Talent Management Agenda in a Post Covid-19 World: A Practical Talent and Succession Management Guide for Professionals, Executives and Business Leaders.

By Adebayo Akinloye

Is everyone in the organisation a talent? I addressed this question deeply in the book and the thinking behind the difference, relative to the organisation. In the talent management context, we consider "talent"” from the viewpoint of what the core essence of the organisation is in relation to specific mission critical individuals whose value-add directly help the organisation to achieve its core essence. What could be more important than focussing on the attraction, selection, proper segmentation, development and retention of the top talent?
Invariably, a "talent"” is that individual whose contributions directly help to achieve the core objective of the organisation or business either now or in the future (or both). Consequently, every proactive activity which is required or channelled towards improving the contributions or managing the risks relating to key organisational roles and individuals regarded as “talent” could be termed talent management. In simple term, “talent management” is a proactive risk mitigation process that is particularly related to the human capital and geared towards ensuring continuous sustainability of the business.
Accordingly, the content of this book – “Talent Management Agenda in A Post COVID-19 World” - focuses on talent and succession management concepts and approaches to guide every professional, business leader and executive on how to deliver real business value by focusing on the talent. The guidelines and principles contained in the book cut across various businesses and sectors; large, small, private, public, family-owned, academia and non-governmental. The insights shared with practical case studies will help to broaden the understanding of everyone so as to be able to design and proffer the right solutions that fit for purpose regardless of the organisation that is involved.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: May 29, 2020
• ISBN: 9781728362267

Adebayo Akinloye

Adebayo Akinloye is a global talent-succession professional with over two decades of HR practice and consulting experience. He specialises in all phases of strong internal talent benchstrength and organisational development strategy;—identifying employee development gaps, identifying talent-succession needs and goals, metrics, processes and tools, training and development to build internal capacity, creating talent-succession communication plans for business leaders, facilitating talent review meetings, coaching others for performance, creating high potential and leadership development programmes, designing assessment and development centre, competency framework, performance management, and graduate development programme to meet specific organisational needs. He leads the discussion, diagnosis, recommendation, and delivery of solutions across the talent management value chain. His experience cuts across the information technology, telecommunications, oil and gas, automotive, earth-moving equipment and heavy machineries, pharmaceutical and manufacturing sectors. Over the years, he has established himself as a highly skilled professional of repute. An associate member of CIPD, UK and member CIPM, Nigeria. Akinloye is an accredited user of a host of global talent assessment and development tools. He has significant experience in the development and provisioning of assessment services while working with HR, Business Leaders, and Industrial Psychologists in the area of individual assessment and development. Akinloye has handled various talent-succession and organisational development projects across different industries and countries. His professional experience cuts across multi-national, private, and successful family-owned businesses including, May & Baker Nigeria Plc, MTN Nigeria, DAL Group of Companies, North Africa, and as Group Head of HR in Century Group. Akinloye is a graduate of Management Sciences from the University of Jos, Nigeria, with a diploma in HR Management from Cornell University, USA, and a master's degree in International Human Resource Management from Cranfield University School of Management, UK. He also holds a post-graduate diploma in “Psychology of Work” from University of Leicester, United Kingdom.

Book preview

© 2020 Adebayo Akinloye. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse  05/28/2020

ISBN: 978-1-7283-6227-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-6225-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-6226-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020909234

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Preface

Chapter 1 TALENT MANAGEMENT IN CONTEXT

Overview

Talent Acquisition

Talent Segmentation

Talent Development

Talent Deployment

Talent Refreshment

Exiting or Not?

Talent-Succession Strategy

Defining Talent Philosophies and Accountabilities

Chapter 2 MANAGING THE TALENT-SUCCESSION PROCESS

Overview

Talent Attraction, Selection and Placement

Attracting Effectively

Selecting the Right Talent

Placing Talent

Core Talent-Succession Phases

Identifying Critical Roles

Identifying and Understanding the Incumbents in Critical Roles

Assessment of Retention Priority/Risk

Identifying Successors to Critical Roles

Assessing Readiness Levels of Successors

Chapter 3 TALENT ASSESSMENT AND HIGH-POTENTIAL PROGRAMME

Overview

Understanding Performance and Potential as Key Data Points

Managing Performance and Talent Engagement

Using Psychometric Instruments

Graduate Trainee Programme – Selection, Development and Placement

Challenges with High-Potential Programmes

Chapter 4 TALENT REVIEW PROCESS AND DATA CALIBRATION

Overview

Talent Review Meeting

Approach to Talent Review Process

The Succession Map

Data Calibration

Talent Audit – A pointer toward strengths and potential risks

Chapter 5 DEVELOPING TALENT

Overview

Linking Development to Organisational Goals and Objectives

The Business Drivers

Identifying Knowledge, Skills, Abilities and Other Attributes

Alignment with Individual Goal and Aspiration

Deploying Development Interventions

Measuring and Providing Feedback

Chapter 6 TALENT-SUCCESSION PROCESS: LESSONS FROM COVID-19

Pandemic-Driven Talent Management Process

Remodeling Talent-Succession Process to Meet Emerging Reality

Chapter 7 FINAL THOUGHTS

Managing Succession and Talent Placement in Family and Owner-manager Businesses

SCENARIO:

Summary of Key take-away

Delegating Authority and Giving Autonomy to Operate - A key challenge in owner-manager businesses

Driving the Talent-succession Process in The Public Sector and The Academia

Conclusion

Acknowledgements

References

About the Author

To Glory, Gift and Fortune…my immediate family who

have been part of this great career journey with me.

