The Economist Intelligence Unit and DDI have produced a report called “The CEO’s role in talent management” based on 20 interviews of CEOs and COOs of $1B+ companies worldwide.

The conclusion should be a motivation for HR people: “The management of a company’s pool of talent is now too important to be left to the human resources (HR) department alone and has become the responsibility of the top executive.”

All 20 leaders said that it was their responsibility and 30% said they spent up to half their time on talent management.

The CEO’s view of talent management included: identify potential; psychological testing and performance assessment centres to determine capability gaps; training and development programs, relocations, project work, and job experience to accelerate development.

“However, few of the executives appear to have a strategic approach to talent management of the same rigor as other business planning processes.” An interesting point I noticed is that the importance of 360-degree feedback seems to be stronger for non-US companies, as out of the five CEOs mentioning doing it, four were non-US.

But why are CEOs all of a sudden spending time on talent management? According to the Economist, two factors largely account for this: “the shift in focus towards intangible assets such as talent” and “increased board scrutiny in relation to both ethics and performance”.

But what is the role of HR if it is not the sole owner of talent management? All of the interviewees say that HR departments are responsible for:
1. Executing talent management strategy.
2. Being custodians of the talent management process.
3. Providing guidance and fresh thinking about talent management programs.

Where to start? As you have seen, many processes must be tackled, but a constant seems to appear when CEOs start to think about talent management. They think about recruiting and internal mobility & development as the starting points.