What is talent development?
“Many organizations still think about talent development in a traditional way”, says Manuel. “They mainly assume an exclusive approach to talent, where investment is concentrated in a small group of high potentials, who, for example, are then groomed for leadership positions. I advocate an inclusive approach to talent, in which we look at the talents of all employees and how they can best be used for the organization.”
Twee jaar geleden Manuel wrote, in collaboration with media personality Ali B, a book about this subject called ‘Talent Central’. “By making the best possible use of an employee's talents, both the employer and the employee benefit from it,” says Manuel. “That, as far as I'm concerned, is what talent development is about. Many employers embrace the idea, but find it difficult to actually do it in practice.”
“By making the best possible use of an employee's talents, both the employer and the employee benefit from it."
Investing in talent
The way most organizations in the Netherlands organize work is still fairly traditional and therefore dated, Manuel thinks.
“The Netherlands is used to pigeonholing. In this case I'm talking about thinking in clearly defined roles. Each role has its own job profile with a whole host of tasks and competencies. Essentially it comes down to us looking for a six-legged sheep for every role. It's virtually impossible for one person, no matter how talented, to fit exactly within such a job profile and therefore be good at that entire laundry list of tasks and competencies. What then often happens is that employees are assessed on the things they are (still) not good at and mainly put effort into those. In that way we try to turn a four into a six. By letting people work from their talent, and investing in that, they can turn a seven into a nine. Then they have more job satisfaction and are more productive.”
Workcrafting
When people have talent for something, their passion and pleasure are often there as well. That produces positive energy. To put talent at the center, we must not keep thinking in terms of functions but in roles, argues Manuel.
“I call that workcrafting. In which a work package is formed around someone’s talents. Jobs can be broken down into different roles and responsibilities. These roles can be assigned to different employees, matching their talents and ambitions. That way a tailor-made work package emerges and an employee, as it were, creates his own job. From experience at an organization with 1700 employees that works out to 25 roles for the entire organization. Those are roles at different levels, of course, but they were all roles that could be well captured in specific skills. Within each team you can thus look very specifically at the distribution of roles by seeing whose talents best fit a role.”
War for talent
Manuel is convinced that workcrafting can be a way to meet the challenges in the labour market now and in the future.
“The tightness in the labor market is already being felt and that will not decrease for the time being. The war for talent will only increase. It is precisely important, then, to let people work according to their talents, because they will then get to work with passion and pleasure and be more effective in their work. If people do something they are good at and enjoy, they are also less likely to suffer from burnouts. That is certainly important now that we all have to work longer. People will also stay longer with an employer who pays attention to their talents, puts them at the center and values them.”
