Top 5 Talent Management Trends in 2011

Here are five of my favorite talent management trends to help you get excited about 2011. Why? Because these trends promise change, growth and opportunity.

Trend #1: Creative talent acquisition strategies - In response to talent scarcity companies will continue to pursue creative strategies to acquire top talent such as contractors, remote workers, retirees, part-time workers. As a result, the workforce will grow increasingly culturally diverse, global, virtual, connected, and multi-generational. Needless to say, traditional top-down hierarchical management styles and one-size-fits-all approaches to talent management won't cut it with the modern workforce.

Trend #2: Focus on engagement - Few top performers consider themselves highly engaged and as many as 1 in 5 are actively looking for new opportunities. This isn’t surprising given that the workforce has undergone both a cognitive and a demographic shift while talent management practices lag behind. Given ample evidence that companies with highly engaged employees outperform companies with neutrally or negatively engaged employees, over the next few years we'll see more companies adopt - not just talk about - best practices such as closer scrutiny of manager quality, continuous feedback, talent mining and mobility, workforce segmentation, employee recognition programs and differentiated pay.

Trend #3: Technology’s finally starting to deliver on its promises from the 80s - I've been waiting a long time to say that! Modern talent management solution capabilities include talent profiles, faceted search, talent pooling, goal alignment, embedded multi-dimensional workforce analysis, mobile device access and collaboration tools. These solutions help business people work together across borders and time zones; accurately assess workforce costs, capabilities and capacity; align work to business objectives; and optimize deployment of a highly diverse workforce.

Trend #4: HR’s about the business - It always was, but now that costs have been cut as far as they can there’s a new focus on value creation. HR professionals have a unique opportunity to help drive share price with improved workforce insight, alignment and optimization and it will be interesting to see how they take advantage of this opportunity. Modern HR solutions can help but aren't a substitute for strategic thinking and execution - the solution needs to fit the strategy, not the other way around.

Trend #5: Global's the new black - According to a recent Towers Watson study Creating a Sustainable Rewards and Talent Model companies are focused on creating globally consistent talent and rewards strategies in order to improve efficiency and alignment while reducing costs and risks. Global consistency will require companies to identify talent programs and critical talent pools across borders; standardize job profiles, compensation plans and competencies; and define a global performance and rewards process. At the same time, companies must remain locally flexible in order to stay competitive and compliant in each region. In other words, global companies need to get better at managing both globally and locally.

Wishing you a very talented new year!