International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management

Managing the talent management pipeline: Towards a greater understanding of senior

managers' perspectives in the hospitality and tourism sector
Norma D'Annunzio-Green
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Norma D'Annunzio-Green, (2008),"Managing the talent management pipeline", International Journal of
Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 20 Iss 7 pp. 807 - 819
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The talent
Managing the talent management
management pipeline pipeline
Towards a greater understanding
of senior managers’ perspectives 807
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in the hospitality and tourism sector

Norma D’Annunzio-Green
School of Management and Law, Napier University, Edinburgh, UK

Abstract
Purpose – This paper aims to explore managers’ views on the challenges and opportunities around
the talent management (TM) pipeline in a range of hospitality and tourism organisations. The paper
seeks to focus on drawing out key issues and suggesting practical actions arising from these.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws primarily on a number of in-depth interviews
with senior managers representing a wide range of sectors in the industry. Managers’ views are
summarised and quotes used to illustrate key themes.
Findings – Each stage of the TM pipeline is explored and the findings reveal a number of contextual,
strategic and operational concerns around the implementation of TM policy and processes. Findings
indicated clear commitment towards the value of TM, but revealed that some policy areas were felt to
be underdeveloped. Approaches to TM were organisation specific, and driven by internal expertise
and available resources. Organisations would fit and tailor their TM approach to their own context.
Practical implications – A number of practical implications emerge from this paper specifically
relating to defining, attracting, retaining developing and transitioning talent.
Originality/value – The paper provides a senior management perspective on TM and allows the
reader a unique insight into the complexities of managing talent in the hospitality and tourism sector,
highlighting the issues that organisations are facing.
Keywords Hospitality services, Tourism, Senior managers
Paper type Viewpoint

Introduction
Talent management (TM) can be defined as a holistic approach to human resource
planning aimed at strengthening organisational capability and driving business
priorities using a range of HR interventions. These include a focus on performance
enhancement, career development and succession planning (Iles, 2007). The concept of
TM has evolved into common management practice and while originally focused on
recruitment (Michaels et al., 2001), it is now recognised as a much broader concept
aimed at attracting, retaining, developing and transitioning talented employees. This
paper presents the views of a number of senior managers in the hospitality and tourism
sector, and develops a deeper understanding of their perceptions around the value of International Journal of
Contemporary Hospitality
TM, the approaches they adopt, and the issues and challenges they face in the process. Management
The objectives of the discussion were as follows: Vol. 20 No. 7, 2008
pp. 807-819
.
To examine senior managers views on TM in terms of its definition and meaning q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0959-6119
and its contribution to business success. DOI 10.1108/09596110810897628
 IJCHM .
To explore current practice in a range of hospitality and tourism organisations at
20,7 each stage of the TM pipeline, specifically attraction, retention, development and
transitioning of talent.
.
To uncover managers views on challenges and issues at each stage and provide
practical suggestions for process improvement.
808
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This discussion was specifically focused around senior managers in hospitality and
tourism operations representing a variety of sub-sectors (hotels, bars, restaurants,
contract catering and events management) and a range of SMEs, large MNCs, charities
and government funded bodies responsible for hospitality and tourism development.
The contributors were given the following definition of TM and were asked to
discuss a series of questions around the area of TM with the aim of learning more
about the challenges and key issues that they are dealing with and how they are
responding to these. The definition was drawn from CIPD (2006a) and is illustrative of
a holistic approach to TM:
Talent consist of those individuals who can make a difference to organisational performance,
either through their immediate contribution or in the longer term by demonstrating the
highest levels of potential.
Talent management is the systematic attraction, identification, development, engagement
retention and deployment of those individuals with high potential who are of particular value
to an organisation (CIPD, 2006a).
The discussion highlighted a range of views and suggestions as to how TM strategies
can be improved. These are presented in Tables I-V which draw out the implications of
the discussions for key stakeholders in order to assist them in operationalising their
TM strategies.

