Misplaced Talent: A Guide to Better People Decisions

Misplaced Talent takes a hard look at the cluttered field of Talent Management, and offers a clear guide to making better people decisions in any organization. Deliberately challenging practitioners to do more, the discussion sorts through the tools and techniques developed over the last century to examine their true relevance to the modern workplace, with topics spanning: • Frameworks beginning with job analysis and ending with competency models • Talent acquisition from identifying an EVP to using it in employer branding • Capability assessment via interviews, ability tests, and assessment centers • Psychometric assessment on characteristics like motivation, personality, and values • Employee development with 360 feedback, experiential learning, and coaching • Managing change with succession planning and performance management Readers will learn which activities show the greatest potential to improve the lives of employees and the organizations they work for, and identify which existing practices don't really add enough value to be worth the expenditure of time, money, and potentially lost talent. The reader is asked to make up his/her own mind about which approaches work best for his/her specific talent decisions, but provides the best theory and practice available today as a foundation upon which to formulate a more relevant strategy. In a world of big data, the potential to understand employees and react appropriately has never been greater. So why is Talent Management as an industry relying on outdated theory and practices? This book is a guide to bringing HR up to date, giving the tools, techniques, and perspective needed to demonstrate more value to organizations. Fundamentally, not much has changed in what constitutes good people practice. Practitioners must demonstrate the value of Talent Management, but the solutions implemented often fall short of the rigor and discipline they deserve. Misplaced Talent provides the insight needed to refocus attention and engage the organization about the value of better people decisions.