How does your organization identify talented resources?

N2IT

Do you possess an escalation policy in place for "difference makers"?

Does the organization you are apart of even have a management plan in place to identify and harvest young talent?

Two of the biggest problems I have seen in large enterprise environments is lack of control of their knowledge management and having no resource management in place.

Thoughts?

zenhound

It's pretty easy to identify them where I work, because they're the ones leaving..

YFZblu

^ haha +1

paul78

Interesting topic. And I would add that talent management isn't a unique challenge to large enterprises. In my experience, smaller companies have greater risk of impact due to casual talent management or simply bad talent management where employees may be over promoted as a retention mechanism.

Where I work, talent mangement (which I consider a very diferent problem statement from resource management) is performed at the line of business level as it pertains to individual business needs.

We expect managers to always be able to identify their A, B, and C players on demand. And on a quarterly basis, discussions are held at the VP level on candidates for promotion, raises, etc. However, we only do promos and raises once a year. The idea being that we need to identify talent upfront and provide an opportunity for growth. We also use the cycle to discuss struggling employees or people where we have need to move into different positions if they lack a skill or talent.

The general ground rules for discussion is every VP have input into any other team. And talent discussions must evidenced and contribution-based and not skill-based- meaning that its about what the employee has contributed to the organization and not whether they have some particular skillset.

Zartanasaurus

zenhound wrote: »

It's pretty easy to identify them where I work, because they're the ones leaving..

Came to post this exact thing...

lantech

Whoever has the chance to hob knob with the brass.

paul78

lantech wrote: »

Whoever has the chance to hob knob with the brass.

I was re-reading my post and sounded like it was a more deliberate process than in actuality. There is an element of truth in what you say. The reality is that managers want to see success in who they like and know. That equation is very hard to eliminate since its a human factor.

But those "chances to hob knob" are also an indication that the person is willing to stick their neck out and be recognized. But if done in an annoying way- can backfire

N2IT

paul78 wrote: »

I was re-reading my post and sounded like it was a more deliberate process than in actuality. There is an element of truth in what you say. The reality is that managers want to see success in who they like and know. That equation is very hard to eliminate since its a human factor.

But those "chances to hob knob" are also an indication that the person is willing to stick their neck out and be recognized. But if done in an annoying way- can backfire

Paul do you utilize a scoring system or some other way to identify the resources? I try to scorecard my reports and use other tactics to promote or make management on other teams aware. If someone is exceptional in a certain area I go out of my way to capture that and bring it to my superiors attention. Sometimes action is taken other times not so much.

I find the process is usually very immature in organizations except for some elite ones that (I have read about).

Talent is obviously subjective so measurement is a must. How do you measure?

***Paul on a side note I like talent management rather than resource management. The definition of resource management aligns more with human resource management, which would revolve around resource modeling, staffing plans, and succession planninig.

Thanks for the informative post Paul

Jackace

zenhound wrote: »

It's pretty easy to identify them where I work, because they're the ones leaving..

Its about the same where I work. All our truly motivated people are leaving. I will most likely be doing the same at the first of the year.

Everyone

We have a skills database that we're required to keep up to date. We have to rate our skills on a scale that is "None, Eyes and Ears only, Intermediate, Advanced, Expert". Then there are a few things that only a manager can put it for us.

The database is searchable, so you can find people with the expertise you need.

I suppose you're probably talking more in the way of performance reviews and rewarding people for their talent though...

pumbaa_g

[h=2]Question How does your organization identify talented resources?[/h]Answer Musical Chairs
WIKI Entry
"Playing musical chairs" is also a metaphorical way of describing any activity where items or people are repeatedly and usually pointlessly shuffled among various locations. It can also refer to a condition where people have to expend time searching for a resource, such as having to travel from gasoline station to gasoline station when there is a shortage. It is also used to refer to political situations where one leader replaces another, only to be rapidly replaced in turn due to the instability of the governing system

ptilsen

I don't believe I've ever worked for an organization with any system like this. Everything has always been subjective and completely in the hands of whoever is in charge.

At my last job we had a sort of "employee of the month" reward, which would be awarded based on peer nominations. I wouldn't say that has anything to do with identifying talent, however. My new employer has a similar system (on a much bigger scale), but it still doesn't really involve a policy for putting "difference makers" on promotion paths or anything like that -- at least not that I know of.

