Why Your Organization Needs a Talent Requirements Definition Now
In the current, rapidly evolving world of work, organizations need new business and mission strategies to thrive in an operating environment that includes technological disruptors like artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and big data. These new strategies require an obvious and most critical component for successful execution…talent.
Private and public sector organizations face the challenge of clearly defining their talent requirements to successfully execute their business or mission strategies in this new technology-driven environment. Organizations are often quick to hiring talent or building learning solutions without thinking about the foundational talent requirements—and doing so will likely lead down the path of failure.
Before “putting the cart before the horse,” organizations first need to undertake the kind of detailed analysis that identifies the key knowledge, skills and attributes (KSAs) of various job roles—at different levels of seniority—in particular career fields across an organization. Let me explain using a medical analogy. Doctors take this approach to understanding a patient and his or her symptoms before providing a prognosis and course of action to treatment. A doctor must strive to understand a patient’s desired end state of “total health and wellness” (mission accomplished) and identify activities that the patient must be engaged in to achieve the desired end state (strategies and initiatives) and what symptoms (challenges) have been inhibiting the patient from achieving total health and wellness (optimum organizational performance).
This is why the starting point in successful strategy execution always must be to understand the talent future-state. This allows organizations to develop the right solutions to enhance workforce capacity and capabilities and, ultimately, organizational performance. This is where the development of a talent requirements definition (TRD) comes into play.
The TRD Process
The TRD process (see Figure 1) starts with an organizational strategy analysis. By conducting detailed interviews of senior leaders and other key stakeholders, organizational strategies and initiatives to achieve mission and associated metrics are identified. This process also helps to understand current challenges—environmental, operational or process driven—impeding progress.
Figure 1 – Talent Requirements Definition Process
Workforce Assessments – The identification of critical KSAs for particular job roles or career paths informs individual assessments to determine the current state of the workforce—including any talent gaps, both individually and collectively, that may exist—and its capability to implement organizational strategy.
Learning Solutions Portfolio and Learning Impact Measurement – KSAs help identify the best learning solutions to future-skill a workforce to perform in new, technology-driven operating environments. The TRD allows the organization to make informed decisions about existing learning solutions that can be adapted to address strategy and associated talent requirements or gaps. Additionally, because the TRD interview process helps define how success will be measured, it leads to the determination of business and organizational metrics to gauge the success of the learning solutions and their return-on-investment (ROI).
Talent Acquisition – The TRD informs talent acquisition strategies. Through individual assessments and analysis, the TRD aids in determining existing workforce gaps so organizations can make informed decisions on what type of external talent it needs to close higher priority workforce gaps that are too costly or will take too much time to develop.
The Effect of a TRD
Organizations in both the private and public sectors have employed the TRD approach to great success. The benefits of an informed TRD process approach include:
Smart Investment Decisions – Organizations need to address their most critical talent requirements to achieve their strategies—particularly those involving any new technologies. The key to making smart investment decisions is to identify workforce capability gaps, learning solution requirements and the desired end effects of learning.
Smart Build/Buy/Partner/Acquire Decisions – Determining workforce capability and capacity gaps helps organizations to prioritize and make informed decisions about the best integrated talent approach to achieve mission and associated strategies. Whether building internal talent, acquiring external talent or partnering with or acquiring companies that have the desired talent, the TRD is the baseline means to help inform these decisions.
In short, for organizations to keep pace with and take advantage of the change and transformation originating from the adoption of new technologies, talent requirements must be developed as the critical first step to allow for smart talent management decisions that will enable successful mission execution and high ROI.