New Tools for Talent Management: The Age of Analytics

ALMOST EVERYONE AGREES ON THE IMPORTANCE OF TALENT AS A CRUCIAL ASSET TO BE managed in today’s globally competitive business environment, but effectively managing talent has become a more strategic, less intuitive pursuit than in the past. A successful talent strategy needs to be multifaceted, aligned with business goals, prompted not by “gut” managerial attitudes and decision making but by fact-based decisions that reflect the hard realities of what drives critical business and workforce outcomes. And more than ever, making those fact-based moves requires solid analytic tools. Let’s also be clear that the multifaceted nature of talent management today extends beyond any superficial sense of mere alignment with business goals. For example, it’s not enough for an engineering or a service culture simply to be well stocked with appropriately qualified talent. A talent strategy must also be actionable, nimbly responsive to changing needs within and without the organization. It must be specific to the organization, acknowledging the variety of skills, specialties, and nuanced capabilities that make for successful execution within a given business and organizational context. It must be impactful and consequential, so that talent decisions—whether deploying talent to various regions, building or buying talent, or addressing issues of succession—quickly and New Tools for Talent Management: The Age of Analytics