Foreword

The Business Case for Talent

At the time I am writing this, the new coronavirus pandemic is upending life as we know it. To call this global pandemic a disruption will be an understatement. In many parts of the world borders are closed, businesses are shutting down or making frantic attempts to adapt to this new reality.

Most likely, the business world after this pandemic will also be different. The emerging changes will range from placing more focus into working remotely with distributed teams, connected from their own homes, to increasing agility and speed to market via self-directed, purpose driven teams.

Purpose is at the core of everything we do. Therefore, please allow me to start with a question: Why Talent Management?

I worked as a Human Resources executive for over twenty years, in a fast paced, people centric environment. I had the chance to work internationally for two large global multinationals, in banking and telecommunications and roles spanned across eleven countries. I had the opportunity to live in three of these.

Throughout my assignments in HR, I encountered leaders that expressed various levels of scepticism about what can Talent Management bring to the organization. It is not a simple equation. What is the business case for Talent? Why is this important? How does it impact the bottom line? How can we measure it?

In this foreword, I will provide you with my personal perspective. You need however to keep in mind that each of us will need to respond to this Why? question on our own, in close connectivity with our own context and reality.

Firstly, let’s clarify some assumptions.

1. Talent Management is not a one-off activity or process. It is not something that happens over-night. It is a continuum that involves many factors to get right, but once you and your organization are getting them right, the benefits are enormous.

2. Talent Management is not an HR process. Yes, HR plays a key role, but will never be successful in isolation. Talent Management is a Core Business process and must be championed by all senior leaders in the organization, starting with the CEO.

3. Talent Strategy is not a stand-alone strategy. Your business strategy must drive your talent strategy. The two are inseparable.

Talent management is good business not only good HR. Your talent management strategy must be fully aligned with your business strategy. It is a key competitive enabler for your organization in pursuing your objectives and business plan.

And now the argument, why it pays off. I am using hereby in my attempt some of the most important factors but clearly not all of them.

1. Better retention. Lower turnover of your best talent. As an HR leader, together with my leadership teams, we worked hard to have across the organization living examples of what great talent management can achieve. Men and women who started in very junior roles, being identified for their potential, placed on a fast track of career growth changing roles and taking challenges, made the impossible possible in many ways.

2. Higher level of engagement. Career Development and Learning was always one of the top motivators in any organization I worked with. It is now proven that a higher level of Employee Engagement drives a higher productivity (going the extra mile) and hence a significant impact on business results.

3. Faster succession timeline. Vacant roles at a senior level in the organization have a very high cost to business. Grooming high potential successors timely and preparing them for more senior roles is key in ensuring a smooth hand over.

4. Direct investment where it matters most. Organizations must continuously invest in management and leadership training, because people are always getting promoted into senior leadership roles without the necessary skills.

5. Unique cultural fit. As mentioned above about your own context and reality, this context creates uniqueness. Right leaders for your company are unique to your own culture, business and strategy.

6. Diversity. Well, diversity deserves a case on its own. But, in short, based on my experience, diverse leadership teams are making better decisions and ensuring a healthier, more sustainable and successful business in contrast with the not-so-diverse teams. Good Talent Management is a key enabler.

Over these years of continuous practice, through trial and error, myself and my colleagues had to continuously calibrate the what and how we are managing talent. Adebayo’s book will bring to you many of the best practices implemented already in world class organizations. You will therefore learn not to repeat our mistakes and do it right from the first time. This book is practical, easy to read and essential in many ways for business leaders and human resources professionals.

As a conclusion, talent is your company’s most valuable and often most underleveraged asset. Business strategy will only drive results with a strong talent alignment, capability and engagement. In a world that is described using the VUCA acronym (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity), talent will make the difference.

Given our current context and reality, it becomes clear that we must counter through Vision, Understanding, Clarity and Agility. Adebayo makes a great contribution on how you can build your vision for talent, create understanding and clarity, and not the least, enhance business agility, as a key factor of your success in the world we are living in.

- Florin Petrescu

Founder, Brightside Leadership – Bucharest, Romania

Florin Petrescu is a thought leader, leadership facilitator and the founder of Brightside leadership, a cultural transformation and scale-up consultancy. During his more than 20years successful career in banking, telecommunications and technology, he worked across multiple geographies and was part of very diverse C-level leadership teams. His recent work has been on transformational leadership and embedding long lasting change with a focus on reshaping companies’ culture, building new leadership behaviours, implementing new ways of working and not the least, developing new competencies that make organizations future ready. He holds a master’s degree in international HRM from Cranfield School of Management, UK and a bachelor’s degree in economics from the Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest.

Preface

Talent Management is one of the key organisational processes championed by custodians of the Human Resources function. In any industry, the strategic focus on effective talent acquisition, segmentation, development, deployment and retention of top talents, has the potential to set an organisation apart from the competition.

Like most people, you may be wondering if everyone in an organisation is a talent, and I have tried to address this question in this book. In thinking about how talents differ from other employees, it all comes down to the core