In a professional world where new jobs and new skills are emerging, companies are constantly investing in new talent management practices.
Adapting to individual preferences is key to staying competitive. What are the expectations of talent? How do they evolve? And what solutions can companies deploy to make them coexist with the collective interest?
Talent management is a strategic issue for companies.
Talent Management is the management of the most promising resources within a company. The objective is to set up a scalable and measurable system to identify the talents of each individual, and then to position them in the right place, at the right time, in the right environment. The main challenge for the HR function is to succeed in associating its own objectives and needs of skills with the aspirations of the employees.
Talent management concerns both internal talent and potential external collaborators who must be attracted, recruited and then retained. Each talent brings value to the business and contributes to the creation of synergy within the organization.
In addition to enhancing individual potential, good talent management reduces turnover and improves the image of the employer brand. That’s why talent management is a key strategic issue for business performance.
Find the best practices in our Guide: “Talent management best practices“.
What are the expectations of the talent?
Studies to capture expectations are numerous and they all converge on three essential expectations: quality of life, flexibility and development opportunities.
A better quality of life at work
According to a study on health at work by Malakoff Humanis (barometer 2021), the quality of life at work is at the top of employees’ expectations.
In the problems related to the Quality of Life at Work we find :
- The atmosphere and the relationship with colleagues
- The environment and the work setting
- Company recognition
- The meaning that one finds in one’s work
- A benevolent management, listening and trust
- A good balance between professional and personal life
- Flexibility on telecommuting or the hybrid model
Flexibility on the forms of collaboration with the company
Regarding talents coming from outside, some are not necessarily open to salaried employment, but prefer to bring their expertise while remaining independent. We are talking about :
- Freelancers in sole proprietorship or in company with their own structure. The status of employee and freelancer coexist more and more. This is the choice that the companies Tilkee and Shine have made with two main motivations: to keep the talents by trusting them, and to benefit from the learning accumulated within other companies.
- Self-employed people who have opted for the “portage salarial”. This is a way of working that combines the advantages of employee status (particularly with full social security coverage) with the freedom of the entrepreneur, while being carried by a company that employs them. Most of the time, consultants or interim managers are involved in an assignment lasting several months.
In both cases, companies are opening up to collaborations with freelancers. skills Freelancers are no longer just a response to the need for flexibility, they are now an opportunity to transmit emerging and necessary skills to the company’s performance. Companies like Google, Amazon or Meta now reach 40% of freelancers in their teams. The next challenges are now the processes and work methods for successful collaboration: onboarding, knowledge management, team creation tools from skills internal and external, ….
Increased personalization of career paths
Training, development opportunities and career paths are highlighted as sources of employee engagement in Randstad’s “employer brand research 2022” report.
Should we see a link between the lack of appetite of employees to become managers (80% do not want this career option) and the new career paths? There are several reasons why talent is not interested in vertical progression:
- The skills managerial system is no longer valued and management must be reinvented
- 20% of managers no longer wish to manage themselves(Opinion Way and Indeed study)
- Cross-functional opportunities evoke more fulfillment for talent.
Employees expect the means to become autonomous in order to know themselves well and to build their career options by themselves, we detail this in our use case“Make employees actors of their career“.
What are the answers to talent expectations?
Implementing new collaborative approaches in companies
Collaborative approaches directly promote the quality of work and, indirectly, the ability of employees to find their place and thus flourish within the company. The hierarchical organization, which inhibits the emergence of new ideas, gives way to an open organization that reveals talents.
The collaborative dimension is expressed at different levels:
- In the management of different processes and work methods (including the integration of effective and adapted collaborative tools, accessible to all);
- In communication and transparency of information;
- In defining common objectives, both strategic and operational;
- In measuring individual and team performance;
- In training, for example, with “Collaborative Learning” which is a learning methodology in which members of a company share their knowledge and expertise while learning from each other.
The decompartmentalization of the company leads to an intensification of collaboration between departments that are not used to working together. This richness in the new interactions created is based on the natural setting of common objectives.
Take into account each talent individually
The advantage of a collaborative company is that it promotes the well-being and involvement of employees by giving them meaning. Indeed, these approaches, which involve all employees, also help to highlight the talents of each employee.
In short, where employees are naturally invested (because they are more comfortable), they develop and showcase their professional potential. This allows talents to know what career path they should take and to understand where they can bring the most value. Another way to individualize the process is to set up personalized objectives that are tailored to the talent.
From the point of view of the Human Resources function, measuring expectations is now made easier by digital solutions for collecting and analyzing HR data. Finally, the regular exchange with the manager is a solution that takes more time, but is just as effective. HR can also make internal development opportunities available in a transparent way.
Transparency and individualization, the major developments in talent management.
What are the 2 pillars of recent Talent Management practices?
- Transparent communication on internal opportunities, providing real-time information.
- Taking into account the uniqueness of the individual thanks to the knowledge provided by smart Data Rh and his involvement in his career choices offered by digital.
This way, employees can build trajectories that resemble them, and managers and HR can build teams for performance thanks to HR intelligence.
These new practices are grouped together in a Talent marketplace or “talent platform”. This space matches individuals with potential opportunities based on their skills, interests and preferences. We explain this major evolution in our page “All about Internal Talent Marketplaces“.
To conclude on the future of talent management
These future prospects can be summarized in 3 main points:
- Talent management is a strategic issue for business performance;
- Good talent management is only possible if the company takes into account each talent individually, while putting in place collective approaches to create synergy and meaning at work;
- Lastly, the company must always ensure that it improves the quality of life of its employees, offering them flexibility and visibility on their development prospects.
