The alignment of talent management to organizational strategy is very critical to the success of any business. Most businesses are failing to achieve their set objectives due to the misalignment between the talent and business strategy that they are pursuing.

In other words there is no perfect fit between the two. You can’t go to the airport to catch a train and yet this is how some of our businesses are being managed.

Without the right people in place to implement the strategic choices that have been made, companies will find it impossible to meet their objectives. Most business leaders know what needs to be done to make their businesses successful. However the main challenge comes through execution. The gap between what is known and what then gets executed from what is known, is what causes success or failure in any business.

It should be noted that achieving superior financial results on a sustainable basis depends on making the right investments in talent. Unfortunately some companies remain reluctant to make that commitment. Companies will still find it difficult to make an explicit link between their strategic objectives and the talent required to meet those goals.

Most executives are very good at articulating what the company needs to do to sell more products or increase margins, but they are not so good at explaining whether they have the workforce in place to achieve those goals. They forget that business is about people. You can have the best technology and equipment but if you don’t have the people to execute those strategies, it will be very difficult to achieve success.

Your strategy will remain a statement of good intention but unrealised achievement. Any good business will require great systems which are efficiently run by competent people to succeed.

There is a link between talent and broader corporate performance and this should be clearly articulated by business leaders. However some of our business leaders are unable to clearly establish this link.

The reason why some business leaders struggle to articulate this link between people and broader corporate performance is that the metrics that really matter for this to happen, are the most difficult for companies to capture. Metrics such as retention rates which most businesses use in this country and elsewhere do very little to explain whether a talent management approach is effective.

The fact that you were able to coax some mediocre or deadwood person to stay with you for more than 15 years, even though they were never really qualified for any of the jobs you asked them during that period, is a useless and ridiculous statistic. What is required is to know whether there is a gap between the person who filled the job and the ideal qualifications that the position requires and yet few companies focus on skills gaps.

The identification of skills gaps is a very important part of human resources planning. Unfortunately there a few companies able to capture this information effectively. If companies had a better sense of the looming skills gaps, where and when they need those skills, then their senior management team would quickly understand that they should think more strategically about what they need.

There is also need to align and integrate talent management across the business. Successful talent management is not just a question of recruiting, retaining and developing a high performing workforce. Companies also need to ensure that they align their talent management processes with their culture, values, and strategic goals and that they integrate these programs across the entire organisation.

By aligning talent management with business strategy, companies can help to ensure that they recruit, retain, develop and reward employees in a way that supports their key objectives. Executives have to seriously look at their workforce and determine whether it can fulfil each element of the corporate strategy and if not, what will need to be done through career development, leadership development, recruitment and succession planning.

It therefore follows that companies must be able to identify gaps and fill them in a way that both aligns with business strategy and enables the development of a strong pipeline for the future. Integration takes this process one step further by ensuring that there is a cycle of workforce planning, feeding into recruitment which in turn feeds into functions such as learning and development and succession planning.

Furthermore, alignment between corporate strategy and talent management requires an HR function that is embedded in the business and acting as a partner to it. HR professionals now need to be developed as strategic thinkers rather than as technical experts. Traditionally HR professionals have felt very comfortable in that technical role, and the leadership of the company has been quite happy to keep them in that box. We however now need to move from that and create a situation where HR and management are working together to achieve strategic objectives.

According to research, high performing organisations are more than twice as likely as their low performing counterparts to align talent management to organisation strategy and this is a significant competitive advantage.

The level of talent management alignment to organizational strategy has a clear impact on the success of organisations meeting their original goals and business intent. Organizations in which talent management is aligned to organisational strategy have an average project success rate of 72% while those in which talent management is not effectively aligned to organisational strategy have an average success rate of 58% according to Project Management Institute research done in March 2013.

Organisations that have successfully aligned talent management to organisational strategy, reap additional benefits and they are likely to be successful at engaging their staff to deliver organisational goals and also developing high performing teams.

Furthermore, the alignment will also enable the organisation to have an effective performance management culture. Most business don’t have effective performance management systems and this also impacts on the achievement of the organisational goals. The alignment will act as a catalyst in developing high potential individuals in the organisation. This is very important for organisation success. There is need to develop high performing talent so as to fully exploit strategic objectives of an organisation. 

As highlighted above, the use of analytics in talent management process is very critical. However it has to be relevant analytics.

Workforce analytics offers companies the opportunity to gain a better understanding of where skills gaps lie and how talent management decisions feed into broader corporate performance objectives.

Currently this is a capability that few companies do well. Effective workforce analytics starts with having accurate, complete data. Some companies already have this in place, while others are far behind or may have data that is scattered across disparate unconnected systems and spreadsheets. There is need to ensure that this is rectified if the business is to achieve its set objectives.

While more and more organisations are implementing tools that will enable them to identify skills gaps, it should be noted that they should not expect analytics to solve all their talent management issues. Technology is a supporting mechanism for executing talent management, but it isn’t the solution to everything.

Identification of replacement candidates in the event of resignation or retirement is very key in every organisation apart from the analytics. However it seems few of our businesses excel in this practice judging by how some businesses are failing to maintain a pipeline of candidates for future replacements in their organisations.

Once the right talent is in place, ensuring that skills sets are relevant to the business needs and that the associated employees remain engaged remain ongoing challenges for the HR practitioners in every organisation. This is because the business environment is ever changing and so the alignment of skills with the changes to the business environment becomes critical.

It should also be noted that the advancement and succession processes in the organization and also the creation broad succession plans across organisational boundaries are also a very import part of talent management process. Some of our businesses do not have clear succession plans nor proper talent management programs and yet people are the most important asset any organisation can ever have. Business is about people.

Way forward

Ultimately, it is important to remember that talent is a top level strategic priority. If executives are not thinking about retaining good talent, recruiting good talent then their success is in doubt and they are thinking short term.

To ensure success, organizations need to both recruit smartly and align their people strategically. In business, smart investments are those that are aligned with the organisation’s strategies. However it seems few organisations have significant alignment of their talent management programs to organisational strategy.

High performing organizations understand the value of aligning talent management to organizational strategy and are already realizing the benefits.

Such organisations are focusing their efforts on prioritising and evolving talent management offerings and also clearly defining career paths for their staff. This can also act as a motivational force in an organisation where there is clarity in terms of career paths for the staff members.

Finally, these organisations are also focusing on integrating management programs across the whole organisation.