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Talent Management Strategy

Does your organization have a coherent talent management strategy? Here is a working definition for your consideration:

A talent management strategy is the integrated pipeline, aligned at all points with organizational culture and strategy, through which talent is recruited, vetted, developed, motivated, promoted, and succeeded. 

Ask these questions to assess your current talent management strategy:

  • How aligned is your talent strategy with your business strategy?
  • How well linked together is your ‘talent pipeline’ from recruitment to development to succession?
  • How effectively are you identifying the critical technical skills, competencies, and personality attributesnecessary for high performance that fit your organizational culture and business goals?

If you are able to affirm answers to these questions, congratulations! If you identified gaps or challenges, here are some recommendations:

  • If your talent strategy is not clearly aligned with business strategy, consider making a talent strategy review a significant part of your next strategic planning process.  Pay particular attention to a gap analysis of the relationship between business goals and current talent.
  • Without a leak-free pipeline, it is difficult to develop and retain talent.  Consider a reverse-engineering approach:   
    • Output: What are the talent outcomes that you are looking for?  What does an effective, successful employee look like in your organization from the standpoint of technical skills, competencies, and personality attributes?
    • Throughput: What processes do you have in place to motivate and develop that person into a high performer? How well do the pieces of the pipeline fit together – how disjointed or seamless is it?  Where are the leaks?
    • Input: How do you go about looking for the right talent to put into your pipeline?
  • Finally, if you struggle to find, recruit, or retain talent, consider looking beyond the obvious hiring variables (i.e., experience and technical skill set) to include the competencies that fit the role, as well as personality attributes that help them align better with your organization’s culture and business goals.  For example, best practice suggests the development of a competency model for positions validated by key stakeholders within your organization to ensure alignment with organizational needs and culture. 

As opportunities for growth in the energy sector continue to emerge, our talent becomes more and more valuable.  Having a clear talent management strategy and the means to execute it optimally is critical to success.

Dr. Bob Watson
Organizational Psychologist
Nenni and Associates  

To learn more about Dr. Watson and the rest of the Nenni and Associates organization, please visit us at 

www.nenniandassoc.com