Organisations need more than an effective development strategy to ensure they have a ready supply of capable leaders. Development is just one component in a comprehensive talent management system. Talent management can be defined as a mission-critical process that ensures organizations have the quantity and quality of people in place to meet current and future business priorities.
This process covers all aspects of an employees life cycle, starting with when the organization selects the right leaders, continuing to when the person’s performance is aligned to the organisation’s strategic goals, with an effective performance management system. It is fuelled with effective development and leadership succession efforts. Improving the quality of leadership involves doing all of these things well.
HR professionals were asked to rate the importance of each of their talent systems in terms of its impact on organizational success. Although development was deemed important by the majority of them, even more HR professionals considered other systems critical for organizational performance. On the whole, talent management is clearly a driver of:
- Leadership selection
- Development programmes and learning opportunities for frontline leaders
- Development programmes and learning opportunities for mid-level leaders
- Development programmes and learning opportunities for senior leaders
- Performance management
- Leadership succession
