THE performance of many businesses in Northern Ireland could be suffering significantly through poor understanding of how to effectively deploy talent in response to business needs.
That is the warning which has been delivered by Lee Hecht Harrison (LHH) NI, the global talent mobility firm, following an in-depth study carried out by the company into talent mobility and the gaps demonstrated by a range of companies.
Entitled ‘Mobilising Your Workforce’, the talent mobility research report provides key insights into the challenges organisations face in implementing an effective talent management strategy and offers practical solutions to meeting these challenges.
The report’s findings revealed that 75% of organisations recognise that talent mobility — the ability respond to business needs as they arrive — is important.
However, as many as 85% identified themselves as failing to demonstrate effective talent mobility and described their talent management strategy as only moderately effective.
Glenda Nelson, regional manager of LHH Northern Ireland, commented: “Most organisations value assessment and have formal processes in place to review employee performance, but the report reveals that many managers don’t have a strong enough grasp of their people, their strengths and their development needs.
“Northern Ireland businesses could be missing key evaluation and coaching opportunities and, as a result, performances may suffer and growth may be hindered.
“Mobilising a workforce means equipping people to take on new responsibilities or move quickly into new roles as business needs require, but there are a number of barriers to this which have been identified.
“Managers are not being coached on when and how to hold effective career conversations nor are they being held accountable for developing their people, while organisations do not always support internal networking, career planning and development or employee self-empowerment.”
The Mobilising Your Workforce report has identified a number of practical steps which Northern Ireland organisations can take in order to improve their performance in terms of deploying talent in response to business needs more effectively.
Glenda added: “LHH recommends that a senior leader serves as a champion who can communicate the importance of talent mobility across the organisation, while managers’ mind-sets would be addressed through seminars, workshops or one-on-one coaching.
“Career conversations should become a part of performance reviews and employees should be supported with skill-building workshops designed to help them take control of their own career development.”