Everyone agrees that talent development is important. And everyone seems to agree on the basic elements. The hard part is figuring out what will work best for your company, now and in the future.
You need ideas that you can try out. Here are four ways to get them.
Look at what’s working and not working for you. That’s the Google model. Crunch the data. Keep what works and stop doing what doesn’t. See the New York Times article, “In Head-Hunting, Big Data May Not Be Such a Big Deal.”
Study another company that seems to be getting it right. Find a company that you think is doing a great job of talent development. Find out what they do. Dr. John Sullivan’s four part series about Facebook will give you an idea of what you may find. Adapt what you discover for your culture, history, industry, etc.
Read the studies of best practices. Let the business press, the consulting firms, and the academics do the research for you. They publish studies, like Hay Group’s annual “Best Companies for Leaders” and articles like Chief Executive’s “So You Want to Build Your Company’s Future Leaders?” Mine them for good ideas.
Review the trends to guess what the future may hold. Articles like Bersin’s “The Evolution of Talent Acquisition” will give you an idea of what may be coming so you can get out ahead of the curve.
There’s no one way to do talent development. Use these sources to get ideas of what to try. Then see what works for you.
