5 Essential Elements Of Talent Management Model HR Must Know

Introduction

Managing today’s talent is about much more than recruiting and candidate experience alone. But robust elements of talent management model assist organizations in implementing their talent management systems and improving performance. It entails everything from finding and attracting the right people to developing, motivating, and perhaps most importantly, retaining them. 

Let’s start with the basics. The elements of talent management model describe all of the various functions and processes that form your strategy to implement a talent management system. On the other hand, a talent management system(TMS) is basically an integrated software solution that covers the full scope of talent management, namely recruitment and onboarding, performance management, training and development, compensation management, and succession planning. 

Put simply, talent management systems focus on helping companies and HR achieve their long-term business goals by putting the employees or talent, if you like, first. As such, a talent management system usually consists of various modules. Each module represents a particular area of HR. You can find, for instance, recruitment modules, performance management modules, modules devoted to employee learning, compensation, and benefits modules, and so on. 

The number one reason to use a TMS is to automate and optimize the entire package of talent management processes within your organization. But prior to that, it’s necessary to comprehend and implement the elements of talent management model to get the most out of talent management system.

Other often-named benefits of implementing a TMS are the following. 

Shared data

An integrated talent management system enables organizations to align with all elements of talent management model and core HR processes from recruitment to ongoing performance assessments, benefits management, etc. This facilitates data sharing and connecting across the organization, hence giving HR a full picture of employee-related information. 

Better hiring.

What a TMS for your talent management as a whole is what its various modules do for each stage of the HR life cycle. This means that the recruitment module for the TMS will help you automate and optimize your recruitment process. What this means in practice is, among other things, less time spent on tedious tasks and a better candidate experience.

Retaining the top talent.

Since a TMS covers every aspect of an employee’s situation in the company, such as their performance, goals, training, skills, future aspirations, compensations, and so on. It gives you all the information to make sure they stay happy and engaged. 

Improved employee experience.

Using a talent management system, not only makes the lives of HR professionals easier but is also meant to dramatically improve the employee experience. But how? By giving employees access to all the information regarding their history, performance, and future career in one and the same place. 

Employees can become familiar with your company’s talent management system from the very first day they start working at your organization since you also use the system for their onboarding. 

Modern employee development.

Any good modern talent management strategy enables employees to follow courses and develop their skills. Thanks to technological developments, such as the ones in AI. Some systems can even suggest courses to employees based on collected data and, for instance, on the courses that colleagues with similar profiles have taken.

Elements of Talent Management Model

A lot of people, including us, are looking for a talent management model. But so far, no one has developed such a model yet. Further in this article, we’ll take a closer look at the elements of talent management model you can use in order to get the most out of your employees and apply the talent management system effectively. 

Initially developed for marketing purposes, this model shows how customers first get in touch with an organization and eventually end up buying something from that organization. This happens in five phases. Let’s go through all of them individually and then we’ll learn how the model can be applied to HR, eventually forming the crucial elements of talent management model.

• One is Acquisition. This is all about driving visitors to the organization.
  
• Two, Activation. This is the first value experience that is exchanged between the organization and the customer. This can be a customer that leaves their email address in exchange for a monthly newsletter for example or a customer walking into a brick-and-mortar shop.
  
• Three, Revenue. The first and most important of the R’s. Revenue is about getting customers to make a purchasing decision. Needless to say, this is the lifeblood of any business.
  
• Four, Referral. The referral is about how to get customers to share with others about your organization and your product or service. It is about customers generating more customers. Finally,
  
• Five, Retention. How do you retain those buying customers so they come back and buy again? This is about increasing the lifetime value of a customer. 

Of course, now I could tell you a lot about how useful this model is and how different media channels can be used to acquire and activate customers. Encourage them to make purchasing decisions, etc. The big question however is, how can we apply the elements of talent management model to HR? 

