Introduction Talent pools are a great way to ease the burden of the recruitment process for both candidates

and employers! Talent pools allow job hunters to store their details for employers to view when vacancies become available. If youre an employer who has similar vacancies occurring regularly, why not set up your own talent pool on sector1.net by clicking on our Get your own section? That way youll have a list of interested candidates on tap that you can search exclusively. This article mainly focuses on how to overcome shortage of mid- and senior-level professionals. This article gives different suggestions about poll talents. Identifying and Developing Talent Identifying and developing the next generation of leaders is as hot a topic now a days. Pretty much everyone agrees we have a leadership shortfall, if not crisis, looming on the horizon -- and many would argue we are smack in the middle of it already. In my firm, Executive Development Associates, Inc. (EDA), we decided it would be useful to find out how leaders actually go about identifying and developing employees with high potential. We already know what the human resources departments say is supposed to happen, i.e., what the policies and procedures are for this critical process. But we were hoping to find out what goes on in the real world. So we asked members of our peer networks (heads of executive/leadership development in leading companies) to identify line leaders who had a track record and reputation among employees for being great at identifying and developing leadership talent. We ended up interviewing 20 "role model" leaders from 16 companies representing a variety of industries. The leaders were VPs and C-Level executives. In hear I'll focus on what we learned about how these role model leaders identify talent. In my next column, I'll cover how they develop that talent. How to select the right people for talent development We provide a learning development solution for people with management and leadership capabilities and responsibilities within your organisation. The Talent Pool will help your staff retention strategies by retaining employees who already make a significant contribution to your business and have the potential to develop further. Your talented people are those who you can not afford to lose owing to their: Knowledge and experience Drive and energy Pride and responsibility Ability to deliver results

Every organization values people for a host of different reasons. The Talent Pool has been designed specifically to develop talented employees who are likely to share most of the following characteristics: Ambitious and driven to succeed Hungry to learn Entrepreneurial set themselves high standards Enthusiastic and motivated Mental agility Responsive to change Develop positive relationships Many organizations find that a simple list such as this is all that they need to guide their selection of Talent Pool members. Others find the free TalentScout questionnaire meets their needs fully. However, experience shows us that some organisations require a more thorough and detailed employee assessment process. We can support you to identify your talented people using a method that suits you best. Please contact us to discuss your requirements further. How Leaders Identify Talent The key question we asked was, "How do you determine that a person has potential?" Below are the most frequent responses from line leaders about how they determine whether an executive has potential:High-Potential Executives Track record 37% Broad view of the organization 37% Empathetic 37% Ability to execute 26% Active listener 26% We found the response about taking a broad view to be particularly interesting. As one interviewee said, "To be a leader you have to consider multiple dimensions to a problem, not just the technical but the financial, the political, the social It's also worth noting that empathy and active listening are key to building the relationships that are a critical factor in being viewed as someone with high potential. Change Management: How well have they managed large-scale organizational change? Are they successful when placed in unfamiliar roles requiring personal change? Now let's look at the most frequent interview responses from line leaders about how they determine potential for "Emerging Leaders: "Emerging Leaders Shines 37% Track record 37%

Passion and ambition 31% Broad view of the organization Team player 21%

31%

In talking about what they meant by "shines" and how the person stands out, one interviewee said, "It's their ability to act as an influence within a group of their peers. Not to impose their leadership in that position, but clearly, rationally, to start moving the others within that group to that position." Managing talents is the key function of the human resources department. How do you define talent management? The transformation of talents to the strategic advantage of an organization is defined as the talent management. The answer to the above question is a definite yes. Whatever is the size of the organization, talent management plays a key role in achieving its objectives. Let us look at 10 strategies for better talent management. 1. Talent Comprehension There are various strategies used in organizations as a part of talent management. The talent comprehension is one of the key talent management strategies, and it helps in the following ways: To gain insights on the entire global workforce and talents To bring expertise and hidden skills into the limelight To create and give strength to the talent pools Understanding the criticality of having people with the right skills is imperative in talent management. Not all companies have real insight on their resource pool, its talents, the skill sets and the competency levels. Nor do they understand the importance of these comprehending talents in achieving the organizations goals. Especially with globalization ruling the business world now, it is essential for companies to focus on talent comprehension. 2. Bench Management What is bench management? There are times resources sit idle without any project. Sometimes, people also spend idle time between the completion of one project and await the next project. The management of this workforce is popularly known as bench management. This bench is maintained keenly in major companies so that the project team can be occupied as soon as any new business is won. Many companies, especially IT businesses, use bench as a vital pool to pull resources immediately as and when necessary.

