Fighting back through talent innovation

Early last year, the CIPD released survey findings exploring how talent management strategies are being affected by the current uncertain economic backdrop and how important talent management is to organizations when things get tough. The reason for surveying on this topic was not to further contribute to the negativity awash in the media, but rather to focus on some of the positive measures that organizations can take in response to the economic challenges.

This research pulls together the experiences of ten diverse organizations (including International Personal Finance, BT, Tesco, the National Leadership and Innovation Agency for Healthcare, Gala Coral Group, Stanza, NPIA, National Express, Standard Chartered and the Borough of Tower Hamlets).

Although the current economic climate has heightened the focus on short‐term business critical needs there is a strong recognition by all of the organizations featured, that short and longer term perspectives need to be carefully balanced. What's more organizations need to develop a sustainable approach to talent management which by its very nature, should be focused on developing the current but also the future talent and capability of the organization.

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 downturn. All of the organizations included in this research recognise the importance of talent management at this time more than ever in enabling them to meet both their immediate and longer‐term business critical needs.