The advent of AI will change many things in the workplace, and will necessarily have an impact on talent management insofar as it will not only require a change of model, but will also help to make these new models work.
While businesses have long operated with a rigid model, from recruitment to retirement, AI will impose a more agile and fluid approach to career paths.
Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that HR is locked into archaic models and that everything is going to explode. The need for agility exists, and many professionals have understood this and are adapting their practices. The problem is that, with the exception of certain pioneering businesses, they are doing so within a model that remains fixed and limits their capacity for innovation by forcing them to play both sides of the fence.
What we’re talking about here is a change that’s about to accelerate, on a much larger scale, and which will require everyone to change both their models and their practices, which will then finally be aligned.
The end of the traditional talent management model
The “pre-hire to retire ” model refers to the traditional approach to talent management in business, which follows a linear cycle.
We’re talking about a model that links talent sourcing, recruitment and integration, career management and training, retention and exit from the business. .
This model is based on the idea of a stable, long-term relationship between employer and employee, with a predefined progression within the same organizational framework. It corresponds to a vision in which talent is managed as a long-term resource within a rather administrative and predictable logic.
It is even taken to its extreme in countries such as France, where businesses of a certain size are obliged to implement a forward-looking management of jobs and skills, which remains based on a rigid, highly administrative, forward-looking logic.
However, it’s clear to everyone that these models are based on the assumptions of a bygone era. The employee’s life cycle in business is accelerating, no longer as linear as it once was, and skills requirements are evolving so fast that as soon as you’ve drawn up a forward-looking plan, you can throw it in the garbage can.
What’s more, AI is accelerating this obsolescence by redefining skills needs faster than businesses can hire. Waiting for a position to be created, publishing a vacancy, recruiting and training a new employee is too long and too rigid a process to keep up with the pace of change.
Businesses therefore need a more reactive and adaptive model, based on evolving skills and less rigid career paths, a kind of dynamic talent model where internal mobility and skill density prevail.
Rethinking mobility in agile mode
This transformation is based on a model of fluid mobility, where employees evolve according to the projects and needs of the business. Rather than looking externally, we need to do more with what we have, by activating our internal talent pool.
This means developing what we might call talent “density”. It’s not a question of having more people, but of having more competent and versatile teams and, instead of piling on recruitment, investing in improving the skills of current employees.
Skills management will therefore have to switch to a real-time logic: AI can identify and map in-house skills to anticipate needs, avoid bottlenecks and facilitate mobility.
All this is underpinned by a new approach to working in project or mission mode. We’re going to have to move away from a fixed-position approach towards a more flexible organization, where employees move from one project to another according to strategic priorities and their skills.
Finally, it’s impossible not to mention the elephant in the room: managerial obstacles. Internal mobility is often slowed down by the retention of talent within teams, whereas what we need is an environment where managers are encouraged to promote the circulation of talent, rather than feeling penalized.
A question of productivity and engagement
Of course, a dynamic talent model is a lever for efficiency, but it’s also a powerful driver of commitment. It avoids the wear and tear of fixed roles, stimulates continuous learning and offers the prospect of permanent evolution without y.having to move to another company.
But it only works if the organization follows suit. Too often, businesses advocate internal mobility without adapting their recognition, remuneration and appraisal models. If changing roles is an obstacle course, mobility will remain wishful thinking.
Hence the point I made at the beginning of this post. There are many clear-sighted HR people who have taken a step in this direction, or who, like Monsieur Jourdain, have unknowingly initiated dynamic talent management, but are still constrained by a model from another age. In this case, the change in practices cannot come without a total change of model, but rather than a revolution, I see an acceleration and scaling up of things that already exist.
How do we go about it?
I’m not a big fan of dogmatism, and I think it’s up to each business, also in the light of its current practices, to ask itself what a new approach to something means for it, rather than imposing a todo list that would supposedly be the key to success.
We can, however, suggest a few ideas which, what’s more, enable you to realize that some of them are already in place in your business and that the others are no insurmountable challenge.
The first suggestion is to create an internal “talent marketplace ” where projects are open to employees, enabling them to offer their skills beyond their current role.
It is also important to evaluate and better reward cross-functional contributions by integrating recognition of mobility and learning into HR systems, rather than rewarding only vertical promotion, which only produces bad managers. Let’s also hope that these systems will be better than the ATS at handling transferable skills (Recruitment: in ATS the S stands for stupid).
It will also be necessary to provide ongoing, on-the-job training. Here, if AI is part of the cause, it is also part of the solution, and can be used to suggest personalized training paths and maximize learning in real-life contexts (projects, mentoring, coaching), again in a logic of, if not real-time, at least continuous learning in line with current and short-term needs.
And since nothing can be done without them, it will also be important to raise managers’ awareness of agile talent management: giving them the tools they need to steer shifting teams, promote skills rotation and foster the evolution of their employees.
Image: talent management by Olivier Le Moal via Shutterstock.
