Can Talent Management Align With Business Objectives?
Firms Struggle to Align Talent Management Strategy with Business Objectives
From Right Management:
Major organizations are increasingly seeking to align talent management strategy with business objectives, according to a survey of 537 U.S. companies by Right Management, the talent and career experts within ManpowerGroup.
Forty-six percent of the organizations represented in the survey struggle with such alignment, with as many as 18 percent reporting that there is no alignment with business objectives.
“Do you believe your organization’s talent management strategy is aligned with its business objectives?”
- 37 percent: Yes, the strategy is aligned to meet our business objectives.
- 46 percent: Yes, but the strategy is only somewhat aligned to meet business objectives.
- 18 percent: There is no alignment with business objectives.
A true talent management strategy encompasses a wide range of HR policies and processes, said Bram Lowsky, Group Senior Vice President Americas at Right Management.
“These would include recruitment, assessment, training & development, retention and leadership programs. Aspects may vary from company to company, but ideally, the key elements align closely with the organization’s overall business objectives. The survey suggests most organizations want to move in this direction but have yet to do so with any confidence.”
One difficulty complicating efforts with aligning the talent strategy with business priorities, observed Lowsky, is that the talent management strategy may not be explicit enough.
“Indeed, respondents identified a lack of clear definition as their talent management strategy’s chief shortcoming. Obviously, this is where organizations ought to begin. This can only be driven by a well formed and clearly articulated business case for the strategy, along with a practical communication plan to keep all parties informed.”
“What is the greatest single shortcoming of your organization’s talent management strategy?”
- 33 percent: say strategy is not clearly defined
- 12 percent: Fails to be communicated throughout organization
- 12 percent: Hard to measure impact on the organization
- 11 percent: Not readily actionable
- 9 percent: Other
- 8 percent: Lack of alignment between corporate and business units
- 6 percent: Attempts too much
- 5 percent: Too short term in perspective
- 3 percent: Failure to define business success
According to Lowsky, the finding underlines the fact that organizations need to develop and articulate a clear strategy.
“Additionally, this finding indicates that actionable strategies and appropriate metrics for progress against the strategy execution are also missing, which are both key to making any real progress.”
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