In a world of Chief Happiness Officers, Senior Product Ninjas, and Brand Evangelists, Talent Management might seem like another meaningless corporate buzz phrase parlayed into an equally stupid corporate title. It’s true: linguistically, “talent management” lives in that slippery middle ground where it is simple enough that we kind of intuitively know what it means, but broad enough that it could kiiiind of mean anything.

The nature of the role is exactly that – flexible, broad, but also… hyper focused. Talent Management is the intersection of all the people & culture pieces that too often, no one really owns but everyone is impacted by. I slid into my first talent management role in early 2021, without much clear understanding of the scope of the field or what exactly I was getting into. Within a couple months I couldn’t believe most HR teams are operating without this function. Let’s take a deep dive into this weirdly named but critical function – but first, shout out to all my Talent Management Managers, the most serious job with the silliest title. Manger, Talent Management? Manager of Talent Management? No way to win here. Let me know if you think of a better title.

Section 1: WTF is Talent Management?

Simply put, talent management ties together all the aspects that attract and retain top talent – ie, people who are awesome at what they do. Recruiters recruit, trainers train – but Talent Management looks at the big picture, the entire employee life cycle from the first time a future candidate hears of your brand to their exit from the org (and beyond, if you’re into that kind of thing).

The way I have always like to explain myself to Executive Leaders is like this: It is the CEO’s job to clearly define the mission, goals, and priorities of the organization. It’s Talent Management’s job to not only get the right people on board, but to get all those people rowing together in the right direction.

How do we do that? In my mind, at least, there are 3 main components to talent management.

1. Talent Attraction & Acquisition : There comes a time in every entrepreneur’s life when they realize “Wow, recruiting is really important to the success of my business and really freakin’ hard.” It’s true! Executives of failed start up ventures often cite hiring the wrong people as one of the core reasons their business failed. And you know what? Recruiting doesn’t even start with recruiting – it starts with employer branding and brand awareness. A good talent manager can not only help you hire the right people, but define and develop your employer brand and recruitment practices to attract the right people as well. Recruitment, at its best, is a two way conversation between the candidate and the organization. Make sure you are putting your best foot forward, while allowing the candidate to get to know the “real you” and therefore make the most informed decision. No corporate catfishing, please.
2. Talent Retention : You can hire the best candidates in the world, but if you want long term success and continued growth – you gotta keep them onboard. Culture, total rewards, growth & development, manager quality – there are a million factors in employee retention, and they differ wildly not only between orgs or departments, but between individuals as well. There is no one size fits all solution or magical quick fix to employee retention. However, talent management can help develop a hyper tailored strategy based on your people and their unique concerns. A good talent manager is dialed IN to what the people want – using a combination of survey data, performance feedback, and good old fashioned water cooler chatter to tie what the employees want to what the organization can effectively provide. They’ll work with leaders and employees alike to determine friction points in the employee experience, developing and delivering a custom solution.
3. Talent Development : Although I believe this ties in very closely with retention, talent development gets it’s own shoutout. This is one of those rare instances that benefits both the employee and employer in almost equal measure. On one side of the house, employees will inherently benefit from any skills training or growth opportunities during their employment. Most organizations see growth concerns as a top 5 reason their employees exit – and if you’re not, please email me immediately and tell me all your secrets. Smart, ambitious people don’t like to be static for too long, and will seek out opportunities to develop new skills, pursue new challenges, or, yes, take on new (and more advanced) roles within the organization. However – organizations have a lot to gain from those smarter, more skilled, more engaged employees. Why recruit managers from outside when you can nurture and grow them internally? Why bring in expensive consultants when you can bridge skill gaps internally and allow top performers to take on new challenges? Talent Development applies to not only L&D, but everyone’s favorite process to hate: Performance Reviews. Oh, man. Performance Management definitely rates for it’s own blog post, but as a quick preview – ya gotta line up your performance management processes with your organizational strategies. I know. You can’t just throw a half baked review form at people in December and hope for the best. This is something a lot of organizations are doing wrong and can actually cause a lot of harm to employee wellbeing, teams trust in leadership, and yes – psychological safety. Any talent manager worth their salt will take a good, hard look at your performance processes (reviews, PIPs, even manager one on ones and feedback processes) to ensure alignment to working culture and organizational strategy.

Section 2: Why Should I Care?

I mean – do you like having employees who are good at their jobs and don’t hate their lives?

Okay, I should probably give a little more context than that. But really… do you?

In case you’ve been living in some sort of underground fallout shelter, let me clue you in: the world of work has evolved a lot in the last 4 – 5 years, and is continuing to evolve quickly. We are in the middle of a serious game of tug-of-war between employees and employers. I think smart executives know when to stop pulling on the rope and start inviting people onto their side. Instead of constantly fighting to see how much you can get the other side to compromise, now is the time to be partnering with your employees, actively negotiating the social agreement of a workplace that drives results, results in profits AND empowers and supports employees. Call me optimistic (and I’m not, ask my therapist) but I really believe there is a world in which employees are able to do the most challenging, rewarding, best work of their life AND shareholders get to enjoy fat returns.

The people who are currently shocked by the rate at which employees quit their jobs and move on are probably the same people who were shocked when divorce rates increased after women were allowed to open bank accounts. More and more, folks are realizing they don’t have to stay in bad situations just to survive anymore.

With the population of remote work, employees have more and more options in where they work. Really great talent is getting savvier in their negotiations – no longer just looking for role and location fit, but true cultural fit.

Good benefits and market pay just can’t buy what they used to in terms of talent – just like a full time job and a good haircut doesn’t hold as much value in the dating market. High performers, more and more, seek that x factor – an interesting, well compensated role that ALSO challenges them and provides opportunities for growth. And that’s what talent management focuses on – not only getting the right people on board, but figuring out what keeps them there – and how that changes over months or years. This is not realistically something your HR Business Partners can really do on top of managing the day to day processes, employee relations issues, and onboarding and offboarding – at least not at scale.

If you are half-assing the retention and development of your people, either because you haven’t invested properly in it or have your exhausted generalist handling it, employees will feel it. And something we all learn, sooner or later, is that it is rarely worth staying in a relationship (personal or professional) that does not invest in you and make you better.