What Is Talent Management?

Talent management is the system or strategy used by an organization to effectively recruit, hire, develop, and retain employees. Employees who are motivated to do their best work and are aligned to the business are more likely to grow in their roles and become leaders in the future.

Organizations develop talent management strategies for many reasons. One is to ensure that they are bringing in top candidates with the right attitudes, skills, and experience to match the organization’s culture and vision. Talent management strategies also ensure that employees are properly trained and developed, both to help employees reach their personal career goals and to help organizations develop future leaders, meet performance targets, and retain the best employees.

Talent Management Is a Shared Responsibility

Talent management starts at the top, with leadership from CEOs and other executives who set the tone for how employees are recruited, developed, and retained. Human resources (HR) departments are then responsible for talent management processes and procedures, such as coordinating hiring practices and overseeing the training of new hires, ongoing performance reviews, and ad hoc feedback. There is no one set of best practices because each organization needs to develop the culture that is right for it.

An organization’s leaders not only help develop talent management strategies but also communicate the importance of talent management to managers and employees, ensuring that strategies are carried out and updated as necessary to keep pace with growth and cultural changes.

Within each division or business group, managers spearhead many specific talent management responsibilities, such as evaluating employee performance and identifying succession strategies to ensure that every position is filled by the best possible internal or external candidate.

Why Talent Management Is Critical to Business Success

When done well, talent management benefits both employees and the organization. For employees, talent management helps them

Learn new skills through ongoing training and development opportunities, which in turn help them progress toward their career goals
Find new internal opportunities that take advantage of their skills, interests, and experience
Earn promotions or transfers to new positions that provide continuing challenges and job satisfaction

Companies are increasingly realizing that human capital is their most valuable asset—so hiring, training, and retaining top employees is a critical goal. Today, organizations can use a variety of analytical tools to gain a big-picture view of the talent pool and a detailed understanding of what individual employees need to succeed. Using these tools, organizations can

Identify needs early, such as roles that need to be filled or skills that are lacking in specific departments
Attract top talent—people with the right skills who are also aligned with the organization’s vision and culture
Fill critical roles quickly with targeted recruitment efforts and efficient hiring practices
Cultivate and retain the best employees by using talent profiles, performance goals, development plans, learning opportunities, regular performance check-ins, personalized coaching, and other tools
Reduce employee turnover rates to save time and money
Improve business performance and customer satisfaction by building an organization of loyal, experienced employees

Learn how human capital management connects with talent management

How a Talent Management System Can Help

Talent management systems are software applications, often hosted in the cloud, that help organizations carry out their talent management strategies. Integrated talent management software essentially houses, collects, and analyzes data related to potential and existing employees to ensure that the organization finds, hires, and develops employees in the best and most efficient way possible.

By incorporating emerging technologies such as AI, machine learning, and big data, talent management systems can help organizations

Anticipate future resource needs
Develop detailed talent profiles on existing and potential employees
Quickly source and screen candidates from large talent pools
Monitor and predict worker and team performance
Assess employee potential, risk, impact of loss, and performance to inform succession planning
Provide proactive, personalized learning recommendations to employees based on their career goals, and track their progress

The Benefits of Cloud-Based Talent Management Systems

The latest cloud-based talent management systems are especially helpful for today’s organizations because they support anytime, anywhere access, often from any device. This means that employees can update their talent profiles at home, and managers can view and track key metrics from the road. Cloud-based applications are very dynamic, and innovations can be delivered to current and prospective employees quickly and easily.

In addition, cloud-based talent management applications can reduce an organization’s capital costs, and the solutions are constantly being updated to provide better visualizations and deeper insights.

See how human resources and talent management systems take advantage of the cloud

The Future of Talent Management Is Now

Top talent management systems and strategies are becoming more powerful, predictive, and flexible. They are making it easier for organizations of all sizes to gain more insights into their people and the hiring, training, and other processes that can make both employees and organizations more successful.

Talent management software solutions are evolving to be:

Accessible. With online talent management systems, employees and managers can view and work on talent profiles, update goals, edit learning plans, track progress, and more regardless of where they are. Voice assistance will also save time and make it easier for users to interact without a lot of typing.
Consistent. Whether users are accessing software from their phone or a desktop computer, the user interface looks the same, making it easier and faster to run searches, enter data, and more.
Intelligent. AI and other advanced technologies are rapidly making chatbots and digital assistants “smarter” so that they can provide more informed responses, offer suggestions, and speed interactions.
Proactive. Talent management solutions are increasingly becoming proactive—not only providing information when asked but offering push notifications, including reminders and suggestions. For example, an employee might be reminded of an upcoming training, or a manager might receive a notification about an employee’s updated talent profile.
Informed. Talent management systems can provide real-time data and flexible reporting options, so managers and executives always have access to the latest information to help them make informed decisions.

Already, organizations are benefiting from a variety of leading-edge talent management and related software solutions. Oracle Talent Management gives organizations a clear picture of their talent pipeline and supports employees in building their reputations. Employees can easily upload and update their talent profile information by using a LinkedIn Profile Import feature. In addition, Oracle’s My Brand feature helps employees understand and improve their brand by spotlighting their expertise, and helps managers discover hidden talents and skills of employees based on a combination of profile and reputation information. Oracle also offers solutions for talent acquisition, which covers employee sourcing, recruiting, and onboarding.

Learn More

Discover more about the many HR and talent management solutions available from Oracle, including Oracle Talent Management and our smarter HR and talent management solutions.