Talent Management

Background

An organisation was facing some difficult choices due to a forced downsizing. Because of financial constraints, they needed to let go of a number of staff.

Their workforce consisted of their main office and a number of small teams based offsite, providing contract services to other organisations. Each of these teams had a team leader.

Management had received complaints about three of these team leaders over the previous few months. Faced with downsizing and the additional threat of losing further contracts due to complaints, the organisation needed to act quickly.

Our Intervention

Career Development Services carried out Profiling exercises on each staff member. They were used to examine the level of match between each job role and the staff member in terms of the key behavioural requirements. The Competence Analysis System was used to measure each staff member’s ability to problem solve.

In the case of the team leaders where complaints had been received, we found that there was a very poor match between the person and their job profile. As it turned out, the three individuals in question reported having been unhappy in their roles for some time and had been actively seeking a career change. Management offered to assist them in this process by offering them further career development assistance through Career Development Services.

As a solution to the team leader positions that would soon become vacant, management had identified three existing staff members who showed management and leadership potential in their assessments. They would keep their existing duties but – with some management training – would also incorporate the role of team leader into their position. They would be rewarded with a salary increase which the organisation could afford as three full-time salaries would soon be released.

Outcome

The exercise offered the organisation an opportunity to solve their immediate problem, but they were also able to use the results in the ongoing development of all their staff. By analysing all of the talents and weaknesses within, they were able to identify specific training needs, opportunities for role expansion and/or role change and future management potential.