Talent Management helps us get the right combination of people in the right places to transform our services. It is essentially the practice of repeatedly asking the question:
What actions, behaviours, skills and attitudes will help me deliver the outcomes and culture I want to see?
Whether you are looking to deliver system-wide change for thousands of people or leading a small team it comes down to that same question. Each person has unique talents that can be accessed and grown and every strategy or desired outcome requires particular attributes to deliver it. Equally success rarely comes from a single person but how you shape teams to enhance the strengths of each individual.
People are our biggest and most expensive asset in the NHS. Talent Management enables us to intentionally approach how we best employ them to both serve our communities and our staff. When fully aligned with leadership and system development it helps us keep our people motivated, effective and performing well.
Over the next year our priorities for talent in the NHS are primarily:
- Recovery: Enabling services and people to regain their strength
- Delivering the People Plan and prioritising diversity in talent
- Supporting the transition of Integrated Care Systems and Boards
The processes of talent management include how we agree what talent we need to deliver our outcomes; how we identify talent in people fairly and inclusively; how we deploy and develop them; how we attract and keep them. Whether you know it or not, you are doing talent management every day – it just might not be conscious, aligned or focused on delivering your organisation’s outcomes.
