Talent Management - October 2008 - (Page 44)

insight by Agatha Gilmore Hewlett-Packard: Simple Talent Management in a Technical World Advanced levels of complexity state-of, the-art innovation, lines of computer code in languages that resemble a wayward alphabet to the untutored eye: Many of these things are tough to understand for those not embroiled in the business of technology Talent management at HP is . not nearly so complex, but is no less effective. When it comes to talent management, Hewlett-Packard is all about business — business strategy, that is. The technology company, which employs 173,000 people worldwide and operates in more than 170 countries, bases its people strategy ﬁrmly on the short- and longterm business goals of the company, said Linda Sharkey, vice president of people development at HP . Since accomplishing those goals is dependent on people, HP invests a lot of time and energy into its employees by setting clear expectations, engaging in rigorous skills analyses, developing a thorough internal succession plan and tying roles and responsibilities directly to the bottom line. After all, talent management “is about having people who are at the top of their game [and] who are able to drive the performance of the company,” Sharkey said. where we see ourselves going in the next three to ﬁve years? TM: It sounds like tying the talent management plan to the company’s business strategy has a lot to do with succession planning. Tell us a little about your succession plan. SHARKEY: We’re really moving into leveraging our own workforce. We really believe that knowing our talent internally and being very clear on what our development standards are, what our growth standards are, what our leadership standards are, is the way to go. So the whole career development piece is huge in helping people understand what we see as their career next step. These are not rocket-science things. This is not a matter of putting in huge fancy programs; it’s ensuring that we have enough touch points with employees so that they can see themselves having a career that they can grow with HP . In my mind, [it’s all about] leveraging and knowing who your employees are, being clear about career opportunities, enabling employees to have the career opportunities that make sense and making sure that we reinforce a culture that is high-performing — which means that we face the tough decisions, that we have a strong performance management system and that We use a number of different frameworks to look at our business model and determine the skill sets that we need in order to execute an in-depth strategy. Then we use that as a basis to determine whether we have the right talent to execute today’s strategy, and is that “right” talent going to be ready to execute TM: SHARKEY: How does HP align its talent management approach with its business strategy? 44 October 2008 talent management magazine www.talentmgt.com http://www.talentmgt.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Talent Management - October 2008

Talent Management - October 2008 Editor’s Letter Contents Human Performance Leading Edge Foundations The Three Pillars of Executive On-Boarding Role-Based Assessment: Thinking Inside the Box Who's Going to Speak Up for Health Care? Obey the Push to Automate Managing the Star Performer No One Wants to Work With Adopting a Mutual-Funds Model for Talent Management Hewlett-Packard: Simple Talent Management in a Technical World Team Effort Pays in Talent at London Business School The Employee Survey: What’s in It for Me? Why Most Managers Are Stuck Advertisers’ Index Editorial Resources Full Potential

Talent Management - October 2008

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