Whats wrong with the way we do talent management now?
Survey evidence suggests that most companies no longer do any talent management. A generation ago, 96% of large employers in the U.S. had dedicated departments to do workforce planning, according to a Conference Board study done in 1966. Now, less than a third even attempt to forecast demand for talent. Some estimates suggest that less than one in five companies attempt to plan for internal succession. The companies that attempt to do talent management in a sophisticated way use old-fashioned models from the 1950s that assume we know with great certainty what the demands will be in the future. These models require the ability to plan accurately well into the future. The estimates of demand fall apart because the business environment is so uncertain. Our internal “pipelines” of talent also prove misleading because of unpredictable attrition. The talent plans then turn out to be wrong, in that employers end up with more managers or other kinds of talent than they need, leading to layoffs
