Three cost effective ways to grow and develop your talent in the down economy!

With the significantly increased focus on measuring talent management within organizations today; is your company also implementing and executing on cost effective strategies and tools to actually develop and grow your talent?

We all regularly read and hear how talent is the most significant differentiating factor for those companies who lead their individual market spaces. At the same time organizationally we are also all challenged with limited resources being allocated to properly develop up and coming talent. Below are three simple ideas that you can bring to the table at your company, to leverage in today’s unstable economic climate to ensure both short and long term success for your organization.

1. Be certain you are offering your talent the developmental tools they need on a just-in-time basis. This can include both off the shelf and internally created on-demand tools that are scalable and directed specifically for your talent and allows them to get to the information when, how and where they need it. Most organizations provide these types of solutions to the overall employee base in some capacity. However many times organizations overlook providing their talent with these same types of solutions that specifically are targeted to this audience. The moment that the talent in your organization feels that the on-demand solutions that you have purchased or created is focused on the masses is the minute that your elite is turned off by the majority of opportunities being provided by your Learning and Development organization for them in the future.
2. Create a corporate friendly mentoring environment. Employees investing in each other will be one of the key differentiators for those organizations who are successful moving forward. We all need to take a more active role in our organizations, to help each other grow. For further ideas on this I highly recommend the book Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi.
3. Use the talent you already have to develop your future talent through regularly posting internal podcasts and bite size online video interviews with your Executive and Senior Leadership. Very often your current up and coming talent is dispersed in a myriad of locations and departments throughout your company. When first entering your organization this group rarely gets regular face time opportunities to speak or even listen to the Senior Leadership and Executive staff. With the ever increasing emerging technologies of podcasts and online videos you now have scalable tools to easily allow you to get your current talent in front of your future talent.