Top Tips for Developing a System Talent Management Strategy in Health and Social Care

Make sure you communicate why you are doing it

Improving performance, maximising potential, ensuring succession planning, benefiting from greater diversity. There are lots of good reasons for doing Talent Management in an increasingly competitive market place, and some health and social care organisations are already well on their way. The reality however is that individual organisations in the public sector simply don’t have the numbers to do effective talent management in some key areas on their own. Working in partnership across Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships provides an opportunity to address that gap.

If that isn’t enough, Talent Management is identified as critical to the success of health and social care in Developing People - Improving Care, and also forms part of the, Key Lines of Enquiry in the Well-Led Framework. To put it another way, this will be on your end of term report card, so get on with it.

Ensure CEO and HR&OD commitment in practice, not just theory

The success of any HR&OD intervention is often predicted by the buy in of senior executives. Alas, the NHS has a long history of failed initiatives because senior executive commitment ended at a signature on a memo. Your CEOs need to be your system Talent Board, and your HR&OD Directors need to be your system Talent Steering Group. If you have the right structure and support in place, neither of these should take up significant amounts of time. However, those small amounts of time that are given will be critical to delivering and implementing a successful talent management strategy.

Employ a dedicated resource

We all have our day jobs and are under pressure to meet internal organisational demands. Pulling together a group of organisations in a STP is simply not something someone can effectively do alongside their existing day job. One expert with; neutrality, expertise, enthusiasm and credibility will not represent a huge financial commitment divided between a group of organisations, and will move the process forward immeasurably more effectively than tagging it on to someone else’s day job. Identify that person, give them a clear remit, pair them up with a connected and enthusiastic HR or OD champion of talent management within the system, and you will have a fighting chance.

Be pragmatic about where you start

Each organisation will have its own priorities and ideas of where a system talent management strategy should start. The reality is that priorities across organisations in Health & Social Care will vary. However, you do need to start where everyone can play. While that might not be a priority talent area for you now, what you learn together as a whole can quickly be adopted to support subsystem priority areas.

Be honest with your data

Data on vacancies, costs and turnover is vitally important in maximising the value of your talent management process and enabling you to measure that impact. Some organisations will for various reasons be reticent to provide this data. Be very clear up front what data you need, why you need it, and what people are committing to. Ultimately, data on individual organisations can remain confidential, as it is the system aggregate data that is most important for system talent management. If you are embarrassed about your data and reluctant to share, then that is probably good evidence that you need to share if you want something to change.

Don’t get hung up on boxes

The 9-box grid can become unduly controversial. No one wants to be put in a box, and yes, it can be demotivating. But then no one wants to fail at an interview for a job or have a poor appraisal, yet we don’t get so hung up on railing against these forms of assessment, effectively boxing people but calling it something nicer. The 9-box grid is a tool that helps us map where we are so we can plot a path to where we want to get to. As a tool, used by a crafts person who knows how to have constructive conversations, it is hugely helpful in developing a good talent management approach. If you have a better alternative, lets hear it. If not, get on with it and make sure you and your managers are conversational master crafts people.

Unity doesn’t have to mean uniformity

A system talent management strategy should be developed to complement the talent strategies of existing organisations and the national talent work. That doesn’t mean we are all slavishly following the exact same process. Our leadership academies have done a lot of work and produced great materials supporting best practice on The Talent Hub. However, within those materials there is room for interpretation and organisational appropriation. We aren’t clones, but we do need to work together collaboratively to ensure that what we are doing as organisations, as systems, and nationally, is pulling in the same direction.

Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good

You are never going to get a system talent management strategy that you think is perfect, because all your other colleagues will have different experiences and opinions on aspects of that strategy that differ from yours. HR&OD executives are very good at asking others to collaborate, but as system leaders this is very much a personal challenge at this time. Leave your power plays at the door, bring your expertise and your opinions to the table, listen hard, ask lots of questions, and allow the collective wisdom of you and your colleagues to prevail. Ultimatums and throwing toys out of the pram are never a good example, it won’t lead to good and it certainly wont lead to perfect.

Finally, keep your sense of humour

Humour diffuses tension and can help moderate more extreme views. If you enjoy working with your colleagues, you are more likely to create something that will genuinely help develop talent in your system, ultimately impacting positively on the health and welling being of your family, friends and communities.