Peter Cappelli is releasing his new book in a couple of weeks on the state of the talent management industry. He will be presenting a new model for talent that impacts organizations, employees, job seekers, coaches, counselors and anyone involved in the world of talent. We can already see his view in action in many organizations today.
Cappelli’s approach borrows from the principle of the supply chain and the manufacturing just-in-time revolution, but changes the language from an engineering certainty to a market-based approach with intrinsic uncertainty.
This new workplace dynamic revolves around 4 principles:
1. Make and buy talent: Internal talent development is still the preferred method as it is the cheapest and least disruptive for an organization. Yet, since the cost of unused inventory is a burden too heavy to carry, companies need to undershoot what their talent predictions are. Why undershoot? Because we have to accept the imprecise nature of talent forecasting.
2. Reduce uncertainty in Talent Demand: We have to accept the imprecise nature of talent prediction at its essence. Instead of going after the highly specialized developmental programs, we’re looking at providing training, tools, and framework that can apply to large employee populations and not small sections of your organization. We like this one, as it is exactly what Checkster is providing—a tool that helps all individuals grow!
3. Earn your ROI when you develop employees: Employees will have to share the cost of training, by either investing more of their personal time for training, or paying off the training investment if they leave. Note that new employers hiring employees could pick up the tab, making the reluctance or current training investment disappear. We like this one very much, as it is for the good of all parties!
4. Balance Employer/Employee interest: The internal job market within organizations places career management in the hands of employees. That’s one very efficient way to make a market-like approach to career evolution. Plus, it enables others to access a new realm of possibilities without being stopped by a rigid deterministic system. The only element that could stop us: our ability to produce results!
Order your copy of the book here.
For years, research has shown that past experience is a poor predictor of future performance, yet a recent article describes how “Conventional wisdom holds that as we do more things more often, we learn from experience and get better and better. What we found in our research is that this may not always be the case.”