Talent Pools

Development Dimensions International interviewed 1,000 staff from companies employing more than 500 workers for its spring research report. The findings of the report were published in the Sunday Times on 7^th March 2004.

Many of the respondents were bored, lacking commitment and ready to quit. One in three confessed to low levels of commitment to work, clearly having a detrimental effect on their productivity. This pattern of apathy and lack lustre performance was attributed to a lack of variety and stimulus provided by their work, together with the slow progression of the careers.

The main reasons for people leaving their jobs were an absence of opportunities for advancement, the desire for more challenging work, a more exciting place to work and more varied work. Pay came fifth.

The report makes a number of recommendations on how to keep staff interested in their jobs. As well as conducting employee surveys and recruiting the right people to fit the culture of the business, people development was a strong factor in both motivating and retaining employees. Personal development programmes, regular feedback, skills and tools training and creating a sense of meaning are all strong factors for individuals.

Over the past 20 years I have managed a number of teams in retailing, marketing, sales and training. I have always placed a heavy emphasis on the need to develop individuals, not just to retain them, but also to prepare themselves for promotion and career advancement. One of the most effective methods that I have used is the creation of Talent Pools. Individuals identified because of their ability, attitude and potential contract into the Talent Pool, making a commitment to contribute over and above their day job in return for development and the opportunity to make a difference to their organisation.

The benefits of running Talent Pools are manifold. The individuals feel they are being recognised. They gain in confidence, stature, knowledge and bandwidth. They become more commercially aware and contribute significantly more to the company. The business very often gains commercially too. Project work, run in parallel with and completed by the Talent Pool, addressing key issues facing the company results in the creation of solutions and propositions from within.

The Talent Pools address both attitudinal and skills based development. The attitudinal programmes aim to improve the individual’s own brand, style, confidence, effectiveness and gravitas. The skills based programmes aim to improve the individual’s knowledge and understanding of business functions and activities. As a result improving their bandwidth, value and contribution to the business.

Each programme is designed to be highly interactive. They aim to remove the mystique surrounding many of the areas covered through clear explanation, real life examples and tailored exercises. Many familiar tools are used to heighten clarity and understanding. My objective is to make each programme as relevant as possible to the audience to enable them to practice their skills on live work in a safe environment prior to implementing it for real.

Each programme has been developed based upon personal experience of learning, training and execution of tools and techniques over the past 20 years in a variety of management positions both within the corporate and management development arenas.

Typically, a Talent Pool would consist of 6-12 high flyers. Individuals identified by the company as being the rising stars, with high potential for future promotion and those that the company would target to keep within the business.

Over a defined period the Talent Pool would attend a number of tailored one and two day programmes. In conjunction with the programme work they would also work on business related issues, identified by the company. This provides the business with an in house consultancy that can address live business issues and produce recommended solutions for implementation, by the people who not only face the issue but would also be responsible for addressing it.