In the competitive world of tomorrow, your company’s ability to access and develop a talent pipeline that can scale with you will be the make-or-break factor in your organization’s success. 

Whether you are a hiring manager or an HR pro, the best way to manage your talent is by establishing a strong talent management strategy. That starts with understanding where you are now so that you can identify areas for improvement and plan how to get there. 

The following tips will help you develop a workable plan that will allow everyone on your team, from entry-level recruiters to upper-level managers, to keep tabs on their own and their colleagues’ progress and performance. You’ll be ready for anything when your talent management strategy is built on firm ground. Keep reading!

your current talent supply chain
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Define your organizational strategy

Any strong talent management strategy will be based on an organizational strategy that is grounded in strong, data-driven macro factors, as well as micro factors specific to your business. For example, if your company is projecting a major growth spurt over the next 12-18 months, you’ll want to anticipate the need for more hiring to scale with that growth.

If your industry is seeing increased competition for talent, you’ll want to ensure you are staying ahead of the curve by improving your candidate experience, making sure your hiring process is streamlined, and streamlining your onboarding process to make sure new hires are up to speed and contributing as quickly as possible. These micro factors include your specific operational and staffing model, along with the organizational structure of your company.

Determine your core competencies

As you begin charting your path to a stronger talent management strategy, you’ll want to first identify the core competencies that are essential to your company’s success. These core competencies tie into your organizational strategy, and they will help you identify which talent gaps you need to plug by engaging with the right talent, at the right time. 

There are many ways to go about doing this, such as using a SWOT analysis maker to identify your organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Another approach is to complete a core competencies audit that will help you select the right metrics for your business and organizational culture. 

This type of audit will help you identify your organization’s core competencies, such as communication, collaboration, technology, and more. Once you have your core competencies mapped out, you will be better equipped to determine which talent gaps need to be filled and how you can go about closing those gaps.

Review your current talent supply chain

Now that you have a clear picture of your organizational strategy and core competencies, you can start reviewing your current talent supply chain. 

A good place to start is by mapping out how your organization currently identifies, engages, and retains talent. These are the three main steps in the talent supply chain, and in order to truly understand how they work within your organization, you will want to conduct a thorough review of your recruitment process, onboarding process, and talent retention strategy. 

You can do this by creating an audit of your current processes, hiring manager surveys, and employee engagement surveys. This way, you can identify the areas for improvement and create a strategy for closing any gaps you find in your talent supply chain.

Establish a talent retention plan

Another aspect of your talent supply chain that you will want to review is your retention strategy. Once again, you will want to conduct a thorough audit of your current retention strategy to make sure you are on the right track.

You can start by mapping out your organization’s retention rate over the last 12 months, along with retention rates for comparable companies in your industry. If you find that your retention rates are lower than average, you can then review your retention policies and see what you can do to improve them. 

You can also create a retention survey to survey both employees currently working at the company and those who have left within the last 12 months to better understand what factors are driving employees to stay or go.

Define your recruiting strategy

Once you have reviewed your current talent supply chain, established a retention strategy, and identified areas for improvement, you can create a recruiting strategy that will strengthen your ability to access talent. 

For this, you will want to start by identifying the talent gaps that are most pressing for your organization. You can do this by mapping out the skill levels of your company’s current talent against the skill levels required for the new hires you need to make. 

Once you have identified the gaps you need to fill, you can begin thinking about how you will go about sourcing candidates to fill those gaps.

Establish a growth path for new team members

One of the most important aspects of your talent management strategy is your growth path for new team members. All new hires — regardless of their position — should have a clear path to success. 

You can start by mapping out the onboarding process for each and every job role at your company. With that information in hand, you can then work with each new hire to create a growth plan that is aligned with their role at the company. 

This will help you avoid creating a culture where employees feel stagnant, and therefore are less likely to stay with the company long-term. Instead, you will have a clear view of each team member’s growth trajectory, and you can use that information to help these individuals reach their career goals faster than ever before.

Bottom line

A strong talent management strategy is the key to unlocking the potential of your team members, while also enabling your organization to access the right talent at the right time. For this, you will want to start by reviewing your current talent supply chain, establishing a retention strategy, and defining a recruiting strategy that strengthens your ability to access the right talent for the right roles. 

By working with all levels of your organization to strengthen your talent management strategy, you will be better prepared to scale with the changing tides of tomorrow’s competitive business landscape.