Five reasons why managing talent is important

The ability to effectively hire, retain, engage and deploy talent, at all levels, is extremely important for organisations for a number of reasons.

1. There is a demonstrated relationship between better talent and better business performance. According to a study by the Hackett Group, companies that excel at managing talent post earnings 18 percent higher than their competition.
2. Talent is a rapidly increasing source of value creation. The financial value of a company is often driven by its ability to innovate, and therefore, upon the quality of its talent.
3. Disruptive forces and hyper-competition makes it more difficult than ever to sustain a competitive advantage over the long term.  With new products and new business models having shorter life cycles, the need for innovation is unrelenting.
4. Boards and investors are putting senior leaders under the microscope with ever-increasing expectations for profitability and growth.  This pressure drives a growing emphasis on the quality of talent — not just at the C-level, but at all levels.
5. Today’s employees are increasingly interested in having challenging and meaningful work, are more loyal to their profession than to the organisation, less accommodating of traditional hierarchies, more concerned about work-life balance and more prepared to take ownership of their careers and development.

So, what best practices should an organisation adopt and ensure a strong foundation for a talent management system?  See tomorrow’s post for the seven pillars of effective talent management.