Entry One: Talent Management demystified
I am a talent specialist but even I struggle to explain to people that don’t work in large companies exactly what it is I do in the succinct one sentence required to observe social niceties. My parents didn’t really have any idea what I did right up until they died other than it was to do with people and for 10 years I worked for Shell. I think I heard my father telling one of his friends I ‘ran’ the recruitment for Sellafield – I didn’t.
So exactly what is Talent Management and subsequently the role of the Talent Manager and Talent Team in a company?
In my view, it started in the mid-nineties when Mckinsey coined the phrase ‘ war for talent’. Their view was that the leadership attributes and qualities were unique to a small group of current and emerging ‘ talent’ and that this population needed to be identified and developed in a special way in order to have a healthy pipeline of current and future leaders. The ‘war’ was between companies to retain this elite group as globalisation and digitialisation make everyone more accessible.
This information put HR directors into a spin and the role of Talent Manager and Talent Department were created with the directive to attract, evaluate, develop and retain the ‘talent’ in the organisation in order to have a healthy pipeline of leaders.
Then came the collapse of Enron in the early noughties and the view of talent changed……
Next sequel here shortly!!