Lack of clearly defined strategy biggest hurdle
Major organizations increasingly seek to align their talent management strategy with their business objectives, according to a survey by Right Management.
Forty-three per cent of the organizations represented in the survey struggle with such alignment, with as many as 18 per cent reporting that there is no alignment with business objectives, found the poll of about 100 employers across Canada.
Forty per cent said their talent strategy is aligned to business objectives.
A true talent management strategy encompasses a wide range of HR policies and processes, said Bram Lowsky, group senior vice-president of Americas at Right Management.
“These would include recruitment, assessment, training and development, retention and leadership programs. Aspects may vary from company to company, but ideally the key elements are closely aligned with the organization's overall business objectives,” he said.
One difficulty complicating efforts with aligning the talent strategy with business priorities is that the talent management strategy may not be explicit enough, said Lowsky.
“Indeed, respondents identified a lack of clear definition as their talent management strategy’s chief shortcoming. Obviously this is where organizations ought to begin,” he said. “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.”
Greatest shortcoming of talent management strategy:
• strategy is not clearly defined (32 per cent)
• hard to measure impact on the organization (17 per cent)
• fails to be communicated throughout organization (15 per cent)
• not readily actionable (nine per cent)
• lack of alignment between corporate and business units (six per cent)
• attempts too much (six per cent)
• failure to define business success (six per cent).
