Effective Talent Management Strategy: Select Areas of Focus

Crafting an Effective Talent
Management Strategy (Practice 1)
How to select areas of focus aligned with
business and talent management drivers.
Practice Guide

TALENT
MANAGEMENT
STRATEGY
OVERVIEW

What it is
As a company defines its business strategy, each
function must align its objectives and actions to
support its strategic goals. Talent management
strategy is a key process that the HR function follows
to accomplish this directive by identifying priorities
and setting up plans to advance talent management
practices. It is directly enabling corporate strategy. It is
a compass to decide how to design and prioritize
talent management and other HR programs, services,
and policies and guide how they should mature over
time.
This process follows a periodic cycle, typically
conducted on an annual basis, where the HR team
analyzes current and future business and organizational
needs, reviews its talent management programs and
practices to assess if they respond adequately to those
needs, and identifies adjustments.
These improvements may enhance the effectiveness
and efficiency of services provided in response to
regulatory, operational, technological, or employee
experience opportunity areas.
Talent management strategy is different from “Talent
Strategy”, which includes looking into business
requirements in terms of the capabilities required by
the organization, the ways to access them in the
market, and their development, maintenance, and
retention. It is also distinct from “HR Strategy”, which
focuses on defining how to organize and operate the
HR function, as well as determining what processes,
policies, and services will be part of it at any given
stage.
3

Why use it
Talent management strategy is useful for prioritizing
time and investment decisions on the most important
initiatives for the organization, not only the most
urgent. It is an overarching plan that encompasses all
talent management areas, helping align the HR agenda
with the business strategy.
It allows HR teams and key stakeholders across the
business to collaborate and agree on main objectives
and a roadmap of improvement initiatives.
The scope typically comprises programs supporting
the worker life cycle, which involves attracting,
accessing, engaging, managing, augmenting,
developing, and transitioning talent. Nevertheless, the
process creates the opportunity to holistically review
other areas driven by HR to evaluate and improve.
4

PRACTICE
GUIDE
L1
Progression
Selecting areas of focus
aligned with business and
talent management drivers.

How it works
Companies of all sizes need to prioritize their efforts
to focus on the areas that will provide the highest
impact on achieving their business objectives and the
greatest contribution to enhancing the work
experience and engagement of their key talent.
Accomplishing this requires dedicating time to review
the business strategy and organizational needs to
make a deliberate plan that might include creating
new or improving current HR programs.
Review the business strategy and
organizational needs
Companies of all sizes need to prioritize their efforts
to focus on the areas that will provide the highest
impact on achieving their business objectives and the
greatest contribution to enhancing the work
experience and engagement of their key talent.
This process uses inputs from across the organization
to discover critical needs. It should incorporate both
quantitative and qualitative data, including information
related to business objectives, organizational plans,
and the performance of current HR services available
to employees, its functions (i.e., HR Business Partners),
and operational efficiencies by conducting the
following types of activities:
-Reviewing the business strategy from the top to
provide visibility into the way HR programs should
support growth, new approaches to the market, or
upcoming business lines, products, and services.
-Interviewing internal customers to gather their
views and expectations on how HR is supporting
their needs and how important it is to improve on
any of the people programs currently in place.
6

-Analyzing HR programs, KPIs and processes
indicators (e.g., time-to-fill open positions,
training satisfaction and impact, or voluntary
turnover) to evaluate the effectiveness of current
HR practices.
-Reviewing employee feedback (e.g., engagement
and satisfaction surveys, employee net promoter
score, learning and development needs) and exit
interview data to help identify problem aspects in
the employee experience.
-Considering transformation projects that are
ongoing or in the pipeline, including regulatory
and IT changes to contemplate implications and
supporting HR programs that might be needed.
-Evaluating trends on new technologies, ways of
working, societal and economic changes to
preview potential disruptors resulting in new or
modifications to talent initiatives.
With the analysis and conclusions from this data, there will
be enhanced visibility on the specifics of the organization’s
immediate and long-term talent management needs.
There will also be an increased awareness of the
importance of improving any particular HR program.
Align on relevant business and
organizational value drivers
Differentiating the relative importance of all potential
areas of focus for HR should be based on their level of
contribution to the most critical business and
organizational value drivers. Some value drivers commonly
considered for assessing areas of focus against are:
a. Support of Business Strategy or Transformation –
To what degree a particular HR program might help
achieve short and midterm business objectives. For
example, if a specific transformation initiative will
require the reskilling of a workforce segment, then
learning and development might be heavily weighted.
7