Akaricloud

The company I work for absolutely does not have anything like this in place and I believe it's part of the reason for our high turnover rate.

When an employee isn't being rewarded and feels like they aren't being appreciated they start looking elsewhere and move on. Unfortunately this leaves a lot of chaos and a never-ending cycle of employees without that much talent.

paul78

@everyone - that's a neat idea. We thought about doing that but its done manually. What is cool about an internal resume database is that it allows for employees to self-promote their value and skillset. I have seen that done for the big consulting companies. It is partly cultural too. Some enterprises like where I probably wouldn't do that since poaching is strongly discouraged.

@pumbaa_g- lol- I haven't seen that technique used but I do understand that it happens. Is it actual deliberate job-rotation to cross-train and promote skillset or just bad resource management where people are being shifted onto the project dujour? Does that increase or decrease morale/retention?

@ptilsen-yeah the various employee recognition programs are an attempt to boast morale and provide pat-on-the back in a public way. I have always been very skeptical about its effectiveness. Especially since it can alienate some employees and if used too broadly, becomes meaningless if everyone eventually makes it on the employee of the month list or whatever HR decides to call it. I prefer to give or receive a private personal acknowledgement or monetary token from someone senior or outside the immediate management hierarchy. Whenever I get kudos from my direct manager it always seems contrived and I get suspicious - probably just my nature. I once had a manager who I discussed my style so I agreed that if he ever wants to thank me for something, he can just have his administrative assistant send me an email or drop off a dunkin donuts gift card. It appeals to my sense of efficiency.

@ the others where the smart employees leave. That sounds like its either (1) bad talent retention management or (2) by design. Not to sound callous but some companies design some teams with the anticipation or even the desire for turnover.

@n2it - I suppose it also depends on why you would want to identify talent. Is it for retention or is it to build future leaders? Once identified, then you may use different strategies for both tracks. Btw- I am not a big fan of using promotions as a retention tool. I think it sets unrealistic expectations with staff and they will leave once the perceived ceiling is hit. Having a career path is important but knowing the motivations of individuals is better. I like using a scorecard but it really needs to be aligned with your enterprise culture and norms. It doesnt mean that you can't do it for yourself to rate your staff. I usually use 3 dimensions to rate to talent 1) softskills 2) technical competency 3) net contribution to the business.

But ultimately, you have to do what is right for the business not the employee. Sorry about monopolizing your thread

Roguetadhg

Zartanasaurus wrote: »

Came to post this exact thing...

I was going to post:

"They're my Predecessors. Apparently I have a lot of them! Except for my last one. He had fun in the back room with a supervisior. He got canned." >.>

Myself, I'm looking. I've been here for going on 3 years, 1 year of getting situated and fooling around. This year of doing studying, studying, and fooling around. Now Im full-on Mad-scientist. With cans/bottles of Caffeine. I just need the hair style and a car that uses a food processor to go back in time.

zenhound

Oh yeah, it's total bad management, imo at least. Honestly, books could be written.

Zartanasaurus

Roguetadhg wrote: »

"They're my Predecessors. Apparently I have a lot of them! Except for my last one. He had fun in the back room with a supervisior. He got canned." >.>

The supervisor didn't get fired?

Roguetadhg

Funny how that is, isn't it?

powerfool

My organization prides itself on hiring talent and relies on employee referrals for over half of open positions. They also have an extensive internship program with schools like CMU, Notre Dame, MIT, and Purdue (among others).

Our internal review process is designed to find top performers within the organization and our awards program helps to feed that, as well, as awards really look great on annual reviews.

dave330i

Not sure. I work off site and not high enough in totem pole to know whats going on. The VP of my department worked pretty hard to keep me on board when I was about to jump to another company.

JockVSJock

I would love to work at a place like this, where talent is recognized, nurtured, allowed to grow and get promoted.

Every place I've worked at is like the Russian Front. You will fight and if you survive, then good for you. If you break, then it sucks to be you.

WiseWun

Where I work, managers/directors from different teams meet once a year to review each staff. They are their to represent each member of the team (good and bad) and receive feedback from others. At the end, the employee gets a rating from 1-5.

My company likes to hire within. They offer career training and development and encourage you to stay current.

WafflesAndRootbeer

Sadly, I've never worked in an IT job where fostering talent was done and anytime talent was identified, the talented people were shunned, humiliated, and eventually driven out for making the so-called management look bad by comparison.