The overall maturity of UK organisations’ talent management programmes is lagging behind that of global peers, but there is evidence that employers are beginning to explore areas of development and innovation.
Cornerstone has developed a Talent Health Index, which gives employers insight into how they fare across seven dimensions of talent health: culture and technology, skills strategy, learning and development, content strategy, performance management, talent mobility and talent reporting, data and analytics.
An organisation is then given an overall score out of 112, which places them into one of four levels of talent health:
- Foundational: organisations that have the “building blocks” of a talent programme in place and meet the basic talent needs of their employees and the business. These are usually ad-hoc and compliance-driven strategies, and do not prioritise the identification of existing or required skills
- Administrative: organisations that have established a foundation for their talent programmes and are starting to explore more strategic initiatives. Administrative talent programmes go beyond compliance and offer some skill-building opportunities for employees, but skills have yet to become a common language across the organisation.
- Sophisticated: employers that have taken great strides in developing a strategic talent programme and establishing processes, and have a strong learning culture that uses some analytics to meet employees’ development needs.
- Transformative: organisations that have built talent programmes that foster a self-driven learning culture. Skills are identified, analysed and leveraged to support workforce planning and make strategic business decisions.
Cornerstone’s research has found the average UK participant scored 87.6, placing them in the ‘administrative’ level of the Talent Health Index.
The global average score was slightly higher at 88.1. Countries including Spain and India surpassed the UK on the Talent Health Index, with India being the only country in Cornerstone’s study falling into the ‘sophisticated’ category.
High-performing organisations consistently ranked higher in areas such as content strategy, skills strategy and performance management. The UK was scored as ‘administrative’ in all of these categories.
The study found a disconnect between the perceptions of employers and employees in several areas. While 77% of UK organisations feel confident in their ability to develop skills, only 56% of employees agreed; and while 89% of UK employers are confident they have the resources to develop skills, only 64% of employees said the same.
Only a third of UK employers said their organisation uses learner-centric tools and technologies to streamline the flow of talent processes and information.
The Talent Health Index can be used to identify gaps in your organisation’s talent strategy, envision a path to improvement, and chart progress towards a resilient, skills-focused organisation.
Find out where your organisation sits on the Talent Health Index
