The war for talent is over according to a controversial new international report from a UK
based think tank.
Challenging the traditional thinking about
the relationship between talent and organisa
tional success, the report states that talent is
about people and their potential and not just
about the jobs and skills they have acquired.
“Talent is abundant and takes many forms.
It is not just about high flyers who are des
tined to become top executives or high-level
specialists,” said Les Pickett, ambassador for
the think tank, Tomorrow’s Company.
Pickett said that companies need to change
the way they manage talent.
“It is a nice quirk of the English language
that ‘talent’ is an anagram of ‘latent’, underly
ing our view that much talent remains hidden
and undiscovered,” said Pickett.
The report states that this is a defining mo
ment for HR because HR executives should
have a very significant influence over people
policy and behaviour in organisations.
“It provides the senior executive team and
operating managers with a highly visible indi
cator of success or failure,” said Pickett.
In the next issue of HR Leader we will fea
ture a report by Les Pickett on Tomorrow’s
Global Talent.
