Harsh economic conditions are forcing businesses to be innovative and creative in managing talent

We are now launching the second part of the War on Talent? hot topics series, which takes a closer look at some of the creative and innovative talent management practices that are being adopted in the light of the recession. This research pulls together the experiences of 10 diverse organisations (including International Personal Finance, BT, Tesco, the National Leadership and Innovation Agency for Healthcare, Gala Coral Group and the Borough of Tower Hamlets) to look at issues such as:

• What impact is the recession having on wider business?

• How are business and people processes changing to meet current and longer-term demands?

• And what innovative and creative talent practices are being developed?

Wider business processes and change efforts
Although all of the organisations featured in this research are placing more, not less, importance on talent management, many are adapting wider business processes in line with the current economic climate. Such changes to wider structures are clearly likely to impact on organisational approaches to talent management. These include linking all activity back to business critical needs, restructuring and refocusing, balancing the short and long-term perspective and sharing learning and pooling resources across different departments.

Wider change efforts are focused around three key areas. In challenging times, absence and performance management have increasingly come under the organisational microscope. Employee engagement, motivation and morale have also never been more important and, reassuringly, organisations are providing line manager support and development to engage and motivate not only talent but all employees in this challenging period.

Innovative practices
So are organisations developing more creative talent responses in the light of the recession? In a word - yes. The organisational snapshots in this research show a range of innovative ideas when it comes to meeting the challenges of engaging, developing and retaining talent in financially challenging circumstances. Again organisations appear to be upping the ante around creativity and innovation in order simply to survive and thrive.

Organisations are currently innovating around:

• Attracting fresh talent - building their brand, networking with future talent, acquiring talent from competitors and tapping into diverse talent
• Taking a strategic approach - through adapting and realigning talent strategies to meet current business needs and the changing economic and social landscape
• Focusing on creative, lower-cost but effective talent assessment and development initiatives
• Utilising all available funding opportunities for skill development
• Using this period to streamline and improve the design and value of their talent schemes
• Paying particular attention to talent performance and engagement
• Providing a greater number of well thought-out and supported internal stretch assignments, and;
• Asking for innovative business suggestions by talent pools and setting up leadership exchange groups providing talent with short business experience in a range of different settings.

This second phase of research once again validates the messages from the War on Talent, namely that talent management becomes more not less important in a recession. All of the organisations included in this research recognise the importance of creative talent management at this time more than ever in enabling them to meet both their immediate and longer-term business critical needs.

Claire McCartney is adviser in resourcing and talent planning at the CIPD