Critical Employee Talent Pool | Free Download

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The talent pool is a group of employees who are being trained to take greater responsibilities in the future for an organization. Often these are the top performers on the staff. Companies can also build a telnet pool internally as well as externally, and it is not always linked to their present or past performance.

Why do you need to develop an employee talent pool?

We live in a rapidly changing world today. We have technology that was beyond imagination a few decades ago. There is a whole new set of job profiles to implement and utilize recent technology. That means a newer set of skills and talent is essential for people who are appointed to new roles. We witness technological advancement consistently and with greater frequency than ever before. The products and services have to adapt continuously for businesses to survive longer in the market. The critical talent pool development ensures that your company is always equipped with the efficient human resources for that.

The organizations need to build a critical employee talent pool to ensure that future talent need is being fulfilled. The responsibilities for which the employees are being trained and groomed can be pertaining to the specific skill set, job profile, or ensuring the necessary leadership.

Developing a talent pool in the company can ensure the passing of the knowledge and alignment of the values that the company has. The development program involves upgrading a group of employees for predictable and unpredictable requirements in the future. That way, the company has an adequate pool of talent with them for the general as well as pacific responsibilities. You can see the group as a part of the company’s future; rather than having a successor for the leadership in the firm. This way, you can also reduce the risk.

In this piece, let’s discuss a few crucial points about developing the employee talent pool.

Getting started

It’s essential to do your preparation before you start building your talent pool. Developing an employee talent pool is not a one-time assignment. The goal of this process is to ensure the consistent availability of an efficient workforce in the company.

Here are a few things to get started with

• Ensure alignment of candidate’s values with company’s values. You can design some questions in your screening process to identify that can directly ask candidates about their values.

• Access the currently available talent in your organization and the skill set they possess. This will help you identify the gaps between present workforce requirements and availability. Similarly, do the analysis according to the projected business growth and the goals’ requirements.

• Include potential development of the employee over a period of years as one of the recruitment criteria. 

• Have strategic feedback and a review system in the company that allows you to keep track of employees’ overall development. This data will be beneficial for business-critical decisions like focusing on the pool of talent for the development of future leaders.

Externally developing employee talent pools include being resourceful 

• Identify candidates that are right for the requirements of the business
• Maintain a good relationship with the top talent that leaves your company 
• Those who have expressed interest in joining the company

Developing the talent pool

After gauging the skills and value requirements of the company, you can design a development program. The training involved can be a combination of both internal and external resources.

Internal talent development can start with a relationship between the team members with the managers. The managers can help them to improve their skills by constant input such as feedback and guidance.

The development of essential soft skills that employees need to skillfully navigate through their responsibilities does not always need an official training program. A mentorship program can be effective for skills like communication, tackling office politics and negotiation. Your employees will get not only the techniques but learn from the experiences of their seniors, which are more relevant and impactful for your business.

Timely and specific feedback is very important for any talent development program. Ensure that your employee pool for critical talent gets constant feedback about their performance.

Monitor your critical employee talent pool and make the necessary changes as and when required. There are many ways that the program can be affected due to internal as well as external factors. So you have to ensure that there is enough flexibility and agility to respond appropriately.

Once you design the critical talent pool development program and indeed the present employee to be included, inform them about the same. Draft your letter about the critical talent pool carefully to ensure that they see it as an opportunity as it is and not just an extra burden of responsibilities.