The Hidden Advantage: Talent Development Culture

Written by Cheryl Flink, Ph.D.

The war for talent continues. As organizations compete to acquire and retain top talent, the demands of current clients are juggled alongside the never-ending mission to acquire increased market share. The talent lifecycle itself has similar key elements: Organizations must recruit, retain, and develop talent to create the workforce of the future. How can organizations hone their strategies for winning the talent war? By creating a talent development culture. 

Truist Leadership Institute has released our latest Purple Paper ^SM, Creating a Talent Development Culture: Guidelines for Investing in your Future Workforce, showcasing our research about what happens when organizations promote a talent development culture. A new method for assessing this culture will help gauge if employees are connecting with career-boosting opportunities. A vibrant learning and development culture has a significant impact on employee retention, engagement, and purpose and one of the most important factors in developing that culture is the direct impact of managerial support for their employees’ growth and development.

What can managers do to offer this type of support? Results from our national panel of 1,200 respondents representing organizations with 2,000+ employees point to four tangible actions:

1. Co-design career pathways. Employees know where they stand today—but have little guidance on where they need to go. Despite 72% of employees having written annual performance goals, nearly 60% of employees lack a formal career development plan. The four actions below provide a way for managers to help employees start designing their career pathway.
2. Assign projects for development. Most employees want to grow and develop. Almost 40% of employees experience a lack of opportunity to enhance their skills with hands-on learning, which is a sure path to stagnation and disengagement. Managers can support employees’ desire for development by assigning formal stretch projects.
3. Support stretch assignments. Employees absolutely need the opportunity to run with it and demonstrate their capabilities. However, when they encounter difficulties, help. Listen closely to where they are struggling and act as their coach to help them get past the hurdles. Once the project is finalized, collaborate with the employee on their learning and takeaways from the experience.
4. Create visibility with influential people. Only about half of employees claim their work has exposure to critical organizational stakeholders. Your advocacy of employee potential to these main organizational stakeholders is critical. Ensure that your employees have responsibilities that require contact with those likely to assess their potential for future development. Consider assigning projects that span multiple functions, geographic spaces, or partnerships.
5. Share information to develop business savvy. Employees need and want to understand what’s happening in the business. How are we performing? What’s impacting performance—both internally and externally? Intentionally sharing this information can help employees develop a greater awareness of business operations and organizational complexities while enhancing their strategic thinking capacity. And, there is a benefit for you: The opportunity to demonstrate executive connectedness.

Effective talent development cultures require that managers actively engage and support employees in achieving their goals for growth. Working with them to clarify career pathways, create visibility with influential people, share business information, and support challenging work can help you retain engaged, purposeful employees who are your organization’s future.  

Connect with a Truist Leadership Institute Business Advisor.