Six Principles of Effective Global Talent Management

The Sloan Review article Six Principles of Effective Global Talent Management has some interesting information useful to all R&D managers:

“ONE OF THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES facing companies all over the world is building and sustaining a strong talent pipeline. “

The article has six recommendations for success:

Rather, we found that successful companies adhere to six key principles: (1) alignment with strategy, (2) internal consistency, (3) cultural embeddedness, (4) management involvement, (5) a balance of global and local needs and (6) employer branding through differentiation.

Here my takeaways:

Align Skill-set / Talent management with corporate strategy
Ensure talent management processes are consistent with each other and with corporate culture

There are also some interesting benchmarks:

General Electric’s “vitality curve,” which differentiates between the top 20%, the middle 70% and the bottom 10%.
Unilever, the Anglo-Dutch consumer products company, puts 15% of employees from each management level in its high-potential category each year, expecting that they will move to the next management level within five years.
Infosys limits the high-potential pool to less than 3% of the total work force
GE began targeting technology skills as a key development requirement during its annual organizational and individual review process, which GE calls Session C.
Oracle found that its objective goal-setting and performance appraisal process was no longer adequate. Management wanted to add some nonfinancial and behavior-based measures to encourage people to focus on team targets, leadership goals and governance.
IBM holds “ValuesJam” sessions that provide time to debate and consider the fundamentals of the values in an effort to make sure that they are not perceived as being imposed from the top!
BT, the British telecommunications giant, has implemented a performance management system that looks at employees on two dimensions: the extent to which they achieve their individual performance objectives, and the values and behaviors they displayed to deliver the results.
A McKinsey study found that more than 50% of CEOs, business unit leaders and HR executives interviewed believed that insular thinking and a lack of collaboration prevented their talent management programs from delivering business value.
P&G, was in one year able to attract about 600,000 applicants worldwide — of whom it hired about 2,700 — by emphasizing opportunities for long-term careers and promotion from within.