What are the best ways to utilize the skills when they are in bench? People always look toward improving their skills or upgrading their competency levels. The talent management team can use the bench time of these resources for further training. Beginners with technical skills who sit in bench can be used to support functional teams like HR or Finance. This process will help in growing a pool of budding project management professionals. Develop new leaders by identifying the right employees for leadership training and programs. 3. Retainment and Engagement Beyond recruiting new people, retaining the existing employees is the most expensive tasks in talent management. How can you retain and engage resources to avoid attrition? The employee engagement is the challenging and time consuming job in HR management today. Let's have a look at the most important tips on employee retainment and engagement: It is imperative for an employee to know what is expected of him. Killing your employees' motivation by frequently changing their responsibilities is the key reason for attrition today. Freedom of speech and thought is the most critical aspect of any organization to consider sternly. Is your organization ready to listen to ideas or feedback from the employees? Engage employees in activities that help in continuous improvement of the organization and in turn mean career growth for them. 4. Critical Role Management Managing critical roles is an another tough job as you have to keep employees satisfied with what they can do at work. Creating and maintaining leadership positions is critical for the organizational growth. GE is the best example here.. There were three well-trained key leaders waiting in line to occupy the position the minute Jack Welch moved out of his office after retirement. A gap in that position, even for a brief period, would have created a chaotic situation. Apart from the leadership positions, even a novice might turn out to play a critical role in a project. Identifying and motivating them is an extortionate task. Periodic surveys are essential to find out what exactly these critical employees expect from the organization. 5. Optimization of Deployment The competency or skill-based succession planning is the key in optimization of deployment. How can we achieve this? The optimization of talents can be achieved by

implementing integrated talent management processes. Integrate HR activities such as performance reviews, career advancements, and training and development. Some people take time to grasp the project requirements, especially in the beginning of their career. In such scenario, the productivity in certain roles may go down. This situation can be avoided by optimizing the deployment processes like training a resource in bench or developing back-up plans in advance. 6. Talent Structure Every organization must consider re-engineering and re-structuring the resource pool periodically. Companies, especially those experiencing high-level growth, need to restructure teams and the whole organization, if necessary, to suit to the current situation. Companies need to have talent structuring processes in place when: They experience growth periods The new skills are necessary to fulfill the project requirements Inappropriate results are retrieved due to the bigoted performance review The project is not staffed rightly The communication channels are working improperly Talent restructuring helps to improve the employee morale, productivity and in turn boost the organizational growth and effectiveness. They considered the recession period as a growth time to reengineer the organizational talent pool. 7. Key Talent Growth Getting the most out of employees is believed to be the best talent management strategy for organizational growth in 2011. Most of the global companies find it difficult to achieve organizational goals because they lack in key talent growth. They aim at squeezing energy out of employees in stead of making their talents to grow. Train these individuals to use social media appropriately. Managers must learn to search for the key talents. They should also develop skills to create growth opportunities for their team. Automating the processes will help these managers and supervisors to spend quality time on such essential tasks. 8. Talent Pipeline Development Talent pipeline development is one of the best talent management strategies help to proactively safeguard the organization.

Recruitment: Hire people whose personalities reflect the organizational values and strategies. Instead of hiring people for a specific role or position. Recruiters must check for the candidates knowledge on the company values, ethics, cultural fitness and other global business information. Training and Development: Identify the key resources that need training of the leadership skills in global perspective. Implement a 360-degree assessment for incessant training requirements and succession plans. Retention: Track the attrition rates continuously. Find out the reasons why employees leave the organization. Offering the competitive packages, the career growth plans, and the work-life balance are the key programs help in retaining the employees in the current scenario. 9. Shift Succession Management to Talent Mobility Succession management is nothing but the creation of strategic plans to fulfill the organizations objectives, values, vision and mission by using its key talents. Transforming succession planning to talent mobility is indispensable in achieving the organizations objectives. 10. Individual Contributors: Management Material? Remember, Individual contributors are instrumental in achieving the organizations growth, especially in research and development areas. Many companies make mistakes by assuming talented individual contributors as good managers. Make sure that the individual contributor is really interested in managing people and projects. They should not feel that their core competency is ruining as their quality time is spent in handling issues with projects and people. Remember, blindly implementing best practices from successful organizations is not the right way to strategize the talent management processes. Analyze the current situation of your talent pool and where your organization is going wrong. Be really careful while planning your talent management programs.