When we visualize the elements of talent management model, the marketing model that we just talked about works as a perfect template. Employees are very similar to customers and they go through the exact same process. Let’s take a closer look. 

This is the HR Talent Management model.

Let us take a walkthrough of the five steps that every employee goes through in this Talent Management model. 

Acquisition.

The initial element of talent management model is “Acquisition” which is all about attracting potential candidates to your organization. In the recruitment world, this is referred to as employer branding.

Key questions to be answered in this phase are:

• How will your candidate get to know you?
• How will you increase your employer branding so that people will want to work for you?
• How do you make sure that you are approachable as a company so you can convert the people that you know into people that will want to apply? 

These are the fundamental questions that you need to answer whenever you’re serious about becoming a better employer. 

Activation.

Activation is the second element of talent management model which is about selection, candidate experience, and getting people onboarded. It’s about the organization getting value from employees and employees getting value from the organization.

Key questions to be answered in this phase are:

• How will you select the right people from the talent pool that you’ve built?
• How do you make the right selection to avoid bad hires?
• How will you make sure to create a near-perfect candidate experience?
  
  These are the questions you need to answer to make sure that you can hire the best people in the market and that the people you decide not to hire go home feeling good. 

Revenue.

The next element of talent management model is “Revenue”, which is about getting the most value out of your people as an organization. Usually, this is done by investing in them. Giving them all the tools they need to do their work and making sure that they deliver the best possible value or work. This includes topics like onboarding, learning and development, and performance management.

Key questions to be answered in this phase are:

• How do you make sure people are onboarded faster?
• How will you reduce your new hires’ time to full productivity?
• How will you make sure that your people stay competitive and keep performing in the future? 

Referral.

The next element of talent management model is “Referral”, which is about getting new people by leveraging your current employees and building your reputation. This can be to attract new employees or to leverage your employees to expand your customer base. This is useful because as you may know, employee referral programs are very much in fashion. Employees who are referred usually onboard faster, perform better and are less likely to leave prematurely.

Key questions to be answered in this phase are:

• How do we create an effective employee referral program?
• How can we make our employees champion our brand?
• How do we leverage our employees to expand our customer base? 

Retention.

Last but not the least, comes “Retention”. Just like you want to retain your customers, you want to retain your employees. If your talent thinks the organization is undesirable to work for, you have a big problem. As HR, you, therefore, invest in the retention of your talent. Key topics here include retention, happiness, compensation, and benefits.

The questions you should ask yourself in this phase are:

• How will you reduce your voluntary turnover percentage?
• How will you compensate your employees to ensure that they’re happy?
• How will you use variable pay to make sure your salespeople perform optimally?
  
  Retention is about doing everything to keep your best performers and help to build a competitive advantage. If your best employees never leave, you will outperform your competition. 

Keynote

Let’s take a closer look at how to choose a talent management system(TMS). Assume that you have guessed, choosing a talent management system is not a decision to be made lightly, nor is it something to rush. It often implies a considerable investment and a long-term commitment to a vendor. 

Generally speaking, there are a few things to keep in mind. One, what are your organization’s needs? Ideally, you want to find a system that fits both your current and future needs.

Two, find a vendor that is right for you. Buying a talent management system usually equals a long-term commitment to the software provider so choose wisely. Do they answer all the questions that you have? What’s their service and support going to be like? What do other customers say about them? The procedure of HR technology assessment and vendor selection may also prove beneficial in this regard.

Three, Demo. Before you buy a car you take it for a test drive, right? The same thing goes for a talent management system. Ask your shortlisted vendors to give you a demonstration of the system. This will allow you to see the software in action and assess its user-friendliness. 

In the case of elements of the talent management model, it helps you to visualize the five key phases employees go through during the time they work at your organization. The model helps to create a better employee experience and a roadmap for your talent management initiatives. 

We would suggest you apply this framework to the current talent management practices in your organization. Identify room for improvement and come up with specific solutions that will benefit the way you manage talent.