Choosing the Right Talent Management Consulting Partner

Engaging with a talent management consultant can fill a gap or enhance and support existing people and processes. 

What is Talent Management Consulting?

First, to dispel a myth, talent management is not the same as recruiting. Recruiting is a small subset of talent management, a broad term used to define various touchpoints along the employee journey. Talent management is sometimes called organizational effectiveness, organizational development, or employee experience. 

Companies today must place the utmost value on their most vital resource—their people. To do so effectively and comprehensively, they need a talent management strategy, a means to implement, manage change and integrate new practices. Fortunately, with the growing space of talent management consulting and gig work, companies of all sizes and industries can tap into the benefits of being strategic with talent management efforts. 

Talent management consultants get to know their clients to align talent strategies with company culture, values and goals. This approach reduces employee turnover rates while simultaneously increasing productivity and performance. A talent management expert can offer innovative solutions that will assist clients in meeting the ever-evolving business landscape.

A talent management professional will have the tools to define and enhance culture, attract talent, select candidates, improve performance, develop leaders, provide leadership coaching, design career progression, engage employees, and plan succession. 

Talent Management & the Employee Journey

Businesses benefit from a talent management framework and strategy that drives success. A talent management consultant can assist companies with creating such a framework, helping the business attain results faster. Companies typically spend around one-third of revenue on employee costs; investing in talent management efforts ensures maximum return on this expenditure.

Attracting, selecting, engaging and retaining the right talent is often difficult to quantify. The cost associated with turnover typically ranges from 1 times the individual’s salary for an unskilled, entry-level position to 100+ times their salary for a highly skilled or executive position. Some of the costs that aren’t easily factored into this are the downstream impacts of hiring the wrong person. For all organizations, ill-fitting hires are costly. For a start-up or small company, the damage done can be fatal. At the same time, an engaged, right-for-you employee can be the lever that catapults you to the next level.

Attracting and selecting the best talent for your organization goes far beyond posting and interviewing. It begins with a deep understanding of who you are as a business, and then knowing how to talk about this is a way that attracts the candidates who are aligned. Understanding who you are as a business is at the core. Clarifying and communicating the role in a way that opens the pipeline is another layer that a talent management consultant can assist with. Interviewing is truly a skill. An expert in talent management knows how to assess candidates and develop the skills managers need to be effective and legally compliant interviewers.

New hire orientation and onboarding are both powerful yet different. Partnering with a talent management consultant can create distinction and clarity, which can become events, processes, tools and experiences that decrease the time it takes for a new employee to be fully productive. 

Continually re-recruiting and engaging the top talent requires a different strategy, plan and skillset than attracting, recruiting and engaging the broad workforce. A talent management expert will enable you to differentiate between a solid performer, high performer, pipeline and high potential, and they will partner with you to retain these different audiences. 

Leaders must be capable and confident in leading and managing different employees. Even knowing where to start with leadership development so that the business sees a sustainable return on investment is challenging. A talent management expert assesses needs and identifies gaps to guide this planning. A talent management partner can also create and deliver the learning to address needs and gaps. 

One of the driving factors in a decision to stay with an organization is the opportunity to progress. Many businesses want to clarify career progression, but this is lagging in practice. Talent management consultants develop a unique-to-you career progression philosophy, career architecture and leveling guides.

Every business wants engaged employees. Talent management experts assist with the strategy and tactical planning to assess and address gaps. Knowing how to collect information about engagement can be tailored to your industry, size, years in business, employee audience, business needs, budget and any other unique identifier so that a formal employee engagement journey is successful. 

The workforce demographics are changing. Selecting to work with a talent management consultant can help you plan for the next generation of your business. This includes looking at current talent, future needs and skills gaps and implementing a plan. This broad look at the business is known as succession planning. Succession planning is different from identifying a single successor for a specific position. If you prefer successor identification to succession planning, a talent management expert can provide a skills assessment and create and support an individual development plan. 

There are many touchpoints along the employee journey. A trusted talent management consultant can help elevate and sustain your culture, employee experience and bottom line.

What are the benefits of Talent Management Consulting?

Talent management consultant assists organizations in creating and implementing best-for-you practices that attract, retain, and develop top talent. 

Working with a talent management professional can bring many advantages across industries. Some general benefits include improved hiring practices, higher productivity rates, greater retention rates, reduced costs and a culture that positively impacts the lives of everyone who works for and with you. A well-defined and effectively implemented talent management plan can be the differentiator that attracts talent and supports the vitality and growth of your business. 

If you would like to explore Talent Management services, let’s have a conversation. Ripple Effect Culture can help!