Thought Leader: Why the time is now for talent liberation

Talent liberation provides a workable strategy perfect for a new age of uncertainty, writes Maggi Evans, author of From Talent Management to Talent Liberation.

Many of the existing models for looking at workforce and talent planning were developed in the 1950s. Designed for stable, predictable environments, these approaches are not suited to the turbulence, ambiguity and uncertainty that we are faced with. 

Furthermore, according to most HR people, they add little value. This was beautifully summed up by one of my clients who told me: “We’ve got so wrapped up in the process of talent management, we’ve forgotten what its purpose is.”  

Talent liberation offers a fresh approach to workforce and talent planning. The simple change of language from talent management to talent liberation in itself opens new ways of thinking about talent challenges and potential solutions. 

Designed to focus firmly on the purpose and not on a set of prescribed processes, talent liberation provides a blueprint for a flexible and holistic approach and right now, this is just what we need.

Talent liberation can help to navigate and prioritise needs, developing a workforce and talent strategy that will prepare your organisation for the future. Given the current challenges, there are four fundamental areas for us to address. 

1. Confirming the purpose of our talent and workforce strategy

This may seem simple, but it requires some deep thinking. The purpose will be fundamentally different for each organisation, depending on the environment, strategy, business model and the possible scenarios that the organisation faces.

For example, the overall purpose may be responsiveness to changing client needs, being able to quickly scale parts of the business up or down. For another organisation, the purpose might be lowest cost of delivery or retention of unique knowledge. Whatever it is, the clarity of purpose needs to be central to the rest of the talent and workforce plan.  

2. Creating visibility of current supply and future demands

Armed with a clear purpose for your talent strategy, the next step is to explore the talent we have, the talent we need, the gaps and how to fill them. This focuses attention on two key enablers that have often been neglected. 

First, talent visibility – can we readily see the talent that we have? Do we really know what our people are capable of?  Many leaders were surprised by the ‘hidden’ talent that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic.  

Second, how well do we leverage a broad talent ecosystem? Are we still wedded to traditional views of how we employ people, or have we broadened our talent pools to include ways to borrow, redeploy, reskill or share talent? How can we leverage the opportunities of remote working to access new sources of talent? How can technology enable different ways of working and different requirements?

Exploring these questions enables us to identify risks and opportunities. For example, if we need a lot of a scarce skill, then this needs to be a focus. If, however, we are confident that we can readily access the talent we need in both the short and long term, then it will not be a priority

3. Building the talent climate

Performance depends not just on the right people in the right place, but also on having the right environment to enable them to perform, for talent to be liberated. Does our environment encourage and support everyone to be the best they can be? In the current world of remote working, a climate of high trust and empowerment will be more successful than one of command and control.  

Similarly, a climate of ‘not my job’, will limit the opportunity to flex people’s roles and to redeploy people when the needs change. In the future world, many organisations are likely to need a talent climate that celebrates flexibility, that encourages diverse voices, that harnesses disrupters and that connects and engages with the workforce. 

This can’t be left to chance. We need to be clear on the talent climate that will help us to achieve our goals, and we need to engage the leaders, managers and team members in making it a reality.  

4. Overhauling talent processes

We need to review all current talent processes with a focus on the purpose. The only processes to survive should be those that genuinely make a contribution. Alongside this, new processes may be needed to increase talent visibility, to broaden the ecosystem, to enable people to perform or to ensure rapid feedback loops of current and future needs. 

We may need new ways of letting people know our future talent needs and helping them to take responsibility for developing ‘in demand’ skills. These talent processes may look and feel different to previous processes.

In particular, there is an increased emphasis on personalisation, so rather than a ‘one size fits all’, we may need to look at flexible contracts, reward mechanisms and ways of attracting and engaging talented people to help us to achieve our goals.

Preparing for what's next

Many organisations reacted to the COVID-19 pandemic by rapidly implementing fundamental changes such as remote working, virtual recruitment, redeployment and extensive online meetings. 

These changes represent huge progress – and demonstrate how quickly we can change when the sense of urgency is driving us. 

However, we cannot sit back and focus on our successes or we risk being unprepared for what’s next. We need to drive forward a new talent agenda that prepares our organisations for the future, whatever that may be.