Retiring the Talent Concept Instead of Older Workers
Over the past 30 years companies have enthusiastically embraced talent management initiatives in the belief talent represents a major source of competitive advantage, although no empirical evidence supports this claim. Corporate talent management initiatives have also failed to significantly improve workplace diversity. HR managers believe talent to be a scarce resource whilst struggling to define what it means. The question is now whether the unquestioned belief in the talent mantra is becoming a roadblock to improving business innovation and productivity?
Talent, in the corporate world, has become an increasingly meaningless term. Talent as a concept first emerged in the ancient world to recognise that some people possessed innate natural abilities which conferred advantage over those lacking such capabilities. Over time talent’s meaning has morphed from possession of unique skills to a descriptor of a whole person, to that of a process and now, in some instances, a replacement term for the HR function. Different professions have different talent understandings. The HR profession Human Capital view differs from that of the industrial psychology Individual Difference view which again is different to the positive psychology Strengths based position. Talent sourcing has further been described as grandiose window dressing, repackaging recruitment activity in a more elegant manner designed to make HR look important to business success.
The social psychologists might be on to something with their view that talent in the end is all about perception - no-one is talent unless someone else decides they are. Despite the belief that psychometric testing illuminates those with talent, until now, the ultimate decision of who represents talent remains a subjective one and open to bias. We need to acknowledge that to date no-one has discovered the secret to identifying people with innate talent.
Talent has been traditionally associated with providing competitive economic advantage. Yet research reveals that talent as a standalone concept is not directly connected with business improvement. Indeed, recent PhD research found technical expertise and experience to be the least important talent criteria. The social criterion of organisational fit was found to be the most critical element. This suggests organisational social factors might play a much bigger role in talent meaning than previously acknowledged. Talent might be better understood as a social construct than an instrument of economic improvement.
Talent as a social construct spells bad news for the older worker with talent management initiatives appearing to display ageist tendencies. Corporate talent programmes are identified as ageist and elitist with very few older workers included in them. Older workers are negatively impacted through their exclusion from company diversity initiatives. Many firms remain reluctant to hire older workers with younger workers as a preferred recruitment source.
If you say these experiences don’t define your talent practices, ask yourself the following questions. How many older workers make it onto your talent hiring shortlists? How many older workers have you recently hired through your talent programme? How important is fit in your talent hiring decisions? Is your pool of older workers as a percentage of your workforce increasing or decreasing? How many older workers find themselves in the bottom right-hand corner of your 9-box grid? How many older workers feature in your succession plans 5 years out?
Holding onto an outmoded ageist view of talent may prove disadvantageous in a changing world. We already know this century is characterised by a global ageing demographic. We know the average age in Western workforces is on the increase. In Australia we are beginning to experience skill shortages as migration levels are reduced. We know there is increasing hard evidence of the benefits of age-neutral workforces and the business value of the older worker. The time has come to retire the talent concept and adopt an inclusive approach to people hiring and development.
References
Alvesson, M. (2013). The triumph of emptiness: Consumption, higher education and work organization. United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
Downs, Y., & Swailes, S. (2013). A capability approach to organizational talent management. Human Resource Development International, 16(3), 267-281.
Ericsson, A., & Pool, R. (2016). Peak: Secrets from the new science of expertise. London: The Bodley Head.
Gallardo-Gallardo, E., Dries, N., & Gonzalez-Cruz, T. F. (2013). What is the meaning of ‘talent’ in the world of work? Human Resource Management Review.
Hessell, T (2021). ‘Talent and Age: How Do Human Resource Manager Meanings of Talent Influence Their Perceptions of Older Workers?’ PhD Thesis. University of Newcastle.
