The Problem

It is universally acknowledged that people perform at their best when certain conditions exist:

1. They know what is expected of them
2. They receive honest, regular and constructive feedback on their performance (the negatives as well as the positives)
3. They have, or can acquire, the knowledge and skills to perform the tasks expected of them

Evaluating and rating performance provides an organisation with a number of pieces of information. As with any such exercise, however, the value does not lie in the data but in what is done with it. Any performance management process should enable the identification of ‘Talent’ which needs to be nurtured and developed, but will also identify employees who are struggling and need help, and those who are underperforming and require remedial action.

All of the above is a fundamental management responsibility, yet the reality is that too many managers fail to invest the necessary time and resources in these activities. The results of this can be truly damaging and include:

• Increased turnover amongst the highly talented as they seek organisations which will recognise and develop them
• Ongoing tolerance of underperformance with the accompanying negative effects on morale and productivity
• Increased direct costs  in recruitment and training
• Increased indirect costs  of lost productivity as new hires assimilate
• Reputational risk as poor employee ‘brand’ diminishes the ability to attract the best

In addition to all of the above, the external legislative environment has increasingly required many sectors of industry, commerce, public and voluntary sectors to carry a compliance requirement for their employees to complete mandated training or certification specific to their organisations’ activities. Examples range from Fire Training to CRB checks. Not only this, but there is a requirement for organisations to be able to report on their compliance and to build and maintain centralised and easily accessible records for inspection purposes.

Approaches to a Solution

The benefits of automating the Talent Management processes can be realised at a tactical as well as strategic level! A clear and demonstrable outcome is cost saving. In addition, automating the processes that are currently carried out manually offers an opportunity to reduce or redeploy HR or Training admin headcount.

There are several entry points to Talent Management. The first is during the recruitment process, when as part of interviewing and onboarding, a natural opportunity exists to identify development needs, any certifications due to expire, and any training needs that the hiring organisation deems mandatory. As a new employee is brought into the organisation, he or she will need to have short term objectives agreed and set, and best practice would require an initial appraisal after the initial settling in period

The second is during the regular appraisal or performance review cycle. Depending on the organisation, the different events in the appraisal process may take place during fixed period, for example, December and June for appraisals, January and July for objective setting. Alternatively, appraisal dates may be triggered by a hire or promotion anniversary. Objectives should have a date for review and/or completion.

An output of the objective setting element of appraisal will be the identification of training and development needs. These needs may be satisfied by a mandatory training course, or one or more of a range of different interventions may be appropriate. In any event, a training department will need to be able to perform training needs analysis across the enterprise or sub-divisions, match needs to solutions, instances and providers, obtain relevant information from a number of sources, secure expenditure approval, monitor and report on training ROI, and ensure reportable compliance to mandatory/regulatory certification.

Next Steps

As can be seen therefore, Talent Management consists of a number of forms, processes, tasks and decisions all of which can be automated within a BPM solution.

Our approach is to work with each client to rapidly break the top level requirement of a ‘Talent Management’ system into its constituent high level processes, understand and documenting the optimal order of events, the roles and responsibilities of the different actors and the desired outcomes for each of these actors. Through an agile development cycle with a series of sprints and playbacks we automate these processes, adding additional layers of detailed functionality.

By taking a process-led approach, we are able to deploy a solution that is flexible and easily configurable by the client to reflect any future changes in business priorities, structures or processes. Equally importantly, by automating and optimising the processes and workflows, we allow organisations to significantly reduce the time overhead - one of the most common inhibitors to consistent high quality talent management – thereby reducing cost and risk, safeguarding the training investments, and increasing retention and motivation.