Area of talent Implications for Implications for

management hospitality Implications for talented
strategy Key issues organisations managers employees

Defining talent Low awareness Collaborate with Take Get to know the
of talent educators and responsibility for language of
management allocate a talent talent in the
terminology member of the management organisation.
Need for more management Include talent Look for role
specific team to keep up management as models and learn
definition of to date with an item on the from them and
talent and more current thinking agenda for their behaviour
discussion of in talent management
what constitutes management meetings
talent in Consider ways to
Table I. organisations encourage
Talent management managers to take
strategy – issues and responsibility for
implications for talent
stakeholders management
 The talent
Area of talent Implications for Implications for
management hospitality Implications for talented management
strategy Key issues organisations managers employees pipeline
Attraction Acute awareness Continue to Differentiate Offer feedback to
of the benefits of define employer brand from managers as to
selling their brand, competition – whether the 809
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employer brand communicate consider unique suggested unique

to future talent widely through selling points selling points are
and each recruitment Survey the reality of
organisation channels employees to working life in
clearly Develop strategy develop better the organisation
understood their to encourage understanding of Ask to meet
unique selling current their views on members of the
points but often employees as employer brand team as part of
this was not ambassadors Develop the recruitment
validated from recruitment plan process to help
the employee for each job set your
perspective family expectations
General Act as
agreement that a ambassadors for
more formal new talent into
attraction plan your
was needed at organisation
local level
More
understanding
and discussion
required of
common
problems and Table II.
possible Attraction of talented
solutions to employees – issues and
problems of implications for
attracting talent stakeholders

There follows a brief review of literature in the four areas of defining, attracting,
retaining developing and transitioning talent, followed by the key themes arising from
the discussion and illustrative quotes.

Defining talent
In defining talent, it is worthwhile referring back to Michaels et al. (2001) who first
coined the phrase “the war for talent”. They define talent in a general sense as the
sum of a person’s ability, to include their skills, knowledge and potential for
development. They argue that a certain part of talent eludes description “you simply
know it when you see it”. Many companies today invest resources in describing the
behaviours that they would like to encourage in talented employees and these will
vary from organisation to organisation. There is therefore likely to be no universal
description of talent and each company will work towards understanding the specific
talent profile that fits best with their culture and structure. Achieving
a comprehensive approach to TM involves organisations in a journey, focused on
 IJCHM
Area of talent Implications for Implications for
20,7 management hospitality Implications for talented
strategy Key issues organisations managers employees

Retention Need to develop Develop Use hard data to Communicate

better managers gain your concerns to
810 understanding of communication management managers – as
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motivations skills and commitment often problems

behind measure the towards and concerns can
employee’s results developing be solved
decisions to stay Define good and retention plan
or go poor Develop
Need to keep up communication coaching skills
to date with and measure as for all managers
emerging social part of the Understand the
trends appraisal system hard and soft
influencing costs of employee
different staff turnover for your
motivations business and
Need to develop communicate
structured this to all
retention plan involved
Loss of talent due Consider whether
to poor talented
Table III. communication employees know
Retention of talent – between they are valued
issues and implications managers and
for stakeholders staff

firstly establishing a strong business case for talent and understanding the direction
and needs of the business and secondly aligning this with a range of HR systems and
processes. While this makes good business sense and there are many
well-documented and compelling arguments for developing a TM strategy, a recent
CIPD (2006a) survey reported that 60 per cent of organisations had no formal TM
strategy and 80 per cent had no formal definition of talent. The aim of this discussion
with hospitality and tourism managers, was to present a snapshot of views on the
value of TM and current practice but at the same time highlight the problems that
exist in developing a formal strategy and go some way towards understanding why
TM is such a compelling yet elusive concept.
Recent research in the UK has pointed to practitioner confusion around definitions
and focus of TM and often when managers talk about talent there is lack of clarity
regarding exactly whom they are referring to (CIPD, 2006a; Schweyer, 2004; Tansley
et al., 2007). Talent strategies can focus on a number of groups of employees. For
example, the high potential, high performers (commonly referred to as HiPos) who are
identified as promotable; or key talent, defined as people with talent that the
organisation values at all levels. They may have business specific skills or knowledge
or possess special know-how, which differentiates them from other employees and
makes them hard to replace. They may not be on a particularly structured career path
but they are just as important to organisational success. The choice here is between an
inclusive or exclusive approach to TM. Most respondents to the CIPD (2006a) learning
 The talent
Area of talent Implications for
management hospitality Implications for Implications for management
strategy Key issues organisations managers talented employees pipeline
Development Role of line Free up time in Encourage talented Take responsibility
manager as critical management role employees to for your own
to development for talent discuss their development 811
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process development development needs Communicate your

