Shortages of skilled workers and the retirement of boomers pose new challenges for companies of all sizes. It is becoming increasingly difficult to fill important positions in the company adequately. One solution that has been discussed and practiced for around 20 years is talent management.
For successful talent management, it is effective to consider not only “hard” factors such as knowledge, qualifications and skills, but also “soft” factors such as motivation and personality. Companies that engage in talent management should therefore be prepared to anchor talent management as a future-oriented strategy for greater competitiveness in their corporate culture.
Decisive for successful Talent Management are the managers in the company, provided that they are positive about talent management and know their employees and their hidden talents well. After all, it is not only the so-called high potentials who should exploit their potential, but all employees. Process supervisors are the HR department and service providers specialized in talent management.
An industrial company whose products sold themselves for years decided to restructure its sales department and brought in me as an expert. An initial analysis showed that existing sales employees spent only a few days a month working in the field with customers — definitely not enough to increase added value. For the reorganization, we first looked at the potential of existing managers and employees in sales. The result: The previous sales manager was given the position of Sales Division Manager and thus a larger area of responsibility. Although everyone in the previous sales team was interested in a company car, only a few were prepared to spend several days a week on the road with customers. What to do
As a first step, the best sellers were assigned to the most important customers. The search for sales talent in the company then began, focusing on sales-related departments such as finance, logistics, purchasing or customer service. We found what we were looking for, but motivation and personality are of course not enough to work successfully in sales. Instead of lengthy and expensive training courses, we decided to provide the new team members with experienced salespeople who knew the advantages of the company's products as buddies. They took over the technical management of the newcomers, while administrative personnel responsibility was taken over by supervisors who were interested in personnel development. A win-win situation for everyone involved.
In view of demographic and technological developments, I believe it is becoming increasingly important for companies of all sizes to keep track of all the potential of their employees so that they can use them elsewhere if necessary. Job profiles and fields of activity are changing in ever shorter cycles, bringing new knowledge to companies through new personnel is becoming increasingly difficult. Companies that make targeted use of all existing potential of their employees and offer them career and development prospects have the best chance of remaining competitive in the future.
Industries that are looking for young talent should also look into talent scouting. This term is used primarily to search for young talent in the final years of school and university education. Many are familiar with talent scouting from soccer. Talent scouts are specifically looking for young players in the youth teams of clubs in order to be able to promote them at an early stage and use them profitably.
