Monday 12 May 2008

Who is Responsible for Talent Management?

Over the past thirty years businesses have had to continuously improve what they do and reduce how much it costs them to do it. The result of this is that many large businesses have much flatter organisation structures, with managers who have much broader roles and many more demands on their time, than previously.

Because of this, managers sometimes want to hand over Talent Management to ‘specialists’ in HR. If this is combined with a Chief Executive who believes that Talent Management is an HR agenda, responsibility can soon slip away from line managers and managing talent becomes a ‘tick box’ activity.

While HR have an important role to play, active Talent Management needs an engaged Chief Executive with line managers who are prepared to take the long term view about the skills the business needs in the future and those who are best placed to meet them.

HR needs to provide the appropriate processes and frameworks to enable Talent Management to work effectively, but it is line management, who are ultimately responsible for identifying, nurturing and developing talent. After all, as a line manager, do you not want a say in who your successor will be?

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