At November’s Innovation Day, we welcomed Zoe Taylor, Professional Learning Advisor at KnowledgeBrief, and doctoral level researcher, lecturer and applied consultant at the University of the West of England, Bristol. She shared her professional insights on how to successfully retain and release talent by applying sport psychology to the workplace.
Career transitions, whether expected or not, are inevitable throughout the trajectory of our working life. As a manager, we may ask, how do we retain talent? And when is it time to release that talent? These shifts are commonplace in sport and, if done well, can leave your culture and performance in a better place.
Prepare talent to exit, from the day it enters. It may seem like a bizarre idea, but the moment an employee enters your organisation, you are preparing them for the moment they leave. If they thrive under your leadership, then you are giving them the opportunity to grow and flourish, even if it means that they eventually leave.
So, how do we best manage talent to create a sustainable culture of high performance?
Support your employees’ career journeys. Being aware of your career direction and goals along the way can increase motivation to achieve them. Having a clear focus on what specifically you want to achieve and setting a timeline for this can help you to achieve it. Ask your staff to consider where they are in their career now. What has their journey from the start of their career been? Any surprises? Now consider where they want the rest of their career to go. Who can they network with to maximise the potential of this becoming a reality? Career planning can help to produce more successful transitions, thus making it an essential part of talent management.
Regularly monitor and review the organisation’s vision of where you are going. As a senior leader, how do you ensure everyone lives by this vision on a daily basis? Allow employees the opportunity to be involved with the vision, rather than just expecting them to buy into it. Once the vision is defined, regularly check in with the leaders at all levels, to see how they role model it and are driven by it.
Map talent to vision. Is it a good fit? Create opportunities for individual talent development that is aligned to their career plan and the company’s vision. With pre-existing talent, have an honest and transparent talent audit of current skills and focus on retaining and releasing the talent which is most suited to the vision. Letting amazing talent leave may sometimes be sensible, even if challenging to initially reason. Consider opportunities for secondment, or talent transfer, if releasing the talent entirely is not the right decision.
Get talent on the agenda at board level. Talent needs to stop being an afterthought. Get talent on the agenda and discuss it. In sport, the talent is in the “shop window” every day. In business, your talent is in your shop window. Challenge perceptions of talent and demonstrate to your employees that this is a company priority. Engaging in a continuous talent review cycle, rather than stagnant annual reviews, will promote high performance.
Consider the whole person you are leading and managing. Talent management may seem simple in terms of the talented individual in the room who is employed to serve a purpose, but consider your employee as more than just a worker bee.
These are just some key highlights taken from November’s Innovation Day. Each month, clients of the Innovation Programmes receive a full ACT report, capturing the guest expert’s research, the implications and next steps for leaders to apply back in their team and organisation.
Sources: Taylor, Z. (2019) ‘Managing Talent, Learn from sport how to successfully retain and release employees’, KnowledgeBrief Innovation Day Presentation, 13 November.