6 Steps to manage talent and build leadership in your organisation
The topic of this year’s convention held by the Institute of People Management, was HR inspiring the new revolution. If we think about the ‘new revolution’ as a global organisation, the key challenge for us is about productivity and how we can get more out of the resources we have. In this highly competitive world, the only way we can continue to compete is by increasing productivity.
How can you do this?
The only thing, says Mike Fraser: president of human resources at BHP Billiton, that can positively impact a company’s productivity is its leadership; how well they “walk what they talk” and how they manage the talent that flows into the business.
“Really effective succession management and leadership development processes have to be grounded in, for example, high performance and sustainable transformation. Organisations must be aware that the only way you can deliver on high performance and productivity is through people and the only way you get people engaged in this journey is through effective leaders who listen as much as tell,” he said.
How to manage talent in your organisation and groom future leaders
1. Identify talent early
In a large organisation, there are a lot of positions that need to be filled. As part of the management structure in such an organisation, you need to recognise this when you think about developing leadership talent in the company. This means you must focus on the bottom end of your talent pipeline to make sure you’re getting the right people into your organisation.
Two very successful ways of doing this is through:
- Graduate recruitment, and
- Having a formal graduate development programme.
2. Keep a look-out for talent in your organisation
Identifying existing talent in an organisation is a leader-led process. HR can support the company management and give them the tools to push them to have these talent conversations, but ultimately this is the leader’s responsibility.
3. Manage your talent pipeline well
In a high-performance organisation, it’s very easy to say: “This person isn’t ready; let’s try to find someone more capable.” However, if you develop talent from within the organisation, you can hook every single one of your staff members into the belief and the reality that they actually have a career path within your company
“Promoting from within is very important in developing your talent pipeline because if people know that they’ll get promoted, they’ll stick around!” laughed Mike.
4. Ensure your talent pipeline is long
You can’t just look at near-term succession. You have to take a forward view of potential and make sure that you don’t just have a one-on-one match for succession.
5. Develop success profiles for each and every job in your company
A success profile is more than just a job description; it’s a very clear articulation of what skills, competencies etc., employees need to be successful at certain levels of your organisation. These need to be clearly defined so that leaders can engage with people to say: “This is what is going to be required. Now how does an individual’s capability and potential match up to these success profiles?”
6. Career planning and development must be targeted and directed by the employee
As a leader, all you need to do is help that employee go where he wants to go – not map out the next 20 years of his career in detail!
To do this, Mike advised that you, as a leader, have regular talent conversations that are “everyday”, relaxed conversations and not ones which are surrounded in hype that people dread. He also advises that you are deliberate and thoughtful when you assign positions to employees. Don’t just “plug people in”. Ask yourself if they will be happy in a particular role.
A robust talent process is absolutely critical to delivering high performance. It’s something that’s owned throughout your organisation and it’s not HR’s responsibility to deliver. It’s the business of all leaders in the business.
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Author: Lia Marus is the editor of HR Pulse. She has a BA in French, Italian and Linguistics from UCT, an MA in translation from Wits and a Postgraduate Diploma in Management from the Wits Business School. She is currently studying towards her LLB through Unisa. Lia started her career off in corporate communications, where she worked as a sub-editor, researcher and marketing coordinator. She then heeded the call of the publishing world and went into the business-to-business publishing field. She worked as a sub-editor as well as a chief sub-editor. Before joining ITWeb, she managed an HR guidebook at a leading international publishing company. |
