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Talent Management is a business process that enable your talent to achieve their full potential over the course of their employment. It is a process that aligns all your talent hiring, development, retention with your usual key people processes such as performance management, succession planning, learning and development into a strategic framework that enable your business to build competitive advantage and win in the marketplace. It is a long-term process.

Building a talent management system is not about having multiple talent management programs. There are four key elements which need equal attention and focus in order to ensure the system is successfully built. The key elements are:

• Leadership Engagement

HR department will always be seen as the one responsible in carrying out talent management process. However, talent management will only be successful if the leaders in an organisation embrace it and fully role-model it. Developing leaders begins at the top with their engagement in the process. Organisations which are serious about talent management will ensure every leaders spend time developing their direct reports, including the busiest CEO!

• Systems & Structures

Once there is commitment from the leaders, it is also important to ensure that the talent initiatives are incorporated into existing systems and structures in order to get full commitment from each and everyone else in the organisation. For example, it is compulsory for the staff to attend at least two job-related training before getting promotion.     

• Culture

People resist to change. They might comply with the systems and procedures, but do not get the process and objective right. Using the training example above, in order to get promoted, the staff attended two training programs. However, they are not aware that the purpose of the training is to prepare them to be competent in the next level of job, and to transfer the knowledge gained to the other peers. In short, in order to succeed in talent management, it is important to ensure that the talent initiatives become part of the culture of the organisation.

• Program

It is not possible to copy a talent management program from one company to another. A talent management program must be aligned to the business goals and strategic direction, as well as the corporate values of an organisation.

In short, talent management needs to be embraced by all as mentioned above. It is an investment that really needs serious consideration for an organisation that want to be competitive in the 21st century.