A trend towards Allocate resource to and aspirations aspirations to your
encouraging identifying internal with you line manager
employees to take talent and increase Try to look for
more responsibility awareness of the potential in your
for their own skills profile of your employee pool on a
development employees continual basis
Other pressures, Consider
priorities and development of all
resource constraints levels of talent
provide barriers to including Table IV.
more sophisticated executive/director Development of talent –
approaches to talent level issues and implications
development for stakeholders

and development survey believed TM should be inclusive and applicable to all (CIPD,
2006a). Almost two-thirds of respondents believed that an exclusive focus would have
strong de-motivating effects on those not included.
Interest in TM
A range of factors have fuelled interest in TM. With a growing global labour market
making competition for labour increasingly internationalised, employers are looking
to other countries to attract talent, therefore companies are experiencing
more competition for talent in their domestic labour markets and have to compete
internationally themselves. An increasingly virtual workplace has made the
boundaries between organisations more permeable, enabling collaboration and
intensifying competition for staff at all levels (Reed, 2001).
The diversity of the workforce in terms of age race and culture has put pressure on
employers to embrace and embed concepts of fairness and diversity in any TM
approach. Many of today’s employees have independent views about their own
lifestyles and access to information about career opportunities. The growing focus on
work life balance issues is driving TM policies to shift the focus from measuring hours
at work towards the quality of contribution made while at work. In addition, a mobile
workforce, tight labour markets and the end of the concept of a job for life have made
workers with highly transferable skills a much sought after commodity (Reed, 2001).
“An organisations key assets are also its most mobile assets with job moves
undertaken to increase and enhance knowledge bases, employability and earning
potential” (Iles, 2007, p. 107).

Discussion and results

The results of the discussions with senior managers are now presented, drawing on
key themes and using illustrative quotes to amplify managers views on the challenges
that they are facing.
 IJCHM
Area of talent Implications for
20,7 management hospitality Implications for Implications for
strategy Key issues organisations managers talented employees

Transitioning Reactive approach Need to develop Coaching and Have realistic

driven by pressure structured mentoring training expectations
812 to fill vacancies transition paths for managers and Learn the skills and
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Fast internal and communicate talent experience

promotion process these clearly to Need to develop necessary to move
can pose problems if future talent skills in identifying from one level to
talent has not yet Fast internal potential talent another. Be
acquired all the promotion system, proactive about
necessary skills while seeking out these
At senior levels a advantageous, training
more bespoke and requires coaching opportunities
individualised and mentoring Listen to feedback
approach to support system on
transitioning talent
was adopted
Table V. Transition from
Transitioning talent – middle to senior
issues and implications managers deemed
for stakeholders problematic

Use of the term TM and TM strategies

There was generally low awareness and low usage of the term TM. It was described by
one respondent as:
[. . .] creeping more into the conversation now but not part of common language here and
another we never use it. It is not a word I had come across until now.
Quite a high percentage of the respondents involved in the discussion were
representative of SMEs and they discussed the challenges around having no formal HR
function to coordinate TM activity. One manager suggested that:
[. . .] this puts a lot of responsibility and pressure on managers to take the lead in talent
management and it is difficult to know where to start.
Part of the discussion involved asking the respondents to describe a highly talented
person in their organisation. Interestingly many found this hard to articulate and for
some it was not a profile that had been clearly defined. One manager commented:
I think we would benefit from being able to come to a common understanding of this and
encourage people to talk about it.
When prompted, many common behaviours and competencies were cited across the
respondents for example a passion for the job, leading by example and ability to
motivate their team. Many of the respondents already measured many of these skills
and competencies but suggested that some, particularly the softer skills, could be both
measured and communicated to staff more rigorously using competency descriptors:
 [. . .] at management level we talk about passion for the job a lot – and we know what we The talent
mean – but we need to write this down in terms of behaviours that staff can identify and
replicate, otherwise it becomes a cliché. management
These views suggested the importance of developing a common language of talent in
pipeline
each organisation, which is unique to that organisation and developing competency
descriptors which articulate clearly to all stakeholders what talent looks like and what
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behaviours could be identified and developed in talented employees.

