With the constantly emerging popularity of talent program it is well worth tidying up some related expressions and possible solutions. For this, DEVELOR is providing hands on guide in the following article.
In short:
- Many organizations misuse key talent terms, which leads to confusion and misalignment in talent management programs. DEVELOR helps clarify and structure these concepts.
- Three distinct solutions support strategic workforce development: Talent Management Programs (for high potentials), Key Employee Retention Programs (for critical expertise), and Strategic Job Families Projects (for high-impact roles).
- Each program serves a unique purpose, from long-term career development to immediate retention or strategic role analysis, all grounded in company strategy.
- Proper planning and precise execution are critical, missing even minor elements can compromise outcomes or drive top talent away before the program delivers results.
“In spite of the fact that in the HR community we use words like ‘talent’ or ‘key employee’ on a daily basis, I only experienced when going into the details that in many cases we understand them differently and many times some misuse them,” a head of human resources at a commercial bank once said.
DEVELOR has seen the same tendency. “During business meetings and even in requests for proposals there are some misused concepts in the topic amongst many positive examples,” Kinga Novotna, an experienced senior professional of DEVELOR Slovakia says. “In these cases our job is to educate the potential client, as we can only start the co-creation of a given program after we have resonated on the same wavelength.”
If we look at an organization from strategic point of view, we can state that there are some people or jobs that do have — or could have — bigger impact on the success of the firm. The question is how to detect them and how to get the most out of potential.
DEVELOR’s solid experience in this field contains three types of relevant and high value services, as follows: Talent or High Potential Management programs, Key Employee Retention programs and Strategic Job Families projects.
In our own unified professional dictionary we have clear cut definitions for the various complex services built on the main goal of the certain intervention.
Talent Management program
The Program is aimed to identify those who play a crucial role in the achievement of strategic business plan with high potential. These people are to be identified and their potential can be exploited with the help of focused and complex development, as well as career planning.
Key Employee Retention program
As there are some Key Employees in every organization who are hard to replace due to their critical (institutional) knowledge or expertise, the program aims to identify and retain them and to prepare some possible replacements for the unfortunate situation should they leave.
Strategic Job Families program
The concept is based on Kaplan’s Balanced Scorecard system as part of the Human capital. SJF projects are run to identify those job families which have the greatest impact on the strategy. After SJFs are defined along with a specific criteria set, the people working in these jobs are to be assessed with the help of a Development Center focusing on the criteria-related competences, and then a decision has to be made who to be trained or replaced.
SUMMARY
TALENT MANAGEMENT PROGRAM is a mid- and long-term solution derived from the company’s strategy that emphasizes talented individuals with potential.
KEY EMPLOYEE RETENTION PROGRAM is a long-term solution with immediate retention and motivation effect on key people that emphasizes the people with special expertise, skills, or experience.
STRATEGIC JOB (FAMILIES) PROJECT is a one-time but determinative intervention that puts emphasis on jobs strategically important for the company.
“The devil is in the details,” Kinga Novotna points out. “The projects of DEVELOR carrying the biggest impact are the ones based on proper planning and disciplined execution, because even the tiniest missing element can undermine the goals, and a group of talents can leave the company before the program ends,” she warns.
