Talent management an under-utilised skill

Despite the growing talent gap facing businesses in many sectors, most commercial ventures are doing very little to ensure that they are maximising their available talent.

That is according to a new research paper published by Orion Partners business advisory group, which suggests that as few as 17 per cent of organisations believe they have a good and integrated talent management process in place, even though most believe that insufficient use of talent is limiting their commercial potential.

While the overwhelming majority of respondents (95 per cent) believe that their HR operations are in good shape, 83 per cent believe they are missing out on opportunities for growth because of a lack of effective talent management.

As many as 30 per cent actually believe that their efforts in this area are generally "poor", while the majority (53 per cent) believe activities here are acceptable but let a lot of commercial opportunities go begging. Allan Boroughs, who authored the report, said that HR efficiency is generally improving - especially in terms of capability and commercial focus - however this is not the whole story.

"The evidence is that these achievements have been made at the expense of real progress in the talent management arena," he said. "An overwhelming majority still do not have an integrated approach to talent - and only half as many organisations are as satisfied with their talent processes as they are with their HR operations."

Mr Boroughs suggested organisations should seek to address this as part of their response to improving economic conditions. In such an economic environment, "they need to secure and manage their supply of key skills and manage their performance to achieve growth," he says, adding that talent management is a "critical business investment" that has been "neglected in the push for HR efficiency".

For businesses that don't know where to start in this area, Virtual College's Enable Learning Management System includes Talent Management and has been used by more than one million learners in total, across a number of private and public organisations.