1. Talent Acquisition
2. The pillars of talent management
3. Succession planning
4. Career development
5. Retention

Those five topics took center stage as part of HR Exchange LIVE:  Talent Management, a free-to-attend online event for HR professionals produced by the HR Exchange Network.  Engaging speakers came from some of the best known brands; brands such as Whole Foods Market, Gap, Global Custom Commerce (A Home Depot company), Igloo Product Corp. and Elkay Manufacturing.

Talent Management Takeaways

Each speaker layered his or her presentation with the right balance of theory and practical application of their respective company’s plans toward a much larger goal of implementing a successful talent management strategy.  Over the next few weeks I will discuss in details five top takeaways from the two-day online event.

A note for the reader:  these are not in any particular order.

Talent Management Talent Retention

Forget the War on Talent.  Consider the War of Employee Retention.

Employees are willing to leave their jobs and look for new places to work if they don’t feel at home with their current employer.  The impact is huge.  Not only do companies lose a wealth of knowledge and experience, but the ROI on development drops along with morale.  So, what can companies offer employees to keep them in the ranks rather than lose them to a competitor? 

Elkay Manufacturing Chief Human Resources Officer Larry Brand detailed his company’s strategy to manufacturing the forever employee.

“From Elkay’s perspective and where we’re going for the next five to ten years is what are the different work groups we’ve got to try to ensure are engaged and productive in our workforce and to me that’s the challenge,” Brand said.  The reason for that:  each generation has a different value set.  Those are explained below.

From here, Brand urged to stay calm and presented three key points that all HR professionals should keep in mind as they move closer to harnessing a successful retention strategy.

“If you’re working every day and if you’re not somehow connected to attracting, developing and retaining the best talent out there, you need to stop and ask yourself if your spending your time in the right places,” Brand said.

From here, Brand asked the question:  what do today’s employees seek?

He listed four items for the audience to consider.

The key takeaway: HR professionals need to make sure they know their company’s culture and values.

“When I think about total rewards, when I think about quality of leadership, when I think about career pathing, they’re all critically important, BUT if all those are perfect and I come into your organization and you think you have a great healthy culture, or worse yet, you’re saying your culture is this and it’s really not that at all, I’m going to go into the organization and I’m going to feel misled,” Brand said. 

That can have the real possibility of translating into an employee looking for another job with an employer who passes scrutiny.

“Make sure you’re not fooling yourself on how healthy or unhealthy your work culture is,” Brand said.

CLICK HERE to watch Larry Brand's full presentation.

Looking ahead…

When thinking about talent management retention, part of the strategy has to be career development.  In Part III, we’ll look at career development from an HR perspective.  The topic was discussed as part of a panel discussion on the topic, which was moderated by Jeanette Winters, the Senior VP and Chief Human Resources Officer for Igloo Product Group.  Panelists included:

• Richard O'Leary, Psychotherapist and former VP & CHRO, Hardinge Inc.
• Monica Rigney, Director of Leadership and Organization Performance, Pitney Bowes
• Joe Walsh, Vice President of HR, Arizona Diamondbacks

Want more of this type of content?  Sign up for HR Exchange LIVE.

Picture courtesy:  Stock Photo Secrets