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International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality ManagementManaging the talent management pipeline: Towards a greater understanding of seniormanagers' perspectives in the hospitality and tourism sectorNorma D'Annunzio#Green

Article information:To cite this document:Norma D'Annunzio#Green, (2008),"Managing the talent management pipeline", International Journal ofContemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 20 Iss 7 pp. 807 - 819Permanent link to this document:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/09596110810897628

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Users who downloaded this article also downloaded:Norma D'Annunzio#Green, Gill Maxwell, Sandra Watson, Bernadette Scott, Sheetal Revis, (2008),"Talentmanagement in hospitality: graduate career success and strategies", International Journal of ContemporaryHospitality Management, Vol. 20 Iss 7 pp. 781-791Norma D'Annunzio#Green, Gill Maxwell, Sandra Watson, Julia Christensen Hughes, Evelina Rog,(2008),"Talent management: A strategy for improving employee recruitment, retention and engagementwithin hospitality organizations", International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 20 Iss7 pp. 743-757Norma D'Annunzio#Green, Gill Maxwell, Sandra Watson, Tom Baum, (2008),"Implications of hospitalityand tourism labour markets for talent management strategies", International Journal of ContemporaryHospitality Management, Vol. 20 Iss 7 pp. 720-729

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Managing the talentmanagement pipeline

Towards a greater understandingof senior managers perspectives

in the hospitality and tourism sector

Norma DAnnunzio-GreenSchool of Management and Law, Napier University, Edinburgh, UK

Abstract

Purpose This paper aims to explore managers views on the challenges and opportunities aroundthe talent management (TM) pipeline in a range of hospitality and tourism organisations. The paperseeks to focus on drawing out key issues and suggesting practical actions arising from these.

Design/methodology/approach The paper draws primarily on a number of in-depth interviewswith senior managers representing a wide range of sectors in the industry. Managers views aresummarised and quotes used to illustrate key themes.

Findings Each stage of the TM pipeline is explored and the findings reveal a number of contextual,strategic and operational concerns around the implementation of TM policy and processes. Findingsindicated clear commitment towards the value of TM, but revealed that some policy areas were felt tobe underdeveloped. Approaches to TM were organisation specific, and driven by internal expertiseand available resources. Organisations would fit and tailor their TM approach to their own context.

Practical implications A number of practical implications emerge from this paper specificallyrelating to defining, attracting, retaining developing and transitioning talent.

Originality/value The paper provides a senior management perspective on TM and allows thereader a unique insight into the complexities of managing talent in the hospitality and tourism sector,highlighting the issues that organisations are facing.

Keywords Hospitality services, Tourism, Senior managers

Paper type Viewpoint

IntroductionTalent management (TM) can be defined as a holistic approach to human resourceplanning aimed at strengthening organisational capability and driving businesspriorities using a range of HR interventions. These include a focus on performanceenhancement, career development and succession planning (Iles, 2007). The concept ofTM has evolved into common management practice and while originally focused onrecruitment (Michaels et al., 2001), it is now recognised as a much broader conceptaimed at attracting, retaining, developing and transitioning talented employees. Thispaper presents the views of a number of senior managers in the hospitality and tourismsector, and develops a deeper understanding of their perceptions around the value ofTM, the approaches they adopt, and the issues and challenges they face in the process.

The objectives of the discussion were as follows:. To examine senior managers views on TM in terms of its definition and meaning

and its contribution to business success.

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at

www.emeraldinsight.com/0959-6119.htm

The talentmanagement

pipeline

807

International Journal ofContemporary Hospitality

ManagementVol. 20 No. 7, 2008

pp. 807-819q Emerald Group Publishing Limited

0959-6119DOI 10.1108/09596110810897628

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. To explore current practice in a range of hospitality and tourism organisations ateach stage of the TM pipeline, specifically attraction, retention, development andtransitioning of talent.

. To uncover managers views on challenges and issues at each stage and providepractical suggestions for process improvement.

This discussion was specifically focused around senior managers in hospitality andtourism operations representing a variety of sub-sectors (hotels, bars, restaurants,contract catering and events management) and a range of SMEs, large MNCs, charitiesand government funded bodies responsible for hospitality and tourism development.

