HR 101: Talent management

Charities need good employees to deliver their objectives and carry out their vital work. To find the right people with the right skills, your HR team needs to attract, identify, develop, engage, retain, and deploy staff who are of value to your organisation. This is called “talent management”.

 

The CIPD website says that “talent refers to individuals who can make a significant difference to organisational performance, either through their immediate contribution or by reaching their highest levels of potential”.

 

Talent management is not just the responsibility of the HR team. HR professionals need the support of managers and the senior leadership team to identify and recruit good talent.

 

 

The benefits of managing talent strategically

 

For talent management to be effective, the CIPD says it needs to align with your strategic business objectives. By being strategic, you can increase the performance and productivity of your employees and develop a culture where people want to learn.

 

Below we look at the steps to take to manage talent effectively.

 

 

Attracting talent

 

You need to have an attractive brand that appeals to external candidates. The way people perceive your charity will determine whether people are interested in working with you.

 

 

Identifying the skills you need

 

To get started, you should map out the skillsets that your charity needs to meet its objectives. For example, you may need fundraisers who have experience of corporate fundraising. Or you may decide you need staff with a commercial background to help you grow your retail income.

 

 

Planning

 

Once you’ve decided what skills you need to achieve your organisational objectives, put together job descriptions for the roles. Make sure these are detailed and well thought through to help you find and select the right people. Generic job descriptions will increase the number of irrelevant applications you receive.

 

 

Talent acquisition

 

Talent acquisition is part of the talent management process and is the recruitment stage. It means finding skilled workers who will help you to reach your organisational goals, even if there are no immediate vacancies.

 

 

Building talent pools

 

To find potential employees, HR staff will use LinkedIn, job boards, and get referrals from existing staff. They’ll collect a pool of interested candidates which they’ll share with managers and the senior leadership team. The candidates will be reviewed, with suitable people invited in for interviews.

 

 

Selecting the right people

 

As part of the recruitment process, you’ll carry out a range of tests and checks to find the right people. This may include interviews, written tests, group discussions and psychometric testing.

 

 

Successful onboarding

 

We spoke about onboarding in the first article in the HR 101 series – the basic principles. It’s the process of welcoming and integrating new employees into your organisation and familiarising them with how things work. It’s important to help them feel connected and comfortable.

 

To make sure your onboarding is successful, it needs to be a continuous process. It’s not just something that happens on a staff member’s first day.

 

 

Performance management

 

It’s important for employees to have regular reviews with their managers. This will help them to build on their strengths, which will in turn motivate them, increase engagement and reduce staff turnover.

 

 

Engaging and retaining

 

There are several ways you can motivate staff and improve staff retention in your organisation. Providing your staff with training and development opportunities will help them to grow and build loyalty. You may also want to consider providing your staff with coaching, mentoring and networking opportunities.

 

Rewards and incentives can be used to increase retention in your organisation too. Also, simply acknowledging a person’s contribution and value to the organisation can go a long way.

 

To make sure staff are engaged and perform well, it’s important to give them some autonomy in how they work. They also need good managers. People also work hard and feel motivated when they can see a clear link been their job and the organisational objectives.

 

 

Planning career paths

 

Part of the talent management process involves mapping out career paths for each employee. When people know which direction they are going in and what the next step is in their career, they work better. This needs to be done in discussion with staff.

 

 

Evaluating talent management

 

The CIPD says it’s important to track talent management to make sure the investment is justified. You can do this by evaluating quantitative and qualitative data.