Evaluación de la propuesta

There were two approaches to defining talent in PHServ due to having a central national TM program versus regional or local leadership development programs. While national talent definition operationalized a more inclusive talent approach going by its TM objectives expressed in the TM Conversations guide

“talent management should consider the whole of the workforce. This is consistent with evidence from other global organisations where inclusivity is becoming the predominant talent philosophy. The challenge is then to put in place effective talent management systems and processes”.

Whilst the national development programs catered for all levels of staff had bold statements about operating an inclusive talent approach concerning TM, the regional approach was both inclusive and exclusive. For example whilst organisations in locations NE1, NE3 and SE4 operationalized an exclusive talent approach that focused on targeted job grades 8a and above, medical consultants and the executive board, the talent approach in location NE2 was more inclusive of bands 3 up to the executive board using a strengths based approach as the assistant director of organisational development explained:

” And it’s actually recognising at everybody’s appraisal of a minimum once a year, what is this person’s strengths, what are they good at where else in the organisation can we utilise those sorts of skills. That’s why we brought in the bands 3 to 4 programs because there was a growing awareness particularly sadly to say for graduates who were having to take quite low paid jobs even when they had a degree. They might have come into PHSERV at a band 3 or 4 but actually capable of being a director at some point in the future. So it’s kind of giving them the right development to keep them engaged and wanting to stay here” … some of them don’t have line manager responsibility but are potentially going to be a manager in a year or so and are potentially getting the skills ahead of becoming a manager rather than once they have been in the job for five years then doing it afterwards. (Assistant Director of Organisational Development, NE2).

This statement raises the importance for organisations to operate a more inclusive approach as it iterates the fact that talent can be found in all levels of employees and not just top senior management or specific professionals particularly under the present UK climate of high unemployment and competition for skilled workers and skilled jobs, organisations are doing both themselves and the unidentified talented employees within non-managerial positions an injustice by not tapping into these human resources and risk losing potential talent to the competition (CIPD, 2007). Interestingly, interviewees from organisations in NE1, NE3 and SE4 seemed uncomfortable about expressing an exclusive talent approach,

stammering when expressing how the talent approaches were conceptualised towards the senior management grades, executives and medical team and trying to justify having an inclusive practice but with an exclusive approach because of what they wanted to achieve;

137 which was about creating a talent pipeline for development into future senior roles to

safeguard against the huge financial costs of replacement of these positions to PHServ. This exclusive talent approach was preferred as there had been recent high turnover in these organisations demanding immediate successors and/or replacement for senior management roles which was why there was need for identifying talent from within the organisation from targeted grades that were capable of stepping into these roles. The following interviewee extracts from these organisations in locations NE1, NE3 and SE 1 indicate these findings: “…it’s actually everyone who is an 8a and above. So if you think about it, that is everyone who is an 8a up to the executive team have come through for that…We are not excluding people form the process so I suppose talent is everyone but going back to what we are trying achieve it is really trying to see where our potential lies and also where our gaps are because some of our senior posts are very difficult to recruit to you know the nature of the business that we are in … we are constrained by some of those variables” (HR Specialist, location SE 1).

“We are looking at Execs and next in lines and possibly the next to them as well. No they are PHServ’s board of directors. So our executive team is our chief exec, our finance director, HR and communication Director, medical director, director of mental health, chief finance officer. COO, director of integrated care” (Interim People Development Manager, IPDM, SE1).

”In an acute hospital firm like ours, it is the medical consultants, it is the medical consultants whom patients are referred to” (Assistant Director, Organisational Development, NE1).

Examining the quotes further, what is obvious is that there is justification for each talent approach which is significant for the TM field as it shows PHServ sees the importance of adopting a TM strategy for survival, cost reduction, employee motivation and as a driver for organisational change and not just only adopting TM for the sake of it or because it is fashionable.

However what remained ambiguous was PHServ’s idea of an inclusive talent approach nationally. Because, examining the philosophy behind the talent approach, it appeared the focus was about developing leadership behaviours in all levels of employees that improves care for patients as this was critical for PHServ’s reputation and practice in the light of recent public scandals about patient care. But examining the targeted job bands and focus on healthcare leaders building alliances with a wide range of professionals across boundaries in other private and public systems, it is questionable who or what the focus of talent is. This is not surprising as it mirrors scholarly contentions concerning the definitions of talent in the literature (Cappelli, 2009; CIPD, 2007; Iles, Chuai, et al., 2010; PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2011) as also typified in the quote below:

138 ‘The healthcare model is typical of what talent is and how TM should be practiced…So people who do more of those behaviours is what we will imagine as talent’. Definition is not systematic across

board… (LDP, PHServ).