The word “talent” was defined by respondents in a number of ways:
[. . .] people with potential, employees we value, employees with skills and abilities that we
really need and as our future.
There was generally positive feedback regarding increased use of the term TM with
one respondent commenting:
[. . .] sometimes when I talk about appraisal it all sounds quite dull and not particularly
engaging for managers but when you talk about talent management, all of a sudden it sounds
much more dynamic [. . .] it might help generate some new life back into our process.
Many of the respondents felt that they needed a conscious strategy for TM activity but
were extremely aware of resource constraints and the multi faceted nature of TM.
There was a strong realisation that they needed to focus on key areas of the business,
and key people:
[. . .] we are a relatively small business and cannot resource all areas of talent management
interventions but some would work better for us than others and we need to spend some time
developing the areas that fit with our culture yet are not overly resource intensive or difficult
for managers to engage in on a day to day basis.
In most of the SME’s, it was clear that resource constraints appeared to be driving
them to consider a more exclusive approach to managing and developing talent, which
focused on key people. There was also a strong notion, however, of the need for TM
strategies to be directed at all those employees with potential, rather than an exclusive
focus on managers. This was indicative of a much more inclusive approach to TM.
There was a great deal of motivation and commitment towards identifying talent
across the business and the potential benefits this could bring.
Respondents articulated a range of micro and macro level concerns regarding
developing TM strategies. One high-growth company had an issue in knowing and
understanding what talent they needed in the future:
[. . .] it is about having that strategic view – where will we be in the next 2 years, what talent do
we need to get there? [. . .] what additional skills do we need to enable the organisation to grow.
For them, TM was about having a more strategic perspective towards talent in terms
of matching business growth with manpower supply and demand.
For another TM was about:
[. . .] ensuring that we are promoting the right people with the right skills. How do we attract
people who fit our culture and business needs, people with the right competencies and then
how do we measure these competencies as they progress their career?
For this organisation, TM was about trying to ensure some element of vertical
integration of employees skills with the needs of the business and horizontal
 IJCHM integration in terms of measuring the skills using a range of HR interventions such as
20,7 performance management, communication and reward systems:
We spend a lot of time looking at our teams and looking at people coming through the ranks
and identifying people who are ripe for promotion. Having said that we don’t have a strategy
for doing this. I mean it comes out of constant communication just being tuned into what’s
going on. We can do this because we are still relatively small but as we grow our approach
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will need to be more systematic.

This organisation understood that at present their relatively informal approach
worked well and was effective but were well aware that as they grew this area would
require a more systematic approach. It was clear from this discussion that while
extremely committed to notions of TM the respondents were grappling with a range of
concerns and complexities around defining the boundaries of TM strategies and
prioritising different groups of employees.

Issues in attracting talent

Respondents articulated the need to sell their employee brand or unique selling point to
a wider audience and discussed the range of benefits that can be used to attract talent:
[. . .] we may not pay hugely well at entry level but employees do progress up the ladder
quickly and experience many unique benefits such as free hotel accommodation around the
world [. . .] they join a culture where teamwork and camaraderie are key to success.

