Many organisations make the mistake of defining top talent simply as high performers, without taking into consideration their alignment with the company's overall strategy. Paul MacRae outlines a better approach.
It’s time for you to rethink your organisation’s approach to talent management.
In the current economic environment of strong competition and reduced spending, retention of top talent is an important concern for many businesses. In fact, in Deloitte’s
2015 Global Human Capital Trends report, released recently, companies cited culture, talent retention and engagement as one of their top concerns.
Many organisations make the mistake of defining top talent simply as high performers, without taking into consideration their alignment with the company's overall strategy.
The best talent management strategy should look at improving retention by better aligning employees with the company’s corporate goals and objectives. When an employee’s job role is aligned with the corporate goals, they will have better buy in to the company’s success.
Goal alignment is a powerful method that not only clarifies job roles for individual employees, but also improves engagement and overall performance. This approach provides employees with a specific purpose and objective, and one which they know is contributing to the success of the organisation.
With employee engagement and retention directly impacting the bottom line, goal alignment should be key to any effective talent management strategy.
The state of top talent in Australia
According to
Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace report, workplace disengagement is costing the country more than $54bn per year.
A survey conducted by
HC Online of more than 3,000 employees classified as ‘top talent’ across the Asia Pacific region found that many talented employees are either disillusioned or disengaged.
Thirty-three per cent of Australia’s most talented employees categorise themselves as either disillusioned or actively disengaged, with seventy-four per cent of this talent-at-risk group indicating that they would leave their organisation as soon as they receive an acceptable job offer.
Gallup’s research also found that only twenty per cent of the workforce has a strong connection between their work and corporate goals. This leaves up to eighty per cent of employees unknowingly working hard on outcomes that may not be in the best interests of the organisation.
The bottom line is there are massive gains to be made from better engaging talent through goal alignment.
How to align top talent and corporate goals
All managers should take action to determine how they can better align top talent with the corporate objectives. Ask yourself:
- How can we better engage and align our top talent?
- Does our top talent know what our corporate goals are?
- Do they know how their job contributes to meeting these goals?
- Do we know how we are tracking against our corporate goals during the year?
- Are our talent management strategies effective in contributing to these corporate goals?
Next, try out a few easy remedies:
- Communicate corporate goals with your people.
- Re-evaluate employee performance plans to ensure they accurately align to the company’s corporate goals.
- Provide employees with visibility of their performance plans and access to update it as they progress throughout the year. This gives the organisation a clearer, more holistic view of its annual progress, as well as its workforce’s capabilities.
Many organisations do not follow through with employing effective talent management strategies because they can be seen as cumbersome and time consuming. But specific talent management software is available in the market to automate and streamline goal alignment, thereby freeing up the organisation to focus on its overall performance.
Taking action to increase corporate goal alignment and in turn, engagement of your top talent, will drive a more productive workforce, reduce turnover, and have a positive impact on the bottom line.
About the author
Paul MacRae is the General Manager for Human Resource & Payroll (HRP) at TechnologyOne. With more than 25 years’ experience in the design and support of applications, Paul has a broad skill set across all sectors of the service IT industry. Paul currently leads an innovative team committed to ensuring effective Human Capital Management across the company’s client base.
