How To Create a Talent Management Strategy in 2024

Because people are the heart of any organization, having a strategy in place to attract, engage, and retain talent is key to long-term business success. An effective talent management strategy requires careful planning, is constantly evolving, and takes into consideration overall business goals as well as the latest workforce trends.

While every company has a unique talent management strategy, many of the foundational elements are the same no matter the business size or industry.

What is a talent management strategy?

A talent management strategy is a plan that organizations use to attract, develop, retain, and optimize the skills of employees to achieve business goals. It’s a proactive, adaptable process to manage an organization’s workers—including attracting candidates, optimizing performance among team members, planning for succession when individuals transition roles or leave the organization, and addressing everything in between.

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A comprehensive talent management strategy includes several components that collectively help organizations proactively build and maintain a successful workforce. Key elements of a talent management strategy include:

• Strategic workforce planning. A successful talent management strategy starts with understanding your current workforce and outlining how to meet current and future staffing needs through strategic workforce planning. Aligning this planning to overall business objectives is key to success.
  
  
• Talent acquisition and retention. Hiring and retaining top workers is central to any talent management strategy, but it can be challenging in today’s competitive job market. Research from Mercer found that enhancing the employee experience and employee value proposition to attract and retain top talent is the top HR priority for 2024.
• Career development. Throughout team members’ time with the company, your organization can offer talent development resources such as standardized onboarding and training, overview of career paths across the organization, on-demand courses, stipends for professional development events, and more.
  
  
• Performance management. This piece of the talent management focuses on helping team members achieve goals and improve in their roles. Performance management includes steps such as feedback, performance reviews, and coaching sessions.
  
  
• Compensation and benefits. Compensating all workers fairly—and competitively—can help your organization attract and retain top talent. In addition to salary and wages, top companies offer team members a comprehensive list of benefits.
  
  
• Succession planning. This process involves supporting workers as they transition in their careers, whether they get promoted, move to a different team, or leave the company. Succession planning also means having a plan in place to fill roles when team members transition.

How to create a talent management plan

Creating an actionable, step-by-step talent management plan can help your team stay on track with your overall strategy. Keep in mind, maintaining a strong talent management strategy is an ongoing process because any organization can always identify areas for improvement.

Talent management plan steps include:

1. Understand overall business objectives
2. Take inventory of team member skills and skill gaps
3. Tap into outside expertise
4. Write out the goals and priorities of the strategy
5. Implement technology to improve efficiency
6. Track and analyze key metrics
7. Identify ways to improve company culture
   

1. Understand overall business objectives

A Gartner survey of 287 HR leaders found that since the pandemic, 70% of respondents say they have more opportunities for impact and 58% report they have more authority to determine strategic priorities. HR leaders can contribute to strategic business priorities by aligning their talent management strategy with broader business objectives.

Fostering this alignment starts by completing an in-depth analysis of your organization’s strategic and operational goals and objectives. Based on the results of this analysis, the HR team can partner with business leaders across the organization to outline how organizational priorities impact talent management strategy and planning.

By integrating the talent management strategy into overall business strategy, your organization can increase agility and be better prepared for any disruption that may come your way.

2. Take inventory of team member skills and skill gaps

As you map out the team you need to scale your business, make a list of the skills your organization needs to tap into to achieve business goals, along with any skill gaps you currently have.

When you create a skills inventory, include both hard and soft skills. Hard skills are job-specific, technical, measurable competencies such as coding, search engine optimization, or business analytics. Soft skills are self-developed traits that help individuals work well in a team, including communication, time management, and critical thinking.

Once you identify a list of skills needed, think about which skills require full-time, in-house workers and which might be required for project-based work, possibly using independent professionals.

3. Tap into outside expertise

According to a survey of 2,366 HR professionals conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), 77% of respondents had difficulty recruiting for full-time regular positions in the 12 months leading up to the survey. During the same period, 49% faced challenges retaining employees.

To improve your talent management strategy and increase the likelihood of recruiting and retaining qualified workers, partnering with an independent talent management expert can be helpful. An independent talent management professional will offer a fresh perspective on your strategy and share best practices they’ve learned through their experiences with other clients.

Engaging an independent professional also offers the flexibility for you to engage the expert as needed while you develop your talent management strategy, without needing to hire a full-time team member. This approach drives cost savings and can help you access the right expert within a matter of days, without having to complete a lengthy, traditional hiring process.

