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What is Talent Strategy – Why Should You Care?

“Talent strategy” is a buzzword being tossed around more and more, but not many know what it really is.  Financial strategy, operational strategy and marketing strategy are all terms that are commonly used and accepted. These topics are thoroughly discussed and planned for in the effort to reach the organization’s goals.  However, it’s people –“talent”–who execute these strategies.  So the question is: Who, in your organization, is ensuring that you have the talent to execute your well-laid plans?

The better you are at aligning your business and talent strategies, the better you are at achieving both your personal and business goals. That is why you need talent strategy. All your other strategies fall apart when the right talent isn’t in place.

The Success of Your Business Strategy Hinges on the Success of Your Talent Strategy

In order to achieve your business strategy you must have a complimentary talent strategy. Talent brings visions and goals to life. A talent strategy is a detailed roadmap that addresses topics such as employment branding, corporate culture, attracting, recruiting, onboarding, developing, retaining and off-boarding. It is the ‘who’ in your key performance indicators and critical success factors.

The Centennial team firmly believes, and has seen the evidence to support the idea, that if you lack a talent strategy, you lack the ability to achieve your business strategy and business objectives.

What a Talent Strategy Should Include – it’s a lot

A talent strategy addresses such things as the character, culture and chemistry alignment of leadership and employees. It includes succession and development plans for all key and critical positions throughout your organization. It includes the necessary details to build a highly effective talent pipeline. It evaluates the global and local demands that you will face relating to workforce and hiring.

It includes why your organization exists, and how you will proactively focus on a culture of diversity and inclusion. It will provide a roadmap of what you do when you have the right people on the bus. It will communicate the expectations and approach to on-boarding, developing and investing in your people.

It will also include expectations of how you will off-board talent for the many reasons employees could leave – resignation, retirement, firing etc. The experiences of those “alumni” directly affects your employment brand in the marketplace. It will include a well thought-out and implementable candidate experience plan, hiring manager experience and intentional hiring processes. In fact, you want the full life-cycle of the employee experience to be well planned. You want to invest in those who are coming in the door and those exiting as well.

A Well-Planned Talent Strategy Allows You To be Proactive as Opposed to Reactive

A talent strategy, like a business strategy, should put your organization in the driver’s seat of successfully managing your organization. It is proactive, it is mapped out, it is honest and transparent. You own what is and what could be. You identify your gaps and you pursue growth and change in the areas that need to be adjusted.

A talent strategy, to be fully effective, must be understood and communicated from the front-line to the executive ranks of your organization.

Think of all of the work you go through to develop the right business strategies: the SWOT analysis, the strategic planning sessions, the off-sites, the advisors, the one-on-one’s, the leadership sessions. In order to accomplish all of that, you need to create the best talent-centered culture possible.

Your internal and external employment brand must be attractive, engaging and noteworthy. Your culture must invest in people, strengthen people and make others better. You want to create an organization where people want to work, and where people feel invested in and valued, leading them wanting to tell their friends, families, peers and colleagues about your great organization.

A fully effective talent strategy takes all of the above, and more, into consideration.

How Do I Get Started if I Want to Make Talent Strategy a Priority?

Ready to invest in the above? Want to learn more? Want to understand what areas are strengths and what areas are weaknesses? Let’s connect.