Talent Mapping: Key Benefits
Talent mapping is a strategic service that is used by businesses to plan for short, medium and long term talent acquisition. It is used by the most perceptive companies to ensure that a recruitment process doesn’t just result in a quick hire, but rather, that it focuses on the short, medium and long term needs and leads to a number of strategic talent acquisitions over a prolonged period of time. It enables business leaders to proactively build the capabilities of the workforce using an in-depth and analytical process. It involves identifying the capabilities, experience and potential of current employees and aligning those with the growth strategy to reveal talent gaps and development needs.
Now an important component of talent management and acquisition, companies cite several benefits of adopting this approach. Through talking with our clients, as well as analyzing research of this critical area, we have identified:
1. Opportunities for internal moves
- The most effective talent mapping approach mobilizes the whole organization to record the capabilities, experience, and potential of each employee. Only a non-silo mentality will ensure consistent data collection, as well as the detail required to inform talent decisions. For example, compiling a skills and attributes database is a great way to ensure the right people are assigned to the right roles and for selecting which talent can be moved internally to meet short-term business demands. Internal moves, therefore, are a great way to encourage this mind-set and create happy, fulfilled employees.
2. Reducing the time to hire
- Rather than being caught out when a vacancy arises, external talent mapping is another valuable method to ensure organizations gain a competitive people advantage. The ultimate aim of external talent mapping is building a talent pipeline the main reasons why talent mapping is essential for strategic growth. This enables you to make several strategic hires over a prolonged period, and only when needs arise. Often delivered by a recruitment partner, the method recognizes that identifying candidates for multiple potential vacancies, requires a large pool of candidates.
3. Long view of talent development
- Talent mapping is a great way to identify specific needs or speculate about unknown future ones and how they may be met through training and development. Leaders often start by reviewing current and future workforce potential. Though, during the last decade, more organizations are using talent mapping to identify critical jobs of the future and determining what skills they will require in five or ten years’ time, to fulfil these roles.
4. Succession planning
- Succession planning is, of course, a primary objective for any talent mapping exercise. Traditionally, talent mapping processes would only seek to highlight people with leadership potential and ensure only those people were given access to development opportunities. Moving talent should always be a priority, so people gain valuable understanding of the business from an international context while learning to adapt to different cultures. Then, when opportunities emerge for people to progress, it means they’re ready to take them on sooner.
5. External brand building
- Internal talent mapping can improve employer brand and generally raise the reputation of an organization. To attract talent today, companies must ensure that all potential candidates enjoy positive experiences of the brand. Many companies, for example, now participate in talent community building, utilizing ongoing networking and other marketing touch points to ensure their brand remains ‘top-of-mind’ for prospective candidates. When the company is ready to launch a recruitment campaign, it’s already one step ahead of its competition, in a tight talent market.