We attract staff by telling them about the potential for progressions. When I interview one of
the things I always tell new staff is that all of our general managers have come up through the
ranks – it is one of our unique selling points.
Respondents generally agreed that there needed to be a more proactive approach to
attracting talent and that a more focused approach to TM could in itself be used as a
unique selling point to be communicated to prospective employees through the website
and recruitment process:
We are not so good at attraction – we need to develop a talent attraction plan in the same way
as we would do a marketing plan. For example, what can we do to compensate for the high
cost of living in the local area and levels of pay which are at some levels less competitive that
they could earn elsewhere? We set new recruit expectations clearly early on and tell them
that we may not pay the highest salaries but we will offer them other benefits and
development opportunities – we want people to come to us because they are attracted by
these opportunities, not just by the bottom line.
There was a general consensus amongst respondents that more dialogue and
discussion needed to take place within organisations and across organisational sectors
regarding common areas of difficulty and which kind of staff they find hardest to
attract and recruit, in order to identify reasons for these difficulties and solutions in the
form of clear employee attraction strategies.
Respondents discussed the need to come to a better understanding of their
employees’ motivations. There was recognition that the financial benefits were not
necessarily the strongest part of their offer so developing a better understanding of
other factors that motivate their people to stay was seen as crucial.
 Issues in retaining talent The talent
A discussion around the changing attitudes of individuals demonstrated how TM management
strategies needed to flex according to different types and categories of employee and take
account of emerging social trends. One respondent’s account described the challenges and pipeline
expectations of “generation Y” (those employees born since 1980), and their propensity
towards changing their jobs regularly. These employees were seen to place more emphasis
on employability rather than employment, which in turn put pressure on organisations to 815
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offer them continuous development of their own careers. One respondent described these
employees as:
[. . .] a new younger group of people coming through who want everything and who want it
now and are quite happy to demand it!
This company had realised that the key to keeping hold of this group of employees lay
in developing a better understanding of their expectations and focused on developing a
more meritocratic approach that valued talent. As a result it was felt important to find
ways of working with the expectations of these employees that make the most of them
and their enthusiasm, ensuring at the same time that that they fitted in with the
company culture and other employees who may have quite different mindsets. It did,
however, prove difficult as a culture was seen to be developing whereby employees
were motivated to acquire the skills they needed in order to make themselves more
marketable to other companies. Retaining these individuals was proving to be a great
challenge.
It was suggested that employers needed to focus equally on both recruitment and
retention:
[. . .] we are quite happy to spend many thousands on recruitment plans, projects and
initiatives but when we look at what we do around retention specifically it is often
underdeveloped and we risk seeing our investment walk out of the door into the hands of our
competition.
We perhaps shoot ourselves in the foot a bit in terms of raining expectations for quick
progression. Many very good people move around after 2/3 years as they don’t get the speedy
promotion opportunities they were promised. We need to manage their expectations more
effectively.
Developing a deeper understanding of why good talent may leave was a strong and
recurring theme throughout the discussions with respondents. One organisation had
recently done some work in this area and were frustrated to find that the reasons many
of the most recent leavers had given for leaving could have been easily changed had
the managers known about them. There needed to be more ongoing communication
and dialogue between employer and employee. The view was expressed that often the
employee feels that the manager is not interested and would not make the changes
even if they were small.
Respondents discussed the need to involve and gain commitment from all managers
to treat this issue as a priority. One respondent discussed how they viewed this area as
a team problem requiring team effort:
[. . .] a couple of months ago we pulled together all the turnover statistics and costs over the
last year, we broke it down department by department and presented these to management
and supervisors. We said this is the current picture and this is what it is costing us. We tried
 IJCHM to assess both hard quantitative costs and softer less tangible but equally important costs.
The challenge was how we as a team would deal with this information and develop a plan to
20,7 improve it. We were conscious to avoid dwelling on the past and rather focused on engaging
the team and pulling a plan together to ensure we were all accountable and so we could come
back a few months later and evaluate the results.
This narrative provided an interesting example which illustrated how the hard,
816 quantitative labour turnover figures and their impact on the bottom line could be used
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to engage managers and convince them to buy-in to developing a retention plan which
would focus on softer elements of HR such as communication, coaching and personal
development.

