We were happy to get a note from Josh Bersin, CEO at Bersin & Associates, who wanted to highlight some of his firm's recent research on talent management: High Impact Talent Management®. The focus of the research was to identify:

• Business drivers and specific industry solutions that organizations are implementing.
• Level of maturity and adoption of different processes and systems.
• The highest impact talent management solutions.

Bersin analyzed more than 1 million data elements from 750+ corporations to develop these findings. Here are some of Josh’s comments about that report:

The best way to develop a focused strategy is to consider talent management a business strategy not an HR strategy. For example, many retail organizations need to develop talent acquisition, management, training, and succession programs. If they focus in a critical job area, their entire talent management strategy can be easy to define and actionable.

1. The biggest impact area is performance management.
2. The second highest process area was competency management.
3. The third major area which is becoming urgently critical is sourcing and recruiting.
4. The whole area of workforce planning needs tremendous focus.

We’ve always agreed that HR can add more value by better aligning talent with business objectives using the right solutions. And the best place to start is by developing talent management strategies that provide focused and immediate impact to the business. That’s how talent turns business goals into business performance.