Talent Management – A brief background

Vividly captured as the ‘war for talent’ by a McKinsey Quarterly article in 1998, talent management has intensified over three years to become a critical executive, operations management, functional and HR/OD issue. Arguably with much applied thinking from different sources, it is emerging as a pre-eminent focus for identifying, sourcing, developing, rewarding, motivating, growing and retaining those ‘people assets’ that impact on a business issue or strategic imperative.

Increasingly, the focus of talent management is being deliberately adapted or reinterpreted, driven by business circumstances, economic conditions, internal shortcomings and new performance challenges. Some organizations talk of a talent imperative that involves refocusing collective HR, OD and management efforts to effect some form of business transformation. As case organizations in this report show, there are many areas of development in a sequence of logistically connected perspectives.

A business and organizational effectiveness case is established as the talent focus which positions talent management strategically in terms of structure and importance. Critical talent groups are identified as the recipients of interventions, including the use of differentiating employee value propositions. Sometimes, the whole workforce, or large segments of it, benefit too. Two other emphases are evident – managing talent more effectively and evaluating talent management strategies or practices.