Common Purpose Blog » talent retention

Videos: The talent management debate

Common Purpose — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 15:04:17 +0000

New research from workplace think-tank Tomorrow’s Company argues that the old approach to developing talent is no longer working. The report, Tomorrow’s Global Talent – How will leading global companies create value through people?, goes as far as to suggest that the word ‘talent’ needs to be redefined.

To explore this further, Personnel Today are running a series of interviews on their website with senior HR and training professionals who consider the case for a new type of talent management. Click here to watch them.

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Why is talent management being neglected?

Common Purpose — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 16:13:07 +0000

The new CIPD Learning & Development Survey paints a bleak picture for talent management as the proportion of respondents who undertake talent management activities falls to 36%. This is a sharp decline from 2006 when over half of those surveyed said they engaged in talent management.

This confirms the predictions of a survey of learning and development professionals that Common Purpose ran last year. The research, which looked at the potential impact of cuts to training budgets in the wake of the recession, found that almost half of those surveyed were expecting a budget cut of 20% or more.

However, one of the most striking findings of the report was that over half of respondents were worried about retaining key staff during an economic downturn. The belief was that talented managers, those most likely to give an organisation its competitive edge, may be the first to move on to another organisation if commitment to their development starts to wane.

So, if they knew this, why have talent management programmes been cut so dramatically?

Talent is an organisation’s gold, its future, its ideas. Not only is it short-sighted not to take full advantage of all of the abilities, ideas and energy that high-achieving staff can bring to an organisation, it is risky too.

It is usually the most able who want to stretch and test themselves, and if you don’t they will look for an organisation that will.

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“Harnessing” talent

Julia Middleton — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 15:40:57 +0000

‘Harnessing talent’ is another expression you hear a lot, usually about young talent. But harnesses are thick pieces of leather used to strap down, control and direct cattle and horses. So the last thing we want to do is harness talent. We want it de-harnessed, set free, challenged to try new things, to take ideas further than we were brave enough to.

I met a young leader recently who had just unharnessed herself from a big job. She just walked. They must be furious with themselves for losing her. And she is so frustrated and angry, talented and successful. She could not understand why established leaders were so intolerant of the young. Finally she burst out, “Why should we grow up when you lot refuse to yourselves?” I thought it was a good question.

At Common Purpose I am watching some of our young talent fly high and wide, and what a joy it is. But the harnessers do seem to dominate; you almost feel it’s that they want to harness talent so that it too can suffer and survive “as we did”. I hope the harnessing stops soon because we will need all the young talent we can set free to accelerate, when the time comes, out of the chaos we now find ourselves in.