Developing employee talent

Much discussion took place over the crucial role of the line managers in developing
talent and creating more space to understand what make each employee tick. There
was a shared understanding of the management time and effort this took and a concern
that often there is not enough time to devote to this ongoing communication. One
respondent described ways of freeing up managers time by devolving some
managerial responsibility to small groups of employees (for example, this organisation
gave staff the rota to organise). This was seen to provide employees with valuable
development opportunities and increased feelings of autonomy and responsibility
while releasing the manager from a job that she disliked and allowing her more time to
focus on the leadership and communication part of her job.
Another organisation discussed how they encouraged employees to take more
responsibility for their own development:
[. . .] tell us what your development needs are; tell us about the skills that you have and how
we can develop them to the mutual benefit of the business and yourselves and we will do our
best to support you.
To illustrate how unaware managers are of the latent talent in employees, they cited
the example of an employee who was working as a porter but who had previously been
a qualified interior designer in Poland. Nobody realised this until the department was
being refurbished and the employee started to offer valuable advice. This organisation
had recently implemented regular job chats and continuing professional development
activity planning for all levels of staff to assist with communication and highlight
employee aspirations as part of the TM process.
The problems of administering the development process were discussed by a
number of respondents and this emerged as an area of concern. Respondents
understood that administration of training needs analysis was necessary underpinning
for TM strategies to work. One manager discussed the challenge of translating the
development needs identified in the twice-yearly appraisal into a training plan. Twice
yearly appraisals generated over 400 training needs proformas, each with a number of
possible training and development interventions:
I could spend 3 months compiling a full training plan, discussing each individuals needs with
the manager, organising the training and planning the training and communicating it to the
individuals but I have to be realistic. I don’t have time for this and other areas take priority so
I operate a system whereby I read each form, summarise the most commonly mentioned
training needs arising and plan these into next quarters training plan. I know I will not be
 able to satisfy all individuals’ aspirations. The rest of the development we offer is demand led, The talent
whereby a member of staff identifies a development opportunity, presents a good business
case and with manager authorisation it will be arranged. It needs to be more formal but this is management
the best we can do with the resources we have. pipeline
This example clearly demonstrates the tension between the rhetoric and reality of TM
where good practice gives way to organisational pressures and resource constraints.
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There were also concerns around senior management and managing director level
regarding knowing what an appropriate training intervention would be at this level to
keep their skills current and developed.

Transitioning talent
Transitioning talent was described to the respondents as the point at which
an employee or leaders responsibilities and skills change as a result of promotion from
one level to another. These transitions require significant effort and personal
transformation from employees if they are to be competent at their new level. The CIPD
(2006b) describe the main principles of transition as focusing on ensuring that:
.
one level of development feeds smoothly into the next;
.
leaders learn the skills they will always need as early as possible and have access
to those skills needed for the next level before they get to it; and
.
leaders know what the unique contribution of each stage of leadership must be to
the business and are driven towards and supported in making this shift.

There were some excellent examples of structured transition paths, for example, one
respondent described:
[. . .] we have clearly defined 3 grades of management and associated levels of responsibility.
For each we have a web based training programme so we have a clearly defined pathway for
our staff who want to move from supervisor to deputy unit manager.
There was also a view that while some organisations had clearly defined generic
transition processes defining what skills and training each level required, there needed
to be a more individualised approach for some categories of talent:
We need to tailor transition programmes to individuals rather than a one size fits all
approach.
Once you get to general manager level the training is more bespoke and informal – driven
more by the individual.
There were also a number of concerns raised by respondents, the most challenging
area appeared to be the transition from middle to senior management, for example,
from bar or restaurant manager to food and beverage manager or deputy general
manager.
We have a bit of stagnation at this level and a bit of a glass ceiling and as a result we loose
good people.
A strong theme centred around whether the sector might promote individuals too soon
without giving enough attention to whether the promoted employee has the necessary
skills to be able to cope at the new level. As a result of high turnover rates, some
 IJCHM organisations felt that their guidelines for transition were not always followed due to
20,7 recruitment pressures and the need to fill vacancies within a certain timescale. This
was driving organisations to reactive approaches with subsequent problems as
illustrated by the following quotes:
We have a reactive approach to transitioning talent – we react to vacancies when they arise
and fill them with good internal people.
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We offer excellent internal promotion opportunities but sometimes we are too reactive. We
need a person in post now so we have a tendency to promote too soon. This fast track approach
requites a lot of development in the first few months and sometimes we just don’t have the
management time to support and coach these individuals – we are setting them up to fail.
I feel we promote people too soon into first line manager positions – we underestimate the
demands on people with no managerial or supervisory experience – they may have lots of
talent but they don’t have the right amount of experience or confidence to manage teams of
people. This is symptomatic of our sector.
The role of a performance appraisal in preparing employees for transition and
promotion was seen to be important. Most organisations had sophisticated systems in
operation but many were under review and it was felt that the appraisal itself and the
training, development and commitment of managers towards this process would
benefit from further development in order to strengthen the TM system:
Our appraisal process is a bit outdated and laborious We have got a very lengthy appraisal
that takes about two days to complete.
Managers tick the boxes but I am not convinced that the process is as rewarding as it could be
for employees.

