Let’s talk about Talent Management. Specifically how we’ve been doing it from a functional HR point of view and how badly broken it is.

We’ve done nothing wrong, exactly. It’s just that everything around us has changed and we haven’t.

SO WHAT’S CHANGED?

• We have a new workforce, and they have different expectations. They expect attention, they expect to be talked to by their leaders in a culture that thinks about them every day. They’re more willing to make job changes than ever before.
• We’re operating in a new economy. The roles shift faster than ever before. The types of jobs needing to be done have changed, and the skills required to do them are vastly different.
• Leaving us with an entire multigenerational workforce that needs to be reskilled. Whose job is that? Higher education? Our own job as individuals (be your own career manager)? The job of employers?

Not only that, our current concepts of how the workforce looks no longer apply. The workforce is made up of contractors, gig workers, freelancers, those who have worked or will work for vendors and even for your competitors. You need to manage, motivate and measure all of these different types of talent that makes up your shifting workforce and meet them where they are.

So how do you think differently in the existing silos that make up the Human Resources function today?

You can’t.

That’s why we need to break the silos. Break Talent Management. This is the new imperative of every CHRO and CXO.

Listen to my thoughts here, and let me know what you think: