So you have a team of talented staff, but are you REALLY making the most of their potential?
Talent management is pivotal to the success of any organisation. You may have the most talented workforce on earth, but if you can’t manage it successfully, then your organisation may suffer. There a number of tools that you can help you manage talent within your organisation, but you also need to know the basics.
Here are a few tips that we have compiled to take your talent management to new heights and make your workforce thrive.
1. Identify what talent means to your organisation
Depending on your organisation’s mission, vision and culture, talent can mean very different things. Talent may not necessarily refer to explicit knowledge, but tacit skills such as compassion, emotional intelligence or the ability to speak multiple languages.
What talents does your organisation value? Does this line up with that of your candidates and employees?
2. Identify what goals the organisation has and what talents are required
Before hiring new talent, it is important to identify your organisation’s short and long term goals. From there, you will be able to more easily identify the talent that you require.
Has your company seen significant growth and are you considering expanding globally? This means that you may need someone who has experience and talent in global expansion, with deep cultural awareness.
3. Consider your career development offerings
What training and development programs does your organisation offer? What options are there for career development? Humans naturally are curious creatures and usually possess strong desires to improve themselves.
Lack of career development opportunities can lead to higher turnover rates as well.
This is reinforced by the career coaches at career coach Joanne Antoun, who have found that “employees who feel that they are not growing within their role, or feel that there is no opportunity for promotion or advancement are more likely to consider leaving their job for a more lucrative position. It is important for organisations to cater to their employees’ ambitions in order to increase job satisfaction.”
The team from Urban Quest add that “one of the keys to success in talent management is ensuring that you are providing sufficient opportunities for your employees to learn and grow within your organisation. This will allow you to retain talent and will lead to a highly skilled and satisfied team.”
If new talents are needed within the organisation, it may be beneficial to work on training existing staff rather than hiring a new staff member.
4. Prioritise results
Everyone has an experience of being micromanaged at some point and will know how frustrating it can be. Focus on your employees’ results, rather than their processes and the way that they get to those results.
Giving staff flexibility and autonomy in their work will make them feel valued, respected and improve their job satisfaction. The greater their job satisfaction, the higher your organisation’s productivity will be.
5. Give thought to talent vs hard work
When hiring new staff, make sure to not only consider a candidate’s talent, but also their proven history of perseverance and commitment to constant improvement.
NBA superstar Kevin Durant once said, “Hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard”. This is vital to remember when you are hiring new talent. If they aren’t willing to work hard, then someone with less talent but will put in the effort may be better suited to the role as their talent can be developed through training and time.
6. Have zero tolerance for negative workplace behaviour
A problem that can arise from exceptional talent is arrogance. This can lead to a number of antisocial behaviour traits that should not be welcome within your organisation.
Negative behaviour from coworkers can develop unnecessary stress for the victims, and should not be tolerated. The hypnosis extraordinaires at hypnosis trainers Mindset Mastery NLP often find that they treat patients who have “experienced emotional distress at the hands of workplace bullies and are experiencing negative mental health repercussions as a result. Prevention is key in these instances as it can be challenging for our patients to recover from such experiences.”
No matter how talented a candidate or employee is, it is worth nothing if they are negatively impacting those around them. Don’t overlook red flags of a potential candidate’s personality just because they are incredibly talented.
7. Create a healthy work environment
Ensuring your staff have a healthy, positive and safe work environment is the most important aspect of talent management. Working to maintain such an environment will ensure that your talent remain engaged, happy, more productive and loyal to your organisation.
Providing a healthy environment not only will benefit your staff, but your business success as well. According to the team from Direct Appliance Rentals, “having a healthy work environment will benefit both individuals and the organisations they work for. We spend so much of our life at work and if it is somewhere we feel safe and happy, then that will make us want to work harder and do well. Businesses that create healthy working environments are more likely to be successful than those who don’t.”
Are you ready to make the most of your talent?
Successful talent management needs to be dependant on the structure, culture and goals of your organisation.
By changing the way you think about and approach managing talent, you will achieve a workforce that is unstoppable. Perhaps it may even involve introducing the use of talent management software.
So what are you going to do today to improve your talent management tomorrow?