4. Write out the goals and priorities of the strategy

A core piece of your talent management strategy is setting actionable goals. Start by discussing overall short- and long-term talent management objectives and align key goals and priorities with overall business needs.

Before implementing goals, gain approval from key decision makers. If you’re not aligned on the goals of your talent management strategy—especially among business leaders across the organization—you may experience challenges with measuring success down the road.

Goals can include:

• Reduce hiring time and costs
• Automate administrative tasks
• Improve worker engagement score
• Increase worker retention

When you set goals, make them measurable, when possible, so you can track progress. Examples of quantifiable goals can include increasing worker retention by 5% or reducing hiring time by two weeks.

5. Implement technology to improve efficiency

Investment in talent management and HR technology is on the rise. Research from Gartner found that, as of 2024, HR technology is the top investment priority for HR leaders for the third consecutive year. Additionally, as generative AI has seen more widespread adoption in recent years, a survey from The Conference Board found that 61% of CHROs surveyed are investing in AI technology to streamline HR processes.

Whether your organization is looking to speed up hiring, standardize onboarding, improve collaboration, measure team member engagement, or achieve other talent management goals, technology can help support digital transformation goals, reduce costs, and drive efficiency.

Here are a few examples of talent management technology:  

• Applicant tracking systems
• Payroll and benefits platforms
• Engagement survey software
• Team collaboration tools
• Project management trackers

As part of the selection process, compare different talent management technology partners and vendors based on capabilities, customer reviews, implementation timeline, cost, and other key criteria. This will help ensure you choose the right solutions to best meet your talent management needs.

6. Track and analyze key metrics

In addition to HR technology, adoption of HR data and analytics is also on the rise. Data from Grand View Research projects that the global HR analytics market will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 14.3% through 2030. However, a survey of 268 HR professionals conducted by Crunchr and HR.com found that only 22% of respondents say their organization is very or extremely effective at designing and implementing processes to get the most out of people analytics.

Understanding your talent management strategy’s strengths and areas for improvement can help you identify new ways to make your strategy more impactful. Regularly tracking metrics can also help your HR team provide your CEO and other executives across the business with insights into overall talent management strategy performance.

Metrics you can track include:

• Time and cost to hire
• Retention
• Turnover
• Training and career development spend
• Worker satisfaction and engagement
• HR software utilization
• Individual performance
• Overall business performance

In addition to quantitative metrics, consider team members’ qualitative feedback when evaluating your talent management strategy. For example, your organization can leverage hiring process feedback, engagement survey data, and exit interview responses to improve talent-related processes and overall strategy.  

7. Identify ways to improve company culture

Company culture refers to the shared mission, values, goals, behaviors, and practices at an organization. According to a survey of 1,348 North America-based executives published in the Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, 92% of respondents believe improving company culture would improve the overall value of their business.

When building your talent management strategy, workplace culture should always be a focus. By prioritizing culture as part of your strategy, your mission and values can guide everyday decisions and actions.

Here are a few actions your business can take to improve culture:

• Hire team members who are motivated by your culture
• Listen to and act on worker feedback
• Communicate transparently
• Recognize employees for their work
• Encourage career development opportunities
• Support workplace flexibility

The importance of a talent management strategy

Implementing a talent management strategy and continuously identifying ways to improve it offers businesses many benefits. Engaging, developing, and retaining a team of qualified workers is critical to business success. On the other hand, lack of a defined strategy can lead to challenges such as difficulty attracting talent, lack of team member engagement, and dissatisfied customers.  

Top benefits of an effective talent management strategy include:

• Improved recruiting and hiring. Top job seekers are highly selective about their career opportunities and are often hired out of the job market quickly. By building a strong employer brand and identifying ways to make the hiring process more efficient, your organization can engage quality candidates before they receive competing job offers.
• Streamlined onboarding experience. Other than any interactions during the hiring process, onboarding is a company’s only chance to make a positive first impression with new team members. Prioritizing standardized onboarding in your talent management strategy can help new team members feel a sense of belonging and start driving positive outcomes for the company sooner rather than later.
  