The contributors were given the following definition of TM and were asked todiscuss a series of questions around the area of TM with the aim of learning moreabout the challenges and key issues that they are dealing with and how they areresponding to these. The definition was drawn from CIPD (2006a) and is illustrative ofa holistic approach to TM:

Talent consist of those individuals who can make a difference to organisational performance,either through their immediate contribution or in the longer term by demonstrating thehighest levels of potential.

Talent management is the systematic attraction, identification, development, engagementretention and deployment of those individuals with high potential who are of particular valueto an organisation (CIPD, 2006a).

The discussion highlighted a range of views and suggestions as to how TM strategiescan be improved. These are presented in Tables I-V which draw out the implications ofthe discussions for key stakeholders in order to assist them in operationalising theirTM strategies.

Area of talentmanagementstrategy Key issues

Implications forhospitalityorganisations

Implications formanagers

Implications fortalentedemployees

Defining talent Low awarenessof talentmanagementterminologyNeed for morespecificdefinition oftalent and morediscussion ofwhat constitutestalent inorganisations

Collaborate witheducators andallocate amember of themanagementteam to keep upto date withcurrent thinkingin talentmanagementConsider ways toencouragemanagers to takeresponsibility fortalentmanagement

Takeresponsibility fortalentmanagementInclude talentmanagement asan item on theagenda formanagementmeetings

Get to know thelanguage oftalent in theorganisation.Look for rolemodels and learnfrom them andtheir behaviour

Table I.Talent managementstrategy issues andimplications forstakeholders

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There follows a brief review of literature in the four areas of defining, attracting,retaining developing and transitioning talent, followed by the key themes arising fromthe discussion and illustrative quotes.

Defining talentIn defining talent, it is worthwhile referring back to Michaels et al. (2001) who firstcoined the phrase the war for talent. They define talent in a general sense as thesum of a persons ability, to include their skills, knowledge and potential fordevelopment. They argue that a certain part of talent eludes description you simplyknow it when you see it. Many companies today invest resources in describing thebehaviours that they would like to encourage in talented employees and these willvary from organisation to organisation. There is therefore likely to be no universaldescription of talent and each company will work towards understanding the specifictalent profile that fits best with their culture and structure. Achievinga comprehensive approach to TM involves organisations in a journey, focused on





Attraction Acute awarenessof the benefits ofselling theiremployer brandto future talentand eachorganisationclearlyunderstood theirunique sellingpoints but oftenthis was notvalidated fromthe employeeperspectiveGeneralagreement that amore formalattraction planwas needed atlocal levelMoreunderstandingand discussionrequired ofcommonproblems andpossiblesolutions toproblems ofattracting talent

Continue todefine employerbrand,communicatewidely throughrecruitmentchannelsDevelop strategyto encouragecurrentemployees asambassadors

Differentiatebrand fromcompetition consider uniqueselling pointsSurveyemployees todevelop betterunderstanding oftheir views onemployer brandDeveloprecruitment planfor each jobfamily

Offer feedback tomanagers as towhether thesuggested uniqueselling points arethe reality ofworking life inthe organisationAsk to meetmembers of theteam as part ofthe recruitmentprocess to helpset yourexpectationsAct asambassadors fornew talent intoyourorganisation

Table II.Attraction of talented

employees issues andimplications for

stakeholders


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firstly establishing a strong business case for talent and understanding the directionand needs of the business and secondly aligning this with a range of HR systems andprocesses. While this makes good business sense and there are manywell-documented and compelling arguments for developing a TM strategy, a recentCIPD (2006a) survey reported that 60 per cent of organisations had no formal TMstrategy and 80 per cent had no formal definition of talent. The aim of this discussionwith hospitality and tourism managers, was to present a snapshot of views on thevalue of TM and current practice but at the same time highlight the problems thatexist in developing a formal strategy and go some way towards understanding whyTM is such a compelling yet elusive concept.

