Talent management is a key priority for employers

At Doherty Stobbs we have considerable experience in identifying talent, whether assessing graduates for fast-track management programmes or candidates for CEO level appointments.

Some key questions:

• How do you identify talent?
• How do you spot long term potential?
• What does top talent mean for your organisation?  What would it look like and what would it do for you?
• What do you look for to determine if a candidate has the potential to exceed their existing role in the near future?
• What are the critical behaviours that determine whether someone has the longer term potential to add significant value to your business?
• To what extent have you identified the talented individuals in your organisation?
• How do you determine who should be in your talent pipeline?
• Who is in your talent pool and are these people justified in being there?
• How do you ensure fairness and objectivity in deciding who should be in your talent pool?
• How do you make your succession planning open and transparent in order to ensure fairness and diversity?
• You want people who can give you high potential and high performance – what do you need to look for?
• How do you avoid making costly mistakes in selection?

Typical challenges facing any employer today include:

• Selecting people who are right for the job and the organisation, and being seen to be fair
• Retaining good performers and keeping them motivated
• Developing the skills and self-awareness of key people
• Talent optimisation
• Robust and innovative recruitment selection
• Performance management
• Diversity issues

How can you address these needs?

• Psychometric Assessment and Assessment Centres
  Should you be using psychometrics and assessment centres as part of your recruitment process? What are the benefits of using tests in your company, what are the different tests, which ones should you use, how do you choose them, and what do they tell you?

The risks involved in appointing the wrong person for a job have never been greater. Psychometric or psychological testing has become a vital tool in the task of minimising risk on all sides in recruitment.  Bespoke Assessment Centre exercises can provide you with a way of using role-appropriate assessment.

• Executive recruitment
  Doherty Stobbs can offer confidential and impartial input to executive level recruitment decisions and development that dovetails into your existing systems.

The benefits of business psychology services to organisations are pretty well known and include:

• Selecting accurately and fairly the best people for the job
• Retaining your talented people and keeping them focused and energized
• Aligning your people policies to your business strategy
• Coaching to maximize your performance and remove rough edges!
• Making sure that negative stress does not become a problem within your organisation

The Third Sector

We have good insight into the needs of the Third Sector and offer services that are relevant, sensitive but effective. Particular expertise in senior level selection and performance management. Christine Stobbs was one of the first cohort of ACEVO members to study for the Institute of Directors' Diploma in Company Direction.

Smaller organisations should not be left out

How can the application of business psychology improve your business? Well, business psychology is not just for the larger organisation or business. Have you ever employed somebody and realised you had made a mistake and they weren't living up to expectations? Somebody who wasn't motivated and didn't reach performance standards? Perhaps the introduction of a new member of staff brought about a personality clash? If you've had this sort of problem, you are not alone.

Problems like these are bad enough in a large organisation but in a small business they can be quickly catastrophic. A company with only a few important clients is vulnerable to poor performance from even a relatively junior member of staff.

We have experience and understanding of the small business, where individuals need to multi-task and be prepared to be flexible, almost from day one; and where the maintenance of good personal relationships are vital. Business psychology can contribute to better staff performance, and also avoid mistaken appointments. Our service is effective and professional, but also practical, fast and with fee levels that are aligned with value-for-money to you.

The CIPD recognises that CEO’s as well as HR Directors are now likely to number talent management among their key priorities.

Organisations recognise that to increase and maintain competitive advantage they need to attract, develop, motivate and retain those who can deliver the best performance. 

This has always been the case, but the business need for this has never been clearer; there are now more applicants with seemingly good qualifications, a more demanding work environment with greater need for workforce flexibility and agility across the organisation, strong national and global competition for the best and a more particular and demanding work force, e.g. generation Y expecting to be engaged and given early challenge and reward.

Our input has been in helping organisations to identify those talented individuals who have long-term potential to make a real difference to the organisation's performance.

We have designed and developed processes for some of the most respected talent management programmes in the UK. Our recent talent management projects have included:

• Predicting from a large graduate pool who has the potential to reach demanding middle management positions within a 3 to 5-year period
• Identifying those raw graduates without IT degrees who have the potential to manage large scale IT projects within 4 to 5 years.
• Distinguishing junior support admin / clerical staff who have the potential for further promotion to junior management roles
• Spotting middle HR managers with the potential to reach senior HR leadership positions
• Identifying existing high performing directors who have the added potential capability to reach CEO-level appointments to run some of the largest organisations in the UK