  
• Engaged team members and managers. With an effective talent management strategy, your organization can leverage team member feedback to understand what drives employee engagement and what might cause burnout and other frustrations. Based on this information, you can focus on continuously improving the worker experience, driving engagement as a result.
• Defined career development opportunities. A key way to engage workers is by offering opportunities for learning and growth. Setting aside budget in your talent management strategy for career development resources can help team members expand their skill sets, which will also help your organization fill skill gaps with team members you already have on board.
• Increased diversity. A successful talent management strategy incorporates practices to attract a more diverse workforce. Practices can include writing inclusive job descriptions, focusing on value-based hiring, posting roles on niche job boards, and hiring a diverse leadership team.
• Stronger business outcomes. Having the workers and skills you need in place in your organization and a strategy to develop and retain talent can have a direct positive impact on your progress toward achieving business goals.

Talent management strategy examples

The following are examples of talent management strategies that can help support career growth and workplace satisfaction.

Create a workplace focused on career development for team members

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One of the key components of your talent management strategy will be finding ways to develop a workplace where team members can flourish and grow to their greatest potential. While supporting budding talent sounds easy, the process requires planning, dedication, and a commitment of financial resources. Building a workplace focused on career development should be ingrained in the company’s culture to the point that it becomes systemic and sustainable.

Some effective strategies to create a career development-focused workplace include:

• Creating personalized development plans. Have a supervisor or HR personnel work with each team member to create a personalized development plan that reflects their career goals and interests. This plan should be detailed enough to provide a pathway for measurement and success, but flexible enough to allow the team member to pivot their goals as they become more ingrained in the company and learn about different career options. Set a timeline for the team member to revisit the plan with leadership and receive feedback on progress.
• Establishing a mentorship program. Invite senior staff to mentor junior team members. Pairings should be based on the junior worker’s interests and goals. Establish a system for meeting—such as over coffee once a month—to work on the junior staff member’s development plan or to develop certain skills.

Offering a way for your team members to better themselves and their prospects ensures you’ll have people internally groomed for more senior positions as they arise. Career development programs can help engender loyalty among workers and help them feel valued.

But keep in mind that not every team member has the same potential, and some will benefit more from a career development-focused workplace than others. The result could be feelings of being left behind or undervalued, and that could lead to disruptions in the workplace.

The costs associated with career development initiatives can also add up. For example, your team may notice some loss of productivity as management and staff time is spent focusing on career development rather than immediate company business. However, when properly implemented and followed, the benefits of career development can increase productivity in the long run.

Base positions around the cultural fit of team members

You can mentor, train, and develop your team indefinitely, but if someone isn’t the right cultural fit, they won’t be happy. Finding people who can work together toward a common goal is especially important in distributed work environments where team members might rarely, if ever, interact face to face in real time.

The benefits of seeking out and nurturing people who share compatibility with your company culture are great. Like-minded people who share similar values experience less workplace conflict. This translates into a more productive workforce.

However, there are drawbacks to focusing too narrowly on company culture. If not approached with awareness and heavy introspection, you could end up inadvertently creating an atmosphere of exclusion built on bias. The trick is being able to discern company culture compatibility from greater cultural biases.

Offer continuous, open training and development opportunities

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Whether your company offers formal internal training programs, sends workers to seminars or continuing education classes, or offers tuition reimbursement, offering some form of training benefit is an effective talent management practice.

The benefits of training include the opportunity to develop an enhanced workforce with a knowledge base that can be structured to align with the company’s growth plans, helping to ensure qualified workers grow into the right positions.

But training also presents potential drawbacks. Training takes time away from work and can be a significant cost to the business. Once a team member completes training or reaches a higher level of proficiency in a certain area, there’s no guarantee the company will reap the benefits.

The worker may have expectations of immediate remunerative benefits in the form of a promotion or pay increase. If those expectations aren’t met, they may leave your company for another that offers more opportunity. You would essentially be investing in their training to the benefit of another organization, even potentially a competitor.

To avoid potential challenges, make sure the team member feels supported and appreciated. While training doesn’t always lead to immediate remuneration in the form of a raise, it does help the team member improve their skills, which is ultimately valuable to the individual and the company as a whole.

Get expert help to create your strategy

Your talent management strategy is central to successfully scaling your business. Embracing outside expertise from an independent talent management or human resources professional can save your HR team time, reduce operational costs, and support business agility.

Through Project Catalog™, search one-on-one consultations and fixed-price projects that align with your talent management strategy needs and allow you to begin the engagement right away. Browse available HR consulting, talent acquisition and recruitment, performance management, and employee learning and development projects now.

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