Talent management and talent planning are the two main facets of human resources. These two components in today’s competitive business landscape have been key organizational growth and success drivers. These concepts dominate the future workforce. Though both work to achieve the same goal, the difference lies in their mode of working or implementation.
Here, we will learn about talent management, planning, and the differences.
Talent Management
With remote or hybrid work culture, the job of HR has become more challenging. They must keep track of their in-house, remote, and contractual employees simultaneously. Their functions include employee recruitment, onboarding, engagement, training and development, compensation management, retention, etc.
What is Talent Management?
Talent management allows companies to attract and retain talent. It also includes employee development, motivation, and training to attain their best performance. Talent management focuses on grooming the existing employees rather than hiring a new one since the latter is expensive. As per Gallup, the new hiring costs one-half to two times more than the employee’s annual package.
Talent Management Process
To understand talent management well, you need to understand its process:
Planning: The first step of an effective talent management process is knowing the need for human capital, job roles, recruitment plans, and more.
Attracting: In the next step, the HR connects with the potential candidates. They drive recruitment campaigns or publish requirements on job portals or social media channels. You can also use recruitment software that helps you find the best talent for the available job vacancies.
Hiring: In the hiring process, the HR managers shortlist the best applicants. Then, they perform various assessments like group discussions, personal interviews, written tests, psychometric tests, etc.
Training and Development: Training and development provide growth opportunities to the employees. By organizing training and mentorship sessions, you can improve employee retention.
Retention: As already stated, hiring a new employee is more expensive than retaining one. You must strive to retain the existing talent by providing them with better opportunities, increasing their compensation, etc. You can also arrange a one-to-one session with the employee to record their feedback.
Succession Planning: When an employee leaves your organization, you must perform exit interviews and make succession plans. This is important for a smooth transition.
Talent Planning
62% of HR professionals shared that their company does not have a good talent pipeline system. This reflects an organization’s inability to have enough talent and fill vacant positions with new or existing employees. As a human resource manager, talent planning helps you prepare for staffing needs.
What is Talent Planning?
Talent planning is the process of anticipating recruitment needs and creating an effective plan on how to meet the requirements. You may focus on new hiring or developing existing employees to save time and cost of hiring new individuals from outside. Talent planning ensures that your employees are proficient and have the right skills to take the organization towards success.
Talent Planning Process
Developing a talent planning strategy requires you to follow the process mentioned below:
Workforce Analysis: The first step to talent planning is evaluating your workforce using data analytics. Study the employee performance and identify skills gaps. Also, understand the workforce’s strengths and weaknesses to address skill gaps.
Forecast Future Requirement: Anticipating the future needs is important for attracting and retaining talent timely. Determine growth in the sales division, labor market shifts, employee turnover, business trends, etc.
Succession planning: The businesses often consider passing the leadership roles to junior members. They already have some technical skills needed for the role. Employee development and training activities can further hone their skills like leadership, etc.
Keep Talent Pipeline Ready: Developing a talent pipeline helps you with the list of candidates best suited for a particular role. The recruiters can refer to the talent pool list whenever needed.
Performance Management: Evaluating employee performance helps identify the best employee for a senior role.
Talent Management v/s Talent Planning: Key Differences
Talent planning is more focused on building a seamless team. The HR hires the most qualified people who can cater to future business requirements. It also encompasses retaining good employees, but building a great team is the main agenda.
Talent management strategies are more focused on retaining and managing the existing team. This function in HR ensures that the employees are motivated and engaged.
Talent planning is recognizing the future skill needs of the business and nurturing the existing workforce with that skill. HR identifies the need for talent, analyzes the current workplace, identifies knowledge gaps, and creates plans for the long term.
When a proper talent management process is in place, HR teams can streamline their work and manage employee life cycles effortlessly.
Wrapping Up
Talent planning is a subset of talent management. Both are essential for smooth HR working and contribute to creating a productive workforce to fulfill the organization’s goals.