This is the last in our series on Talent Management.
Week One – We discussed the Importance of having a Talent Management Strategy and the benefit it can add to your business.
Week Two – We started creating your Talent Management Strategy, by identifying your Talent.
Week Three – We looked at the types of interventions needed to engage with your Talent and get them to where you need them to be, to grow and develop your business.
This week, it’s about putting your plan into action.
It’s easy when business is busy to focus on the here and now, delivering to your clients, making sales and ensuring that the day to day stuff happens. But only focusing on the here and now, will not get your business to grow and scale.
Remember that a wise man (Benjamin Franklin) said
“If you Fail to Plan, You Plan to Fail”
It’s hard to losing a vital member of your team for a day a month, let alone more, and it may seem risky but you will reap the benefits.
The way to get your plan to work is to plan your activities and communication plan so that interventions are well spaced and allow for business as usual activities to continue.
You can provide training and staff engagement activities in 1-3 hour modules, so that they can be undertaken, first thing in the morning, at lunchtime or at the end of the day, to limit interruption.
Also, if there is essential training that all members of staff need to undertake, do it in batches, and consider train the trainer courses, so that you can deliver the training
The important is that you are communicating and engaging regularly with staff and that they know there is a plan and where they sit within it.
If you implement these steps, you will have a more engaged and motivated workforce, with reduced turnover.
A basic example plan, can be found here, it's main use is to ensure that you have a timeline that you can stick too, with not too many interventions happening at once. Once this plan has been agreed, it can be broken down into a gantt chart, to keep track of progress and critical delivery dates.