better assess the potential in future situations and identify development opportunities. If, on top of that, there is a desire to develop, then you are almost certainly dealing with a high-potential employee.

Much more than just a good nose

There are quotes that people remember. Mostly, these quotes are practice-related. In this specific case, a superior once said to me: “The most important thing in talent management is to recognise people, assess them correctly, and, in this way, get meaningful results.” As simple as that sounds, it is complex – like everything that has to do with people. Once this has been achieved, it is “only” a matter of appropriately matching these employees with the requirements and needs of the company. Placing potential candidates successfully within the company can be one of the most difficult tasks.

So much for the theory. You can read how this might look in practice in my next blog post on talent management. You don’t want to wait? Please, get in touch: mp Executive Coaching & Organisational Development – mail@marion-pohl.com.

Foto: ©Frank Petzke – Australien