Recent research in the UK has pointed to practitioner confusion around definitionsand focus of TM and often when managers talk about talent there is lack of clarityregarding exactly whom they are referring to (CIPD, 2006a; Schweyer, 2004; Tansleyet al., 2007). Talent strategies can focus on a number of groups of employees. Forexample, the high potential, high performers (commonly referred to as HiPos) who areidentified as promotable; or key talent, defined as people with talent that theorganisation values at all levels. They may have business specific skills or knowledgeor possess special know-how, which differentiates them from other employees andmakes them hard to replace. They may not be on a particularly structured career pathbut they are just as important to organisational success. The choice here is between aninclusive or exclusive approach to TM. Most respondents to the CIPD (2006a) learning





Retention Need to developbetterunderstanding ofmotivationsbehindemployeesdecisions to stayor goNeed to keep upto date withemerging socialtrendsinfluencingdifferent staffmotivationsNeed to developstructuredretention planLoss of talent dueto poorcommunicationbetweenmanagers andstaff

Developmanagerscommunicationskills andmeasure theresultsDefine good andpoorcommunicationand measure aspart of theappraisal system

Use hard data togainmanagementcommitmenttowardsdevelopingretention planDevelopcoaching skillsfor all managersUnderstand thehard and softcosts of employeeturnover for yourbusiness andcommunicatethis to allinvolvedConsider whethertalentedemployees knowthey are valued

Communicateyour concerns tomanagers asoften problemsand concerns canbe solved

Table III.Retention of talent issues and implicationsfor stakeholders

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and development survey believed TM should be inclusive and applicable to all (CIPD,2006a). Almost two-thirds of respondents believed that an exclusive focus would havestrong de-motivating effects on those not included.

Interest in TMA range of factors have fuelled interest in TM. With a growing global labour marketmaking competition for labour increasingly internationalised, employers are lookingto other countries to attract talent, therefore companies are experiencingmore competition for talent in their domestic labour markets and have to competeinternationally themselves. An increasingly virtual workplace has made theboundaries between organisations more permeable, enabling collaboration andintensifying competition for staff at all levels (Reed, 2001).

The diversity of the workforce in terms of age race and culture has put pressure onemployers to embrace and embed concepts of fairness and diversity in any TMapproach. Many of todays employees have independent views about their ownlifestyles and access to information about career opportunities. The growing focus onwork life balance issues is driving TM policies to shift the focus from measuring hoursat work towards the quality of contribution made while at work. In addition, a mobileworkforce, tight labour markets and the end of the concept of a job for life have madeworkers with highly transferable skills a much sought after commodity (Reed, 2001).An organisations key assets are also its most mobile assets with job movesundertaken to increase and enhance knowledge bases, employability and earningpotential (Iles, 2007, p. 107).

Discussion and resultsThe results of the discussions with senior managers are now presented, drawing onkey themes and using illustrative quotes to amplify managers views on the challengesthat they are facing.




Implications fortalented employees

Development Role of linemanager as criticalto developmentprocessA trend towardsencouragingemployees to takemore responsibilityfor their owndevelopmentOther pressures,priorities andresource constraintsprovide barriers tomore sophisticatedapproaches to talentdevelopment

Free up time inmanagement rolefor talentdevelopmentAllocate resource toidentifying internaltalent and increaseawareness of theskills profile of youremployeesConsiderdevelopment of alllevels of talentincludingexecutive/directorlevel

Encourage talentedemployees todiscuss theirdevelopment needsand aspirationswith youTry to look forpotential in youremployee pool on acontinual basis

Take responsibilityfor your owndevelopmentCommunicate youraspirations to yourline manager

Table IV.Development of talent

issues and implicationsfor stakeholders


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Use of the term TM and TM strategiesThere was generally low awareness and low usage of the term TM. It was described byone respondent as:

[. . .] creeping more into the conversation now but not part of common language here andanother we never use it. It is not a word I had come across until now.

Quite a high percentage of the respondents involved in the discussion wererepresentative of SMEs and they discussed the challenges around having no formal HRfunction to coordinate TM activity. One manager suggested that:

[. . .] this puts a lot of responsibility and pressure on managers to take the lead in talentmanagement and it is difficult to know where to start.

Part of the discussion involved asking the respondents to describe a highly talentedperson in their organisation. Interestingly many found this hard to articulate and forsome it was not a profile that had been clearly defined. One manager commented:

I think we would benefit from being able to come to a common understanding of this andencourage people to talk about it.

