People & Strategy Fall 2014 Teaser - 10

Talent Management Strategies
for Multi-Speed Growth:
Getting Your Practices in the
Right Gear
By Dr. James Eyring

Managing talent globally comes with an inherent tension. On the one hand, companies must adapt
to highly diverse market needs. They must source and develop talent in emerging and developed
markets, in locations that have high and no unemployment, and in countries with restrictions on
foreign talent. On the other, companies need to standardize practices across locations to benefit
from economies of scale.

R executives must balance being
locally relevant with being globally
efficient. If they get this balance right,
they will provide the talent that the business
needs to be successful. Getting this balance
wrong can result in a restricted talent pipeline.
As an example of a practice gone wrong, Dell
once standardized the size of their high potential pool to 10 percent of managers. Many
companies follow a similar practice based on
the belief that you should differentially invest
in your best talent. For a slower growth country like France, developing 10 percent of your
talent pool might provide enough talent to fill
manager positions as they become available.
However, this small pool will never meet the
need for talent in a high growth market like
Brazil. A company in this market may require
15 percent new managers a year simply to
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PEOPLE & STRATEGY

replace managers who leave the company.
They may require an additional 20 to 30 percent to manage new employees as the company
grows. A 10 percent key talent pool will not
keep up with demand. When faced with these
issues, Dell eventually changed its practice to
allow more flexibility in sizing the talent pool
to local market needs.
Some companies try to balance global and
local decision making by gathering input from
markets as part of the strategy process. However, this effort more often than not fails. First,
strategy tends to be shaped by larger markets,
which may have slower growth. What is good
for these markets shapes strategy and practice
and is launched globally. Second, companies
often rely on best practices from other companies. These practices are typically created in
large markets and may not reflect best practices

for high growth markets. HR executives must
go beyond gathering input locally and making
decisions globally. Instead, they need a framework for multi-speed growth that allows them
to make better talent management decisions
with local markets. By using such frameworks,
they will make decisions that are locally relevant, build the talent demanded by the business, and scale HR efficiency.

Choosing the Right
Talent Management
Strategy
A talent management framework should help
leaders choose strategies that result in different investment decisions, resulting in outcomes appropriate for targeted markets.

People & Strategy Fall 2014 Teaser

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of People & Strategy Fall 2014 Teaser

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