Why should organizations care about
Defining a high-performing culture
High-performing cultures share common behaviors. These organizations are characterized by employees who are empowered to excel beyond their roles. They promote employee accountability and ownership, while enhancing their
One way to examine high-performance cultures through the talent management lens is to focus on the roles of people, process and technology. Technology is key, as multiple studies have shown digital transformation of organizations influences the
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Guiding principle 1: Implement practical designs to collect, store and use the talent data your organization needs
Technology can help organizations understand employees' skills, behaviors and competencies. Self-service tech features allow employees to track their own progress and contribute to data collection. An example is a company that has its training online, accessible to all employees through a portal that captures completion and other metrics. It's important that these training tools are both practical to the organization and easy for people to use.
Once the data is collected, leadership needs to think about who, how and when the organization should use talent data. This also includes establishing governance processes to ensure the validity and quality of the data that is collected.
Most high-performing organizations now rely on cloud-based systems to house talent data, making it accessible from multiple locations. This talent data is then integrated with other enterprise data such as learning and development programs.
Guiding principle 2: Empower your managers to stay attuned to the aptitude, behavior and needs of your people
Organizations should ensure they introduce regular check-ins between managers and employees, implement feedback mechanisms and equip managers with the right resources to facilitate career development. Some of the processes that help empower managers are establishing programs for recognizing and rewarding success. This can be done systematically and supported by technology, with software and platforms with built-in reminders, templates and other tools. But, at the same time, organizations need to be careful they don't over-engineer processes for managers. If the feedback process becomes too prescriptive, it could lose its value to employees.
Most importantly, organizations need to provide their leaders with access to real-time data and tools in a talent management platform. This data can be examined at the micro-culture level — with groups, departments or teams and at the macro level to identify trends in the entire organization.
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Guiding principle 3: Create and identify new opportunities for your people
This principle is about continuing the cycle of elevation with open communication through career development conversations. This is extremely valuable, because it helps ensure the right employee is working in the right job and working toward an appropriate next step in their career. This can be accomplished by holding goal-setting periods throughout the talent management cycle to help managers create and identify the right opportunities for their people. From a process perspective, organizations need to assess their current talent and needs of the organization, and develop career paths that include roles, skillsets and opportunities.
Technology can also be used to implement career succession planning tools that prepare employees to be successful in their future roles and help define and develop internal candidates for critical positions. Transparency is crucial throughout this process — ensuring employees understand various career paths within the organization.
Guiding principle 4: Foster an environment of responsibility and accountability at all levels
The final principle can be summarized as "talent management is everybody's job." This means organizations must foster an environment of accountability and responsibility at all levels, including trust in managers and employees. This people-focused strategy includes real-time and direct feedback in performance management.
From a process perspective, organizations must implement clear and measurable metrics that employees can access and understand. If metrics are not accessible, understandable and used, they are just busy work. Modern cloud-based solutions can be highly effective for sharing metrics if employers avoid over-complicating the system. The simpler and more streamlined, the more likely metrics will be used. We've also seen organizations leverage AI capabilities to support feedback cycles, especially in larger organizations with cloud-based programs.
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High-performance culture: How to get started
No matter where they are in their talent management modernization journey, organizations need to determine where they are and where they want to go. This means understanding their current state, and the policies and procedures that are unique to that organization, while setting clear goals.
They must also conduct an assessment of their digital landscape. In doing so, they should consider the following questions: What systems do they have that support talent management and what is the organization's overall technology strategy? Does leadership have insights into talent data? Are there other enterprise systems that require integration to meet your talent strategy?
The journey toward a high-performance culture can be daunting, but with the right tools and a roadmap focused on their goals, organizations can transform their talent management programs into a long-lasting legacy of success.
