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Driving Change: Managing Talents & High Potentials

High-performing junior staff and high potentials are vital for the survival of any company. They fill key positions and shape transformation processes. Thanks to their outstanding performance, the company can react faster, more creatively and more nimbly to the challenges of the time. Their productivity is particularly high, and their skills are critical to the success of the company. But these special team players are rare on the labour market. The term “war for talents” is well known. It was coined in 1997 by the management consultancy McKinsey and is more topical today than ever. The competition for talent is fierce. Especially for small and medium-sized enterprises, which must compete with large corporations on the labour market. To find and retain talent and high potentials, to empower and promote them, strategic talent management is a core task. And some even see it as the top issue of the future for companies.

Talent – what is that anyway?

“Talent” is a word that smacks of the elitist. After all, who has talent? Isn’t there hidden potential in every human being? Even if the definition of talent varies among scholars, there is a consensus on one point: a talent excels through special achievements. The Latin “talentum” translates as a special gift or ability. But having the potential is one thing. Using it in such a way that it generates the desired and potentially significant added value for the company is another. This requires a holistic and strategic talent management that is closely interlinked with competence management.

Implementing Talent Management Systematically

Talent management is about filling the most important key positions and thus about the future viability of the company. It is developed from the corporate strategy and is not only the task of HR managers, but also the responsibility of the company’s management. The development of a suitable talent management concept is based on qualitative and quantitative personnel requirements: Which talents does the company need for which key positions? Which retirements in critical positions are due and when? Are expansion plans to be considered? A systematic approach is used to analyse which specific positions and roles need to be filled by high potentials in the short, medium, and long term. The required competences and requirement profiles are defined for the needs. Once a company knows the current and future demand for talent, the search for talent begins: How does the company find the right talent? And which talents does the company already have on board?

Finding, Promoting and Retaining the Right Talent

The search for qualified and suitable talents is about finding the employees and potential future employees who fit the company’s requirements with their special performance and high potential. The goal of talent management is to systematically and in a focused way find the special employees that the company needs to achieve the set company goals. Talent and position in the company must be a good match. To achieve this, the focus is on the achievements, the current performance, and the individual goals for the future. With a clear profile of the requirements and the key position to be filled, the necessary transparency is created to find the right talent for the company. Systematically identifying and integrating high potentials is an important basis for succession planning. Especially for critical roles and positions in the company, it is important to act with the appropriate lead time. If it is foreseeable that a key position will have to be filled in the future, the suitable successor should be identified at an early stage. Sufficient lead time can prevent valuable knowledge from being lost in the succession process.

Challenges in medium-sized Companies

Recruiting new talent is also about the external impact of the company: Does the employer brand have the desired external impact? Is the company attractive for talents? This is where medium-sized companies face challenging competition for talented employees from large corporations, as their brand, product or service is less well known. With a well-thought-out employer branding strategy, they open up the best possible opportunities to attract talent. In addition to the right personnel marketing, suitable personnel planning and development also pave the way.

SMEs have a wide range of instruments at their disposal for developing and retaining the talent they have acquired, such as transparent career paths, regular feedback interviews, specific on-the-job training, targeted management development or suitable further training measures. Development plans tailored to individual requirements and needs, non-material rewards and meaningful tasks are important criteria for long-term talent retention. THE MAK`ED TEAM develops a holistic talent management concept for its medium-sized clients that has proven itself in corporate practice. Our HR experts know how to efficiently design the interfaces of needs-based personnel development processes within personnel management. We implement structures that enable medium-sized companies to identify, optimally promote and retain talent in the long term. Because one thing is clear: talent management is not just a topic for the big players. It is also a decisive competitive factor for medium-sized companies.

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Win-Win! This is why transparent development paths are so important

Finding staff, retaining staff: What used to be an everyday routine is now a supreme discipline in management and HR departments. More than ever, staff retention is an important key to corporate success. And in the highly competitive labour market, it is a real challenge, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises. Attractive and transparent development paths play a key role in employee retention.

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Strong Brand, Attractive Employer: Employer Branding in SMEs

What makes an employer a preferred employer? What makes it attractive on the employer market? These and similar questions are currently on the minds of many companies. In view of growing personnel problems, they are looking for tangible solutions. This was also the case for one of our customers. The medium-sized craft business was having increasing difficulties in finding new employees and was facing more and more bottlenecks. That’s why the traditional family business decided to work with us to develop and implement an employer branding concept. The goal: to make the company more visible, more attractive; in short: to make it a preferred employer, an “Employer of Choice”.

Leaving nothing to chance: step by step to a strong employer brand

First of all, we look at where our client stands: How does the company present itself internally and externally? Which social media channels are used and how? How is the recruiting process set up – including job descriptions and portals. With this transparency and the established objectives, THE MAK`ED TEAM develops suitable measures in an individual employer branding concept, which the company can implement to strengthen its own brand and thus position itself convincingly in the competition. No question: Building a successful employer brand is a long and permanent process. But with the right steps, the first visible successes can already be achieved. Since a brand can only ever be as good as the product or service it offers, authenticity, flexibility and the courage to change are important. An employer that is preferred on the labor market is at the cutting edge with its corporate culture, workplace design and benefits for its employees. Especially among millenials and post-millenials, “soft” factors such as professional self-fulfillment, flexible work models or work-life balance play an important role when choosing a job. And this offer is communicated and implemented with an employer branding concept geared to the target group. That’s why a strategically well-positioned employer brand should now be part of a company’s basic equipment.

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A topic that is important for SMEs: Employer Branding

Most small and medium-sized companies feel it clearly: the necessary employees are harder to find than ever before! In certain sectors or regions, the shortage of skilled workers has been painfully noticeable for some time, but finding and retaining well-qualified candidates is now a real art. It is not the employer, but the potential employee who holds the scepter. This paradigm shift in the labor market is one of the great changes of our time. Consequently, so-called employer branding, i.e. the development of an attractive employer brand and its marketing to the outside world, is increasingly coming into focus. No matter what size company and what budget it has available: If it wants to secure its own future, it must adapt to the requirements of potential employees with suitable marketing and recruiting strategies.

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Strengthens medium-sized companies: an active HR department

Whether it’s a small family business or a globally active company: Finding the right staff is becoming increasingly challenging for every HR department. The shortage of skilled workers has become the bottleneck in German SMEs – and good staff has become a critical resource for success. New, good team players are rare. The constant development of the existing team, making it fit for the future and keeping it in the company, is a real challenge. Through professional and strategically anchored personnel work, medium-sized companies can improve their position to meet these challenges.

How to create a good basis for strategically operating human resources work

Not every company needs a whole HR department to effectively manage the human resources and the corporate culture. Sometimes, only one HR officer is enough. This depends on many individual factors of the company, such as size, industry, complexity or planned orientation.

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