b. Enable Future Business Growth – For an
organization focused on growth, it will be critical to
maintain and improve its workforce planning,
recruiting, career development, and organizational
design capabilities, to name a few. In other cases, if the
need is to expand new products or services, then the
emphasis might be placed on other types of programs.
c. Improvement Importance – Based on the inputs
previously collected, it might be evident that the
company lacks or urgently needs to improve a specific
type of talent program to improve its ability to attract,
engage, or retain top talent. It is important to especially
consider the inputs from internal customer interviews
and ongoing understanding of organizational needs.
d. Impact on Employee Branding, Experience, and
Culture – Depending on the type of company, industry,
and sophistication of certain programs, among other
factors, some HR programs might help more
significantly move the needle in the employee value
proposition (EVP), key moments in the worker journey,
or creating cultural alignment.
e. Foundational, as the Basis for Other Programs –
There are cases when based on the company or talent
strategy, particular HR programs might be required
before others can be implemented. Some examples
might be the need for performance management
processes to guide learning and development efforts
or a competency model to appropriately define a
succession management framework.
The list of value drivers can be modified to use
different or more specific objectives based on the
business strategy. Defining these value drivers in
collaboration with top leadership is advisable.
Additionally, it is best to choose no more than five
value drivers for the subsequent assessment of areas
of focus.
8

Select highest value areas to focus on
Evaluating potential HR programs against the business and
organizational drivers ensures the most impactful are
targeted. This can be accomplished using the “Focus Areas
Assessment & Selection Tool” where programs are rated across
value drivers, with programs showing the highest total scores
to be considered as the most critical at the time.
The number of HR programs to initially consider and
evaluate can be vast*. They can also vary depending on
the size, the level of sophistication, and the
geographical reach of a company. A good starting list
with some of the most relevant areas includes:
Essential Talent Management Programs
-Workforce Planning
-Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
-Recruiting Strategy & Sourcing
-Leadership Development
-Learning & Development
-Career Development
-Performance Management
-Succession Management
Support Programs
-Organizational Design
-Change Management
-HR Strategy
-HR Metrics & Reporting
-Critical Workforce Segmentation
-Talent Strategy
-Coaching & Mentoring
The ultimate objective of this exercise is to prioritize a
select number of HR programs as primary and secondary
areas of focus reflecting the highest level of contribution
to business and organizational drivers. The programs that
didn’t score high on the list can be re-assessed in a
subsequent evaluation cycle.
Improvement cycles are typically one year, but they
could expand over multiple years or be flexible based
on changing conditions and objectives. Each time the
exercise is repeated in a subsequent cycle, it is likely to
yield different results since business objectives change
over time and progress on previously prioritized areas
will be achieved during the period.
*Visit Wowledge’s catalog of topics.
9

About
Wowledge
Wowledge is the expert-driven platform for lean
teams building modern HR programs. Members
enjoy access to up-to-date best practices, stepby-step
guides, tools, templates, and insights to
accelerate the design and implementation of all
key HR programs and processes.
Since each organization has unique characteristics,
needs, and aspirations, Wowledge's practices are
developed utilizing an exclusive stage-based
approach – from Core to Advanced to Emerging
– that reflects distinct levels of sophistication to
meet our members where they are.
GET STARTED
FOR FREE!
Visit Wowledge.com to learn more
and become a Guest for Free.

Legal disclaimer
This document and any content included is provided to you on an as-is basis without any representations or
warranties of any kind.
No recipient of content from this document should act, refrain from acting or make any decisions on the basis
of any content included. Wowledge or its licensors shall not be responsible or liable for the use, accuracy, or
usefulness of any content transmitted or made available via this document, and shall not be responsible or
liable for any action, refraining from action or decisions made based on such content.
Wowledge does not warrant that any defects or errors will be corrected. Any content obtained in connection
with this document is at your own risk and you will be solely responsible for any damage or any other
liabilities or damages that result from such use.
Wowledge takes no responsibility and assumes no liability for the content included in this document. You
understand and agree that you may be exposed to content that is inaccurate, objectionable, inappropriate,
unreliable, or otherwise unsuited to your purpose.
All contents copyright © 2023 by Wowledge. All rights reserved.