Conclusions
The discussions highlighted much enthusiasm around the concept of TM and
uncovered some excellent practice but there were clearly a number of challenges facing
managers around the area of TM and these are summarised below. Practical
implications arising from these are discussed in Tables I-V:
.
There was a clear commitment towards and enthusiasm for all elements of TM
but many organisations were aware that their approach would benefit from
further development.
.
No shortage of talent mentioned as a real concern but retention and development
issues were significant for all contributors.
.
Retention centred around meeting employees expectations and holding on to
them until a suitable promoted position arose – this sometimes proved
problematic and resulted in talent being promoted too early.
.
Approaches to TM were organisation specific, and driven by internal expertise
and available resources – organisations would fit and tailor their TM approach
to their own context.
.
Managers were acutely aware of the dynamic nature of TM strategies and tried
to adapt their approaches to emerging social, professional and industry trends.
 .
A range of approaches were adopted towards TM to include a number of The talent
informal but effective approaches.
management
. Organisations acknowledged the need to offer good performance management
systems to draw together elements of TM.
pipeline
.
Respondents emphasised the necessity for talented employees to take some
responsibility for their own development, be self-motivated and build their
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self-belief and confidence.

. Senior managers development appeared to be subordinated to the development
of supervisors and middle managers.
.
Managers need to take responsibility for TM particularly the motivation,
coaching, mentoring and ongoing communication.
.
Resource constraints, particularly in the form of management time to engage
fully with TM was seen as a key concern.

Senior managers from the following companies took part in this discussion. Their
contribution and participation is gratefully acknowledged.
Scottish Enterprise Edinburgh and Lothian; Hilton Hotels, Edinburgh; The Town
House Company, Edinburgh; Sheraton Hotel, Edinburgh; Karen Calvert, Montpelier’s
Partnership, Edinburgh; Hospitality Industry Trust, Scotland; Heritage Portfolio Ltd
Edinburgh.

References
CIPD (2006a), Reflections on Talent Management: Change Agenda, CIPD, London.
CIPD (2006b), Talent Management, Understanding the Dimensions, CIPD, London.
Iles, P. (2007), “Employee resourcing and talent management”, in Storey, J. (Ed.), Human
Resource Management, A Critical Text, Thomson, London, Ch.6.
Michaels, E., Handfield-Jones, H. and Axelrod, B. (2001), The War for Talent, Harvard Business
School Press, Boston, MA.
Reed, A. (2001), Innovation in Human Resource Management: Tooling up for the Talent Wars,
CIPD, London.
Schweyer, A. (2004), Talent Management Systems, Best Practices in Solutions for Recruitment,
Retention and Workforce Planning, Wiley, New York, NY.
Tansley, C., Turner, P., Foster, C., Harris, L., Stewert, J. and Sempik, A. (2007), Talent Strategy,
Management and Measurement, CIPD, London.

Further reading
Weddle, P. (2006), “Manage talent needs with a sound strategy”, available at: www.careerjournal.com

Corresponding author
Norma D’Annunzio-Green can be contacted at: [email protected]

To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: [email protected]

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