When prompted, many common behaviours and competencies were cited across therespondents for example a passion for the job, leading by example and ability tomotivate their team. Many of the respondents already measured many of these skillsand competencies but suggested that some, particularly the softer skills, could be bothmeasured and communicated to staff more rigorously using competency descriptors:




Implications fortalented employees

Transitioning Reactive approachdriven by pressureto fill vacanciesFast internalpromotion processcan pose problems iftalent has not yetacquired all thenecessary skillsAt senior levels amore bespoke andindividualisedapproach totransitioning talentwas adoptedTransition frommiddle to seniormanagers deemedproblematic

Need to developstructuredtransition pathsand communicatethese clearly tofuture talentFast internalpromotion system,whileadvantageous,requires coachingand mentoringsupport system

Coaching andmentoring trainingfor managers andtalentNeed to developskills in identifyingpotential talent

Have realisticexpectationsLearn the skills andexperiencenecessary to movefrom one level toanother. Beproactive aboutseeking out thesetrainingopportunitiesListen to feedbackon

Table V.Transitioning talent issues and implicationsfor stakeholders

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[. . .] at management level we talk about passion for the job a lot and we know what wemean but we need to write this down in terms of behaviours that staff can identify andreplicate, otherwise it becomes a cliche.

These views suggested the importance of developing a common language of talent ineach organisation, which is unique to that organisation and developing competencydescriptors which articulate clearly to all stakeholders what talent looks like and whatbehaviours could be identified and developed in talented employees.

The word talent was defined by respondents in a number of ways:

[. . .] people with potential, employees we value, employees with skills and abilities that wereally need and as our future.

There was generally positive feedback regarding increased use of the term TM withone respondent commenting:

[. . .] sometimes when I talk about appraisal it all sounds quite dull and not particularlyengaging for managers but when you talk about talent management, all of a sudden it soundsmuch more dynamic [. . .] it might help generate some new life back into our process.

Many of the respondents felt that they needed a conscious strategy for TM activity butwere extremely aware of resource constraints and the multi faceted nature of TM.There was a strong realisation that they needed to focus on key areas of the business,and key people:

[. . .] we are a relatively small business and cannot resource all areas of talent managementinterventions but some would work better for us than others and we need to spend some timedeveloping the areas that fit with our culture yet are not overly resource intensive or difficultfor managers to engage in on a day to day basis.

In most of the SMEs, it was clear that resource constraints appeared to be drivingthem to consider a more exclusive approach to managing and developing talent, whichfocused on key people. There was also a strong notion, however, of the need for TMstrategies to be directed at all those employees with potential, rather than an exclusivefocus on managers. This was indicative of a much more inclusive approach to TM.There was a great deal of motivation and commitment towards identifying talentacross the business and the potential benefits this could bring.

Respondents articulated a range of micro and macro level concerns regardingdeveloping TM strategies. One high-growth company had an issue in knowing andunderstanding what talent they needed in the future:

[. . .] it is about having that strategic view where will we be in the next 2 years, what talent dowe need to get there? [. . .] what additional skills do we need to enable the organisation to grow.

For them, TM was about having a more strategic perspective towards talent in termsof matching business growth with manpower supply and demand.

For another TM was about:

[. . .] ensuring that we are promoting the right people with the right skills. How do we attractpeople who fit our culture and business needs, people with the right competencies and thenhow do we measure these competencies as they progress their career?

For this organisation, TM was about trying to ensure some element of verticalintegration of employees skills with the needs of the business and horizontal


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integration in terms of measuring the skills using a range of HR interventions such asperformance management, communication and reward systems:

We spend a lot of time looking at our teams and looking at people coming through the ranksand identifying people who are ripe for promotion. Having said that we dont have a strategyfor doing this. I mean it comes out of constant communication just being tuned into whatsgoing on. We can do this because we are still relatively small but as we grow our approachwill need to be more systematic.

This organisation understood that at present their relatively informal approachworked well and was effective but were well aware that as they grew this area wouldrequire a more systematic approach. It was clear from this discussion that whileextremely committed to notions of TM the respondents were grappling with a range ofconcerns and complexities around defining the boundaries of TM strategies andprioritising different groups of employees.

