Today’s Biggest Talent-Management Challenges

Anders, G (2010). Today’s biggest talent-management challenges. Retrieved April 16, 2010 from: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/03/todays_biggest_talent_manageme.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+harvardbusiness+%28HBR.org%29

This article is published on the Harvard Business Review Web site and discusses the challenges that executives have in finding and developing the most talented people. At a recent conference, talent-management consultant Marc Effron presented the following survey statistics: only 18% of companies claim to be winning the war for talent. 72% indicate it is an endless struggle for their company and that they are neither winning nor losing ground. 10% declare they’re losing and admitting defeat in the war for talent. The author states that there are three main issues that need to be addressed by company executives and gives some ideas in how to correct the problem. First, organizations are not sure what they are looking for. It’s important for firms to align their talent recruitment and development with the corporate goals and strategies. Second, talent development is just a slogan, not a way of life for the company. There must be an effective development program in place and utilized for the company to get their talent aligned with the company’s goals. Lastly, we don’t know how to get better. This is because talent development efforts are hard to track so that the firm can know what it takes to get better. Some experts are trying to develop tracking systems to correct this weakness. This article discusses important issues, especially for large corporation that have many managers to keep track of and develop for future succession. However, even managers and HRM employees in smaller companies should have an understanding of this subject because it is important to have development programs that will help the company get the most benefit from their employees and future managers.