Putting the X factor into attracting and retaining talent
In late 2016, Ibec conducted a formal survey of its member companies to identify the key workplace changes planned for the next three years. Unsurprisingly, the number one area of focus was talent management and skills development. Consistent with this focus, the second most common planned area of investment was technology. Having the right technology in place is of key importance to achieving an organisation’s talent management agenda.
To showcase some of the trends and practices in the area of managing talent, Ibec hosted a briefing for member companies in May 2017. Attendees at this briefing heard from three presenters.
To set the scene, Jackie Gilmore, Director of Human Capital in Deloitte spoke about the recently published 2017 Deloitte Irish Human Capital Trends report. This report focuses on the key Human Capital trends in Ireland identified as part of the 2017 global survey. The Irish report identifies 10 top Human Capital trends. The second highest ranking trend for 2017 is “Talent Acquisition”. Interestingly, this was ranked higher in Ireland than it was globally indicating that this area is a higher concern within Ireland than our global counterparts. Jackie outlined the key trends and areas of focus underlying these trends. Recruitment is becoming an increasingly digital experience and cognitive recruitment is where businesses need to focus. She highlighted the importance of leveraging new technologies to build a digital brand and to create a compelling candidate experience. Preparing for the organisation of the future was the highest ranking trend in Ireland, signalling the awareness of the need for radical change to ensure speed and agility. Jackie emphasised that organisations of the future must make talent mobility a core value and that finding people in the right way has become paramount.
Three Ireland also presented at the briefing. Mark Redmond, HRD and Miriam O’Connor, Learning and Development Manager, spoke of the need to create a new employee proposition and values following the coming together of two organisations in July 2014 to create Three Ireland. With a management team focused on career management for the future workplace and feedback from employees, Three Ireland identified ‘opportunities for growth and development’ as key concern. They created a new career development programme called “Your journey”, which was launched in November 2016. Designed to enable employees to self direct their own personal journey of development the programme included a new Career Framework. Based on three career pathways and six different levels, every employee in the business was mapped on the framework and enabled to plan for their own career journey. Employees are supported through development discussions with management, a state of the art online career portal and a range of classroom training. The continued embedding of the programme is supported through the company PMS, recruitment processes and ongoing communication with employees. Mark and Miriam outlined the key underlying principles of the new approach and the importance of continuing to evolve the programme over time based on business and people needs.
Stephen Kinch, Senior HR Business Partner from Citi Bank spoke about the Talent Lifecycle in Citi. With a people plan that is driven by the business plan, Citi have a multi faceted talent management strategy focused on attracting, developing, assessing, differentiating and deploying. Stephen outlined key features of the strategy which include individual development plans and feedback. Citi also have an annual talent cycle which identifies talent (high potential, promotable, expert resource) and maintains a talent book at global, regional and site specific levels which enables the business to deploy talent as needed. Stephen emphasised the importance of development opportunities for all staff, not just those identified with high talent. He spoke of the suite of development opportunities available to staff including a learning portal, further education support and on the job development. Opportunities to job shadow and job descriptions which describe what the role involves are further tools to enable staff to identify internal mobility preferences.
Conclusion
Effective talent management is a top priority in organisations everywhere. The speakers on the day highlighted some of the key aspects of an organisation's culture that can lead to better talent recruitment, development and retention. With the right talent management strategy (often technologically enabled) an organisation will be well placed to develop a truly high performance workforce.
Claire Hellen
HR Strategy Specialist
Wednesday, 23 August 2017