Failed Talent Management

Only 1 in 3 organizations report leaders have high-quality, effective development plans despite the fact that having an effective plan is directly related to the quality of leadership development.

Talent and Performance Management should happen more than once a year.

Each interaction between a leader/manager and his or her employee should inspire, motivate and increase productivity. 

Based on the 2011 Global Leadership Survey, we found these results troubling but informative:

  1. 33% of newly hired leaders are considered to be failures due to poor talent management systems. 
  2. Only 1 in 3 organizations use validated tools to make leadership selection decisions.
  3. 44% of leaders believe their performance review discussions did not provide them with clear direction or coaching aids to help enhance performance.
  4. Only 22% of HR professionals rate the effectiveness of their succession system as high.
  5. 66% of leaders have made a leadership transition in the past five years, but only 26% of organizations have effective programs to ensure smooth leadership transitions.
  6. Almost two-thirds of organizations have clearly defined competencies for key leadership positions. However, only 57% of organizations use those competencies as the foundation for their talent management systems.
  7. Less than 1 in 3 organizations describe their talent management system as transparent.
  8. Organizations with more effective talent management systems are four times more likely to hold managers accountable for developing others.
  9. Best-in-class organizations are far more likely to have CEOs who champion engagement efforts. In organizations that were not best-in-class, engagement was generally led only by the HR function.
  10. Organizations with effective management cultures are more than 2.5 times more likely to have highly passionate leaders.
  11. Organizations with more evolved management cultures are three times more likely to outperform their competition in terms of bottom-line metrics such as financial performance, productivity, quality of products or services and customer satisfaction.

What do these statistics tell us about Talent Management?

Talent Management is far more than just a development program.

It also includes leadership selection and succession planning, performance management and multi-tiered development programs for front-line workers up to executive leaders. Every Talent Management program encompasses the entire life of an employee, from the day he or she comes onboard to the day he or she leaves.

Organizations aren’t always the best at hiring.

No matter how strong the performance management processes are, a poorly hired or misplaced employee negatively affects the organization. With over 69% of organizations struggling with leadership selection, how productive and profitable are organizations currently? How much better could business be if that statistic was 5% instead of 69%?

Leaders do not feel they have the tools to provide a well thought-out performance review.

They lack coaching on how to mentor an individual, provide actionable steps to improve and provide clear direction on the next steps. Without this training, leaders default to what’s comfortable: compliance. As stated in the 2011 survey, “The true value of performance management lies in the quality of the discussions leaders have with their managers.”

Most organizations are not building quality succession programs for their leaders.

This ultimately affects long term productivity. With a majority of the workforce retiring in the next 10 years, this presents a large problem. Eighty-two percent of organizations lack bench strength, and 78% of organizations rate themselves as having less than highly effective succession systems. Companies are not adequately preparing for the future.