Kendall Koff is the Chief Executive Officer for RailPros.
Many companies hold themselves out as people-first organizations, aspiring to establish a set of values that are centered around respect for the individual. The concept is not new, and it has a history of being embraced by companies large and small, established and emerging.
Patrick Lencioni, the famed author of many business books, has chronicled the importance of giving attention to people and, ultimately, their contribution to a team. In his book, The Advantage, he declaratively states that organizational health trumps everything else in business.
The book opens with the statement that “the single greatest advantage any company can achieve is organizational health.” I believe that Lencioni is correct, and it is worth your best effort to pursue excellent organizational health built on a foundation of a program I like to call “total talent management.”
Defining Total Talent Management
When I refer to “total talent management,” I mean a well-defined set of management processes designed to provide the best environment for an individual to exercise their talent and contribute to the success of the organization. These management processes are interconnected to source, attract, select, train, develop, retain, promote and move employees through an organization with the aim of unlocking the individual’s full potential. The major aspects include recruiting, performance management, leadership development and a culture of high employee engagement.
But, put more simply, total talent management is about making sure we’re putting our people first and giving them everything they need to succeed with us for many years to come.
A service-driven company like mine knows that the talent of a team is the product you are selling. For that reason, I found it fairly easy to embrace the people-first philosophy. The challenge, though, is institutionalizing the processes and behaviors that collectively and creditably produce optimal culture and results.
Based on my successes with this approach, I want to share three key points I have learned when it comes to implementing total talent management.
1. Leadership Alignment
The most important ingredient is leadership alignment. Leaders at all levels of the company must model by example if a people-first initiative is to take root. The commitment must be full and complete. I’ve learned that this is the foundation on which the entire initiative rests. I also learned that this is often the hardest part of the implementation and institutionalization of a total talent management program.
To help find success in this area, I recommend that you spend a lot of time within your executive team focusing on people. This involves promotions, review of high-potential staff, a formal mentoring program and succession planning. To further sharpen your focus, you can do what we did and hire a chief people officer and hire a director of corporate communications, add onboarding specialists and develop training programs to help harmonize all the messaging involved in a total talent strategy.
2. Feedback
Another key element of a total talent management program is feedback. To have an effective program, you must have a clear, candid and ongoing dialogue between managers and team members. Without this honest exchange of information, delivered in a timely fashion with regular check-ins, the culture of excellence that total talent management demands cannot be achieved.
To help us ensure this is occurring, I deployed a software solution that provides visibility, and thereby accountability, to periodic meetings and goal setting. While many within my team were already meeting with their staff in one-to-one settings, this platform enabled us to document goals, capture feedback and measure engagement for the organization as a whole in a streamlined way. I highly recommend finding your own method to capture and document these aspects of your meetings.
3. Career Paths
It is not surprising that career path guidance is often a natural follow-up concern in many of our feedback sessions. It is essential for individuals to understand the career path opportunities available to them within your company.
In sharing this information, those who aspire to advance in their roles can see the various available pathways. Understanding the opportunities ahead and the skills needed to reach these next levels enables people to set accurate, achievable goals and build the skills needed to become compelling candidates for promotion and advancement in your company. Providing employees with a forward look at their career progression can also help with engagement and is a positive force in retaining talent.
Bonus Tip: Give It Time
The last thing that I have learned is, like anything, it takes time for a program to take effect. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and even with leadership buy-in, a total talent management program grows over years, not months.
Once employees see that leadership is serious about receiving feedback, improving processes and providing opportunities for advancement, I’ve seen how a total talent management program can pick up momentum and start to generate positive results.
In closing, I would invite any company to consider placing a higher priority on the people side of the enterprise. I’ve found that shareholder value increases when the team is aligned on goals and can recruit and retain excellent talent.
The important ownership issues and client items will always remain, but a well-organized staff with low turnover and high empowerment has the power to create more opportunities than challenges. In your quest to take care of your team, look to always improve on and perfect your total talent management plan.
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