A scarcity of leadership and management talent in the regional and national marketplace is acknowledged across most sectors, which makes ‘talent spotting’ even more critical. Professional services firms, like most enterprises, are recognising the value of investing in homegrown talent, from both a commercial and a cultural perspective. Importantly, retention of good staff is a strong advertisement for a firm and will attract further talent as the firm becomes established as ‘a firm of first choice’. Informed talent spotting in the early stages of an individual’s career, particularly among graduate employees, is beneficial and commercially prudent, as an individual possesses little or no ‘performance track-record’ at this time. It is largely accepted that retention levels are influenced by recruitment decisions (over 70% of all problems in retention occur because of flaws in the recruitment process). Recruitment mistakes will be further compounded if underperformers are allowed to remain in situ for too long within the firm. From a corporate perspective, spotting talent, then developing and retaining it, is critical to the strategic planning process and is being prioritised as such by market leaders. Tesco faced the challenges of embracing talent spotting some years ago, but now recognises its value to the planning process and strategic management of the business.
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Getting Personal
Talent spotting programmes broadly consist of three phases – resource planning, career management (which often includes coaching) and talent planning. When working with high performers, firms are recognising the value created by specific, bespoke coaching programmes to complement and blend with other personal development interventions. Starting with diagnostic profiling, and taking into account each individual’s unique character traits and abilities, one-to-one or team coaching will harness and nurture talent. This leads to behavioural change,which impacts positively on business results by enhancing individual and collective performance.

Benefits include:
• The ability to better plan resources and people forecasting, typically 12 months in advance
• Greater probability of growing and developing fee income
• A clearer awareness of emerging talent
• Improved leadership and management
• Effective succession management
• Proactive people development
• Increased alignment with the firm’s objectives • Better motivation and retention of employees
• Improved brand and profile, attracting even more top talent and aspiring individuals