A recent white paper from SuccessFactors, “Talent Management 2017,” touches on many of the phenomena we have been discussing on this blog, such as the Hollywood Model, and points to some new research on the ways that the project workforces expect to work, and the ways that HR must adapt.
Over a decade ago, it made perfect sense for the human resources departments of large and mid-sized companies to implement Talent Management solutions to proactively manage talent inside and outside the organization. These systems were built on the assumptions that corporations would be hierarchical, workers would prefer a long-term career with a single employer, and a centralized approach to career development—driven by the best interests of the corporation—would be not
only appropriate, but widely accepted as a good business practice.
How times have changed! And they are continuing to change. By 2017, according to the SuccessFactors paper, free agents will drive their own career development paths, working throughout a global network. Workers, not employers, will be in charge of developing their own skills and grooming their own talent for future opportunities.
SuccessFactors cites these challenges for talent managers in the coming decade:
- Finding and acquiring talent in the age of the free agent
- Aligning talent in a borderless world
- Developing talent in a way that interests and engages the next generation of workers
- Driving performance with predictive, relevant information
In the third challenge, “Developing talent…” there is implied what I believe to be the greatest challenge of all: talent is walking out the door more easily. Corporations can no longer assume that they are “farming” talent that will stay within their organizations. The investments they may make in training, mentoring, and on-the-job skills development can be lost easily—even taken by competitors. However, it is also “table stakes” to offer these opportunities for growth—no company can attract workers, even for short-term assignments, without helping them develop new skills.
The real challenge for the Talent Management industry is to think even less in terms of “command and control” and more in terms of “supply and demand.” The flat world is creating a “worker’s market,” which I call Workforce 2.0, where individuals manage their own talent.
The question then is: should companies focus primarily on managing their talent as this paper suggests, or let market forces drive their business and dictate what are their talent requirements?
In Part 2, I will discuss how businesses will drive their business strategy to leverage, not resist, the “Hollywood Model” of Workforce 2.0.
