Possessing the right talent has become the only sustainable competitive advantage for many organisations today, while talent itself is increasingly in short supply
Possessing the right talent has become the only sustainable competitive advantage for many organisations today. Talent Management for Peak Performance is a course run by the Macquarie Graduate School of Management and The Academy Network, combining their academic and business advisory expertise to develop a program designed to enable participants to successfully execute their strategic plans.
Facilitators Tony Newton and Melanie O’Connor asked participants what they expected from the course. Responses varied, with participants coming from different backgrounds in terms of company size, location, business life cycle and what talent management means to each one. Following a broad review of the importance of talent management, O’Connor looked at how successful talent management initiatives, formal or informal, can be critical to overall organisational success. She also stressed the need to tie talent management to strategic plans and future business needs, rather than looking backwards.
O’Connor explored the marketing principles in talent management, such as developing a competitive advantage and value propositions. This helped contextualise talent management within a business environment and gave participants an idea of the language employed in building and selling the business case for talent management to key stakeholders.
The program was then broken down into key subject areas of talent management strategy: attracting, evaluating, retaining and developing talent. Within each subject area participants discussed its application at the macro level; how it applied to their businesses; current scenarios; future strategies and goals, and finally, what is needed to achieve them. Final modules then included the development of monitoring tools and the execution of a talent management strategy.
Towards the end of the program, participants were able to work through a template to develop an individual action plan designed to help them take their key learnings and ensure they develop a talent management strategy relevant to their particular organisation.
If you are after a toolkit or package approach to talent management, this is not the course for you. The course does, however, provide participants with the frameworks, research and tools necessary to develop a strategy to implement a talent management program that will be effective for them and the business in which they work. This is a high level, highly involved program that covers a critical HR issue which many see forming a fundamental part of our roles in coming years.
To get the most out of the course participants need to be a strategic partner committed to taking key learnings and translating them into language and plans that relate to their specific business. They also need to be able to understand the current and future landscape of their business to ensure the strategy is set up for long-term success.
O’Connor mentioned one book title that remained with me –Talent makes Capital Dance (by Ridderstrale and Nordstrom). So, if you want to make your capital dance, I would take talent management seriously and consider this course as a springboard to a very exciting but necessary commitment for all businesses going forward.
Reviewed by Kim Coates, HR director for XYZNetworks. For more information on upcoming courses, call 1300 2255 6476, email [email protected] or visit www.mgsm.edu.au/tmpp. Next course: 17-18 October 2006 (residential). Cost: $2,854.50 (inc $259.50 GST).