Issues in attracting talentRespondents articulated the need to sell their employee brand or unique selling point toa wider audience and discussed the range of benefits that can be used to attract talent:

[. . .] we may not pay hugely well at entry level but employees do progress up the ladderquickly and experience many unique benefits such as free hotel accommodation around theworld [. . .] they join a culture where teamwork and camaraderie are key to success.

We attract staff by telling them about the potential for progressions. When I interview one ofthe things I always tell new staff is that all of our general managers have come up through theranks it is one of our unique selling points.

Respondents generally agreed that there needed to be a more proactive approach toattracting talent and that a more focused approach to TM could in itself be used as aunique selling point to be communicated to prospective employees through the websiteand recruitment process:

We are not so good at attraction we need to develop a talent attraction plan in the same wayas we would do a marketing plan. For example, what can we do to compensate for the highcost of living in the local area and levels of pay which are at some levels less competitive thatthey could earn elsewhere? We set new recruit expectations clearly early on and tell themthat we may not pay the highest salaries but we will offer them other benefits anddevelopment opportunities we want people to come to us because they are attracted bythese opportunities, not just by the bottom line.

There was a general consensus amongst respondents that more dialogue anddiscussion needed to take place within organisations and across organisational sectorsregarding common areas of difficulty and which kind of staff they find hardest toattract and recruit, in order to identify reasons for these difficulties and solutions in theform of clear employee attraction strategies.

Respondents discussed the need to come to a better understanding of theiremployees motivations. There was recognition that the financial benefits were notnecessarily the strongest part of their offer so developing a better understanding ofother factors that motivate their people to stay was seen as crucial.

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Issues in retaining talentA discussion around the changing attitudes of individuals demonstrated how TMstrategies needed to flex according to different types and categories of employee and takeaccount of emerging social trends. One respondents account described the challenges andexpectations of generation Y (those employees born since 1980), and their propensitytowards changing their jobs regularly. These employees were seen to place more emphasison employability rather than employment, which in turn put pressure on organisations tooffer them continuous development of their own careers. One respondent described theseemployees as:

[. . .] a new younger group of people coming through who want everything and who want itnow and are quite happy to demand it!

This company had realised that the key to keeping hold of this group of employees layin developing a better understanding of their expectations and focused on developing amore meritocratic approach that valued talent. As a result it was felt important to findways of working with the expectations of these employees that make the most of themand their enthusiasm, ensuring at the same time that that they fitted in with thecompany culture and other employees who may have quite different mindsets. It did,however, prove difficult as a culture was seen to be developing whereby employeeswere motivated to acquire the skills they needed in order to make themselves moremarketable to other companies. Retaining these individuals was proving to be a greatchallenge.

It was suggested that employers needed to focus equally on both recruitment andretention:

[. . .] we are quite happy to spend many thousands on recruitment plans, projects andinitiatives but when we look at what we do around retention specifically it is oftenunderdeveloped and we risk seeing our investment walk out of the door into the hands of ourcompetition.

We perhaps shoot ourselves in the foot a bit in terms of raining expectations for quickprogression. Many very good people move around after 2/3 years as they dont get the speedypromotion opportunities they were promised. We need to manage their expectations moreeffectively.

Developing a deeper understanding of why good talent may leave was a strong andrecurring theme throughout the discussions with respondents. One organisation hadrecently done some work in this area and were frustrated to find that the reasons manyof the most recent leavers had given for leaving could have been easily changed hadthe managers known about them. There needed to be more ongoing communicationand dialogue between employer and employee. The view was expressed that often theemployee feels that the manager is not interested and would not make the changeseven if they were small.

Respondents discussed the need to involve and gain commitment from all managersto treat this issue as a priority. One respondent discussed how they viewed this area asa team problem requiring team effort:

[. . .] a couple of months ago we pulled together all the turnover statistics and costs over thelast year, we broke it down department by department and presented these to managementand supervisors. We said this is the current picture and this is what it is costing us. We tried


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to assess both hard quantitative costs and softer less tangible but equally important costs.The challenge was how we as a team would deal with this information and develop a plan toimprove it. We were conscious to avoid dwelling on the past and rather focused on engagingthe team and pulling a plan together to ensure we were all accountable and so we could comeback a few months later and evaluate the results.

