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Center for Effective Organizations

Research

Beyond HR to Talent-Centric Strategy

For the last 30 years, HR has largely been defined through the programs and practices that it implements to affect the workforce. The future will focus beyond HR programs on a simple question--Do you excel in the competition for talent where it matters most to your sustainable strategic success? Talent competition takes place both within and outside organizations. It takes place globally, and it requires that organizations create a unique talent value proposition, but also that they consistently discover where the amount of talent, its quality, and how it is organized make the biggest difference to strategic success. The future of talent competition will be determined more by how well employees and leaders outside of HR think, decide, and act, than by how well HR delivers its services. The future winners will invest very differently in pivotal talent and organization elements, even when that requires uncomfortable conversations. Talent will be treated not simply as a valuable asset, but as a strategic resource that is too important not to optimize. HR will be accountable not only for its expertise and its services, but for the quality of decisions that are made throughout the organization.

After decades of admonishments for HR to be more strategic, and for organizations to acquire, deploy, nurture and organize talent befitting its strategic significance, CEO research shows that HR spends about the same amount of time on administration and services. Little is known about how leaders inside and outside HR answer fundamental questions such as how talent and how it is organized drive sustainable success, whether to make or buy talent, what organization design elements are strategically pivotal, and whether to copy "benchmark" talent practices or opt for something unique. During 2008 CEO will initiate research to better understand these working models, and the role of the HR profession in enhancing them.

Many questions will have to be addressed, including:

  • What do decision makers consider when they make decisions about where to invest in talent and how to organize it? Do the considerations differ between leaders inside and outside of HR? Is one set of considerations more valid?
  • Do decision makers apply fundamental economic principles to their talent decisions, in the same way that they apply those principles to decisions about money, customers or other resources?
  • When the strategic context changes, how do decision makers decide what to change about their talent and how it is organized?
  • Do organizations with more sophisticated working models regarding talent and how it is organized achieve better results?

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