If you do talent development, you should check out the HR Raging Debates at Halogen Software where eight experts weigh in with their opinions on important HR issues. The first one for 2013 is “Talent Shortage – Really?” Here’s the set up for the debate.
“There have been several news reports in recent years about a lack of skilled workers across a number of key industries and yet many ’employable’ people are out of a job. So is there really a talent shortage or is this simply a lack in HR’s ability to effectively source the talent out there?”
The debate features Henryk Krajewski, Dominique Jones, Laurie Bassi, and Jon Ingham. Read the debate, then think about this.
Are we assuming that talent development is mostly a recruiting problem? Are we expecting our recruiters to bring in fully developed “talent” ready to produce great work with little to no investment on our part?
Sometime during my lifetime, too many companies started believing that since people were going to leave anyway, it was a waste of money to train them or to put much effort into helping them develop, unless they were those prized “high potentials.” There’s opportunity here.
It’s a competitive advantage to be the place where people want to work and want to stay. But that means paying attention to more than finding already qualified people. It means investing in training, creating a great working environment, treating people fairly and helping them develop. Talent development really is the key to long term, sustainable, competitive advantage. Talent is for developing, not hiring fully formed.
