Talent Management Becoming Major Force.

Talent management, a relatively new and increasingly popular human resources area, is becoming a major part of corporate strategy, according to an upcoming Conference Board report.

The report, Integrated and Integrative Talent Management: A Strategic HR Framework, presents a new picture of what a fully integrated approach to Talent Management is and shows organizations the path towards becoming mature talent management integrators.

Boards of directors and other senior leadership teams are taking a direct interest in integrating talent management into overall corporate strategy. Talent management integration calls for featuring these individuals prominently in initiatives, and moves the accountability for talent beyond just the HR arena. It lies prominently in strategy – at the core of business success.

The report is based on a study of 75 HR executives who direct such functional areas as talent management, organizational development, leadership development, and succession planning. Among the companies in the study were Time Warner, Hewlett-Packard, Delta Air Lines, Medtronic, PepsiCo, Synovus Financial Corp., Goldman Sachs, and Johnson & Johnson.

“Talent management’s importance is evident in its ability to hold management interest even in the recently weak economy,” says Lynne Morton, principal in Performance Improvement (PI) Solutions and author of The Conference Board report. “It seems that talent management is coming into its own now. It is providing a way for organizations to integrate a range of disparate human capital initiatives and a way for HR itself to strategically align with the whole organization. This study shows that talent is seen as critical to success and that its management is integral to all aspects of the business.”

The study found that less than one-third of the surveyed firms cancelled talent management initiatives due to the economy and less than half significantly cut back talent management programs because of the weakened economy.

Although the HR department still shoulders the lion’s share of integration accountability (66%), 52% of survey participants report that the entire leadership team is held accountable for talent management results.

Making Integration Work

Nearly two-thirds of survey participants view their use of talent management initiatives as “integrated.” The report defines TM integration as the fitting together of different talent management programs to create a single, coherent system. The components of talent management include recruitment, retention, professional development, leadership/high potential development, performance management, feedback/measurement, workforce planning, and culture.

Integration is still relatively new. On average, companies that view themselves as “TM integrated” have been so only for approximately 10 years. Several categories of initiatives have been integrated for only one to three years. A few survey participants described themselves as relatively new to integration, with their work occurring in the past three years.

Being a larger effort doesn’t make an initiative more integrated, nor does longer use of initiatives indicate greater integration. For talent management integration to succeed, it must be aligned with strategic goals, with HR management, and include active CEO participation. The study finds that the health of the economy, mergers and acquisitions, and global expansion are strong external factors.

For more information at http://www.conference-board.org