This narrative provided an interesting example which illustrated how the hard,quantitative labour turnover figures and their impact on the bottom line could be usedto engage managers and convince them to buy-in to developing a retention plan whichwould focus on softer elements of HR such as communication, coaching and personaldevelopment.

Developing employee talentMuch discussion took place over the crucial role of the line managers in developingtalent and creating more space to understand what make each employee tick. Therewas a shared understanding of the management time and effort this took and a concernthat often there is not enough time to devote to this ongoing communication. Onerespondent described ways of freeing up managers time by devolving somemanagerial responsibility to small groups of employees (for example, this organisationgave staff the rota to organise). This was seen to provide employees with valuabledevelopment opportunities and increased feelings of autonomy and responsibilitywhile releasing the manager from a job that she disliked and allowing her more time tofocus on the leadership and communication part of her job.

Another organisation discussed how they encouraged employees to take moreresponsibility for their own development:

[. . .] tell us what your development needs are; tell us about the skills that you have and howwe can develop them to the mutual benefit of the business and yourselves and we will do ourbest to support you.

To illustrate how unaware managers are of the latent talent in employees, they citedthe example of an employee who was working as a porter but who had previously beena qualified interior designer in Poland. Nobody realised this until the department wasbeing refurbished and the employee started to offer valuable advice. This organisationhad recently implemented regular job chats and continuing professional developmentactivity planning for all levels of staff to assist with communication and highlightemployee aspirations as part of the TM process.

The problems of administering the development process were discussed by anumber of respondents and this emerged as an area of concern. Respondentsunderstood that administration of training needs analysis was necessary underpinningfor TM strategies to work. One manager discussed the challenge of translating thedevelopment needs identified in the twice-yearly appraisal into a training plan. Twiceyearly appraisals generated over 400 training needs proformas, each with a number ofpossible training and development interventions:

I could spend 3 months compiling a full training plan, discussing each individuals needs withthe manager, organising the training and planning the training and communicating it to theindividuals but I have to be realistic. I dont have time for this and other areas take priority soI operate a system whereby I read each form, summarise the most commonly mentionedtraining needs arising and plan these into next quarters training plan. I know I will not be

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able to satisfy all individuals aspirations. The rest of the development we offer is demand led,whereby a member of staff identifies a development opportunity, presents a good businesscase and with manager authorisation it will be arranged. It needs to be more formal but this isthe best we can do with the resources we have.

This example clearly demonstrates the tension between the rhetoric and reality of TMwhere good practice gives way to organisational pressures and resource constraints.

There were also concerns around senior management and managing director levelregarding knowing what an appropriate training intervention would be at this level tokeep their skills current and developed.

Transitioning talentTransitioning talent was described to the respondents as the point at whichan employee or leaders responsibilities and skills change as a result of promotion fromone level to another. These transitions require significant effort and personaltransformation from employees if they are to be competent at their new level. The CIPD(2006b) describe the main principles of transition as focusing on ensuring that:

. one level of development feeds smoothly into the next;

. leaders learn the skills they will always need as early as possible and have accessto those skills needed for the next level before they get to it; and

. leaders know what the unique contribution of each stage of leadership must be tothe business and are driven towards and supported in making this shift.

There were some excellent examples of structured transition paths, for example, onerespondent described:

[. . .] we have clearly defined 3 grades of management and associated levels of responsibility.For each we have a web based training programme so we have a clearly defined pathway forour staff who want to move from supervisor to deputy unit manager.

There was also a view that while some organisations had clearly defined generictransition processes defining what skills and training each level required, there neededto be a more individualised approach for some categories of talent:

We need to tailor transition programmes to individuals rather than a one size fits allapproach.

Once you get to general manager level the training is more bespoke and informal drivenmore by the individual.

There were also a number of concerns raised by respondents, the most challengingarea appeared to be the transition from middle to senior management, for example,from bar or restaurant manager to food and beverage manager or deputy generalmanager.

We have a bit of stagnation at this level and a bit of a glass ceiling and as a result we loosegood people.

