How You Deploy Top Talent Matters
The research around talent management has uncovered some surprises. We, like most talent management experts, had thought that the best performing companies had the most top talent. But it turns out that is not the case.
Talent Management Research
According to Bain & Company, “A” players are pretty evenly distributed across the workforce from company to company. They found that about 15% of all employees are what you could consider both high performing and high potential.
How to Deploy Top Talent to Create High Performance
So if it’s not the number of star employees that makes the difference, what else did the study reveal? It was the way the high performing companies deployed their top performers that made the difference. Instead of spreading top talent equally across the organization, Bain found they focused high performers in the most critical business operations…the functions most crucial to business success. This is the way they maximized productivity.
A High Level Talent Management Strategy to Deploy Top Talent
To replicate this in your own organization, here is the high level talent management strategy you need to follow once your business strategy is clear and you have created a high performance environment:
You will know you are on the right track when your leaders agree upon how your people will best contribute to your company’s competitive advantage both now and in the future and when your best and brightest are in your most urgent and important positions. Remember, contribution varies from company to company and depends upon business strategies.
For example, if innovation is the key to maintaining growth, then R&D is probably a place where you need to deploy and develop your best and brightest. If, instead, marketing is paramount to your future success, then this is an area to identify, develop and deploy your top talent.
Because of this, winning organizations make sure that their talent strategy aligns with their unique organizational culture and business strategy.
From a reward and recognition perspective, the theory is that the highest performers should receive the greatest share of rewards because they contribute the most and deserve the most. While the exact percentages of rewards that go to the top high performers differ from company to company, be sure that your reward system provides enough motivation to support your objectives. As a rule of thumb, one-third of your employees should have access to significant rewards and recognition based upon their performance.
Keep your top players motivated with opportunities that stretch them and lead to ever more important roles. They want variety. This is good since they then can develop the flexibility that allows you to shift them as business needs change.
The Bottom Line
The essence of smart talent management is being able to deploy top talent where they will have the greatest business impact and then doing what it takes to develop, engage and retain them. Assign them to business-critical areas first. But monitor their level of happiness with their job and, as situations change, be ready to offer a different challenging assignment.
To learn more about how to deploy top talent, please download The Top 3 Research-Backed Ingredients for Talent Management Success
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