Talent Management: Issues of Focus and Fit

Talent management has been high on the agenda of HR professionals in the UK over the past few years.

This high level of interest is reflected in a number of recent case study based research reports describing a wide range of organisational practice. They reveal some of the tensions and dilemmas in getting to grips with the idea of ‘talent management’ in the UK.

Some of the most useful summaries have come from the CIPD, Ashridge, Roffey Park and IDS.Between them, these studies give a fairly comprehensive overview of how large organisations in the UK are facing the talent management challenge.

This paper draws on published research and also on the considerable practicalexperience of IES in supporting organisations in their own talent management strategies. Much of the IES work has been with public sector organisations, especially government department and agencies, and also local government authorities of very varying size and sophistication.