Change is messy, and today’s economy is forcing many organizations to rethink their business strategies and markets. Budgets are getting tighter. Competition is growing. Emotions are running higher. Some days it feels like spaghetti against the wall.
Now is the time for Human Resources professionals to bring clarity and connection between talent development strategies and the bottom line. How can you see opportunity in the chaos? How can you conceptualize an approach ? How can you communicate in simple, plain language that engages leaders from the C-suite to the line?
How do you pull it all together so it doesn’t feel like spaghetti against the wall?
This two-part article offers HR professionals practical tools for two tasks:
- Conceptualizing a talent development approach; and
- Helping the line see the relevance and connection to business goals and outcomes.
Part I, below, focuses on the first task, how to conceptualize a talent development approach.
Talent Development: What’s Your Concept?
The Problem.
You’re struggling to improve the ways in which you communicate with and engage line managers in talent development, and you’re not alone. Recent data confirms that while the HR profession has improved its strategic impact on organizations, HR professionals are struggling to communicate the connection between HR activities and the things that the business leaders really pays attention to: business drivers, goals, and performance.
Click here if you’re interested in data that tells the story.
The Solution.
Being a strategic partner means that HR professionals must be proficient in conceptualizing and communicating strategies that advance business drivers and goals. At a high-level, four steps will help:
- Know the key business drivers that your company’s talent development strategy needs to advance. Business drivers are the key areas of focus that drive company performance: they represent the company’s perspective on what should be measured and managed. Examples of business drivers include company culture, ability to innovate; customer service; quality; ability to harness technology; and brand and reputation.
- What are your firm’s business drivers?
- What’s needed, from a human capital perspective, to advance these drivers?
- Which metrics and measurements matter? How will they be tracked?
- Identify key roles and competencies. Key roles include responsibilities Competencies are the skills, knowledge and behaviors that are causally related to business success.
- What strategically important roles are needed to advance business drivers?
- What skills, knowledge and behaviors are causally related to success in these roles?
- How will we encourage employee development and learning to maximize the potential of these roles?
- Create a talent development concept. Start with the big picture in mind.
- How does talent development connect with other HR processes, such as performance management?
- What’s the best way to represent this connection?
- Create visual tools. Let’s face it: a lot gets thrown at line managers. Line managers, who are responsible for executing, think strategically about talent development.