Talent and Teamwork Fall Prey to Cost-Cutting

Is the recession putting paid to talent management. Several surveys suggest so: PricewaterhouseCoopers's Global CEO survey finds company bosses struggling to balance the urgent need for cost-cutting with the longer-term, loftier-seeming notions of talent retention.

Globally, workforce development and training are dropping down the priority list and CEOs appear to be oblivious to the need to engage employees or collaborate to find ways of cutting costs.

In a Work Foundation study, called "Knowledge Workers and Knowledge Work", meanwhile, companies were found to be squandering employee talent by tying them up in regulatory knots and allowing them little say on how they should organise their work. (Seeing a theme around consultation emerging here, anyone?)

Talent Q's report earlier this month took HR professionals to task for their non-strategic, unco-ordinated approach to managing talent and developing people.

And as if to prove all of the statistics right, here's a story in People Management about IT business Peer1, which is offering £1,000 to new recruits to leave within two weeks if they feel the job's not for them.

UK HR director Terry Connor says: "Hopefully, if we interview correctly and trust our instincts", there won't be much need for the offer. "It's a risk we are willing to take to get the best people," he adds (adding to my bafflement.)

Talent Q director Dr Alan Bourne's not the biggest fan of Peer1's "instinct" approach -- because the instinct at the moment, he says, is to cut people at departmental level without thinking too much about the longer-term implications for the business.

I asked him what was going wrong with talent management today and whether talent management was a necessary casualty of the downturn. Here's his advice on adapting talent management to tougher times:

1. Share information and keep data The current economic situation's exposed a lack of joined-up thinking and gaps in data sharing.

   Key talent's often spread around the organisation, in different departments, but data as to who those people are is often restricted to senior people if it's co-ordinated at all.

   There's a legacy structure, especially in large businesses, that often divides HR up into functions, which may or may not share information. So the flow of information may be disjointed.

   That data could also be used to shave costs of internal development programmes, linking high-potential people up within the business or helping to develop coaching opportunities.

2. Make the business case HR professionals may understand why a joined-up talent management process matters, but they don't necessarily have the techniques to analyse return on investment.
3. Revive the concept of teamwork Another casualty of the recession, teamwork may be something companies have to re-learn if they are to make it through the 'new reality'.

   Companies tend to treat team builidng as something they do on away-days. And the past few years have fostered an individualistic work culture that rewarded high growth and acting on your own initiative.

   The context has changed: where high-potential, entrepreneurial individuals worked well in a growth environment, now companies need to develop people who have resilience, are cost-sensitive and understand profitability, who are supportive of leaders and good communicators."

4. Get it right the first time Lots more people are applying for jobs, so the emphasis must be on making cost-per-hire efficient and making the right decision first time around.