A strong theme centred around whether the sector might promote individuals too soonwithout giving enough attention to whether the promoted employee has the necessaryskills to be able to cope at the new level. As a result of high turnover rates, some


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organisations felt that their guidelines for transition were not always followed due torecruitment pressures and the need to fill vacancies within a certain timescale. Thiswas driving organisations to reactive approaches with subsequent problems asillustrated by the following quotes:

We have a reactive approach to transitioning talent we react to vacancies when they ariseand fill them with good internal people.

We offer excellent internal promotion opportunities but sometimes we are too reactive. Weneed a person in post now so we have a tendency to promote too soon. This fast track approachrequites a lot of development in the first few months and sometimes we just dont have themanagement time to support and coach these individuals we are setting them up to fail.

I feel we promote people too soon into first line manager positions we underestimate thedemands on people with no managerial or supervisory experience they may have lots oftalent but they dont have the right amount of experience or confidence to manage teams ofpeople. This is symptomatic of our sector.

The role of a performance appraisal in preparing employees for transition andpromotion was seen to be important. Most organisations had sophisticated systems inoperation but many were under review and it was felt that the appraisal itself and thetraining, development and commitment of managers towards this process wouldbenefit from further development in order to strengthen the TM system:

Our appraisal process is a bit outdated and laborious We have got a very lengthy appraisalthat takes about two days to complete.

Managers tick the boxes but I am not convinced that the process is as rewarding as it could befor employees.

ConclusionsThe discussions highlighted much enthusiasm around the concept of TM anduncovered some excellent practice but there were clearly a number of challenges facingmanagers around the area of TM and these are summarised below. Practicalimplications arising from these are discussed in Tables I-V:

. There was a clear commitment towards and enthusiasm for all elements of TMbut many organisations were aware that their approach would benefit fromfurther development.

. No shortage of talent mentioned as a real concern but retention and developmentissues were significant for all contributors.

. Retention centred around meeting employees expectations and holding on tothem until a suitable promoted position arose this sometimes provedproblematic and resulted in talent being promoted too early.

. Approaches to TM were organisation specific, and driven by internal expertiseand available resources organisations would fit and tailor their TM approachto their own context.

. Managers were acutely aware of the dynamic nature of TM strategies and triedto adapt their approaches to emerging social, professional and industry trends.

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. A range of approaches were adopted towards TM to include a number ofinformal but effective approaches.

. Organisations acknowledged the need to offer good performance managementsystems to draw together elements of TM.

. Respondents emphasised the necessity for talented employees to take someresponsibility for their own development, be self-motivated and build theirself-belief and confidence.

. Senior managers development appeared to be subordinated to the developmentof supervisors and middle managers.

. Managers need to take responsibility for TM particularly the motivation,coaching, mentoring and ongoing communication.

. Resource constraints, particularly in the form of management time to engagefully with TM was seen as a key concern.

Senior managers from the following companies took part in this discussion. Theircontribution and participation is gratefully acknowledged.

Scottish Enterprise Edinburgh and Lothian; Hilton Hotels, Edinburgh; The TownHouse Company, Edinburgh; Sheraton Hotel, Edinburgh; Karen Calvert, MontpeliersPartnership, Edinburgh; Hospitality Industry Trust, Scotland; Heritage Portfolio LtdEdinburgh.

References

CIPD (2006a), Reflections on Talent Management: Change Agenda, CIPD, London.

CIPD (2006b), Talent Management, Understanding the Dimensions, CIPD, London.

Iles, P. (2007), Employee resourcing and talent management, in Storey, J. (Ed.), HumanResource Management, A Critical Text, Thomson, London, Ch.6.

Michaels, E., Handfield-Jones, H. and Axelrod, B. (2001), The War for Talent, Harvard BusinessSchool Press, Boston, MA.

Reed, A. (2001), Innovation in Human Resource Management: Tooling up for the Talent Wars,CIPD, London.

Schweyer, A. (2004), Talent Management Systems, Best Practices in Solutions for Recruitment,Retention and Workforce Planning, Wiley, New York, NY.

Tansley, C., Turner, P., Foster, C., Harris, L., Stewert, J. and Sempik, A. (2007), Talent Strategy,Management and Measurement, CIPD, London.

Further reading

Weddle, P. (2006), Manage talent needs with a sound strategy, available at: www.careerjournal.com

Corresponding authorNorma DAnnunzio-Green can be contacted at: [email protected]


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