Ascendis Blog

Six Areas to Drive Leadership From Your Talent Management Framework

A talent management framework provides leaders with a structured approach to developing staff potential and retaining talent. Talent management is about developing staff to meet both organizational and individual needs. And, leaders are the catalysts of your successful talent management strategy. Thriving organizations have strong development cultures – one where leaders lead the way as positive role models. Leaders who seek to improve their own performance motivate and require employees to do the same.

Here are the six factors that are shifting the way companies now manage employee development:

1. Better talent equals better business performance. A recent Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) study shows companies that excel in Talent Management have 15 percent higher earnings than their competition.

2. Financial value. The financial value of a company is often dependent upon the quality of talent it offers. What is the value of your team based on their talents today? 

3. First-mover advantages. The speed at which business changes requires us to pay closer attention to the talent we hire and the effectiveness of their performance. And, being first gives you the advantage of being the originator, and not a duplicator. 

4. Board buy-in. The quality of talent has to be exceptional to meet the standards of your organization’s boards and investors. 

5. Employee values. Employee expectations of their workplace are also changing, requiring CEOs to understand and address employee engagement.

6. Generational divides. Demographics in the workforce are shifting. As employees in top positions defer retirement, they leave younger, entry-level employees applying for a multitude of positions, instead of finding a perfect match for their talent.

With that in mind, it is essential to keep human resources informed on the business plans of the organization, as it will directly impact the selection and hiring process. It is far easier, more efficient and less expensive, to place higher priority on selection over development, simply because not all skills can be developed. Judgment, learning ability and adaptability are all skills near impossible to train. Instead, hiring based on the needs of the business, with knowledge of the skills demanded by the position, is a much more suitable way to manage talent.

Factors for executing a high performance talent management approach include communication, accountability, skill, alignment and measurement.

So, how do you get started? Register for a subscription with the Ascendis Leadership Academy, your source for eLearning and self-paced online leadership courses for all levels of your organization. If you’re ready to inspire a culture of learning in your organization, look no further than the Ascendis Leadership Academy for multimedia online training content. You and your team can enhance your skills in more than nine competencies under the categories of Leading Self, Leading Others and Leading Organizations.