In June 2010 Talent Pool Members will join Rene at the Annual member’s conference Talent Pool Symposium to share his insights of what really makes a successful business and how to keep ahead during such challenging times.

The session “Extraordinary Times requires Extraordinary Leadership” explores the do’s and don’ts of the business world. Delegates will enjoy an action packed day of learning where they will gain new skills, listen to industry experts, and network with other members.
Rene is regularly featured on Sky News and Radio 5 Live and he is the presenter of BBC2’s flagship business programme “Pay off Your Mortgage in Two Years”.

The current recession has led to much restructuring leaving employees sitting quietly and wondering what the future holds for them. Every email and meeting is surrounded by some trepidation. “What will the message say when I open it?” “Why is my boss calling a meeting on Friday afternoon?” “I know what he said but reading between the lines this is what he meant?” How much longer will you be able to guarantee that employee engagement, motivation and morale will have a positive weighting? For many of us this has been understandably lost amongst the number crunching, headcount reductions and recruitment freezes. At a logical level we all know that looking after our people is critical in the current economic climate as workloads, stress levels and uncertainty increase to levels that many organisations will have not experienced before.

The key to dealing with the current situation is to ensure that we balance immediate critical business needs (e.g. reduce costs) with longer-term strategic goals. It seems so easy to get bogged down in the minutia of today and lose sight of the fact that businesses have strategic plans that should be driving the business into the future. This can pale into insignificance when the wolf is at the door, but there has to be more thought to our business plans than survival. We need our employees to give their best today and to want to keep on doing that tomorrow, to do this we need good quality leadership throughout the organisation.

We know that many good people are ‘riding the storm’ whilst the job market is challenged and ‘keeping their heads down’ until the ideal job comes along. They recognise that it may take time but they are prepared to wait and give you average productivity in the meantime.

What would it take to engage these good people so that they give you their best and want to stay and develop their careers with you? So that they do the right things that mean that you can survive the current challenges and come out stronger at the other end. The answer is probably not a lot, the key is to value and develop them. This may take a small amount of investment but ultimately it can be achieved by good communication, good processes and a lot of recognition. The question is ‘are you really doing enough’?

Sally Rixon specialises in Organisational Development and has 20 years experience working for and with organisations who have felt the impact that is caused by loosing their best employees. She manages the UK based Talent Pool which helps help business leaders to tackle this important and challenging issue.

Deborah Meaden from the BBC’s Dragons’ Den was the Keynote Speaker and the theme for the day was “A Common Sense Approach to Business” to coincide with the launch of Deborah’s new book. Delegates were able to question Deborah about how she has achieved her career success as well as informally chatting with her over lunch. Sally Rixon, Talent Pool’s Director of Collaborative Learning said: “We feel very privileged that Deborah agreed to join us. She was the perfect Keynote Speaker for our delegates as, although she demonstrates her entrepreneurial skills on the Dragons’ Den, she has a very pragmatic and down to earth approach to business. She has grasped the nuts and bolts of what makes people succeed and fail and we wanted our members to learn some dos and don’ts for accelerating their own careers.”

Client Adam Thorn, a Consultant at Facilities Management Specialists, Nicklebys said: “The Talent Pool’s Annual Symposium was an excellent opportunity to meet people from diverse areas of work. It was an enjoyable and highly informative day. The highlight for me personally was the speech by Deborah Meaden. She spoke eloquently throughout and was thoroughly engaging. Afterwards she spent a good deal of time with Talent Pool members, answering questions and leading interesting debates.”

The Talent Pool was set up by two independent business women, Lisa Smale and Sally Rixon, who are both specialists in organisational and people development. The alarming demographic crisis that is upon us means that the future success of our businesses will depend on being able to attract, retain and develop talented people. Both Lisa and Sally have spent years in large corporate environments responsible for developing the outstanding individuals who were earmarked as future leaders, but they struggled to find the kind of support they needed anywhere in the marketplace.

The Talent Pool provides a 12 month, individually tailored development programme for the people who organisations value and do not want to lose. In summary it provides a simple solution to help organisations to develop their future leaders.

Adrian Peace from Somerfield is a Talent Pool member and he feels that “Finding the time for Personal development can be a case of priority, convenience and being inspired. I have found the Talent Pool’s approach to be completely different to any kind of Personal Development programs I have been involved in – it really is truly motivating, engaging and a result I have naturally made my own development a higher priority.”

Talent Pool members have access to a vast blend of learning activities that include online media, coaching, development workshops, social networking- to name but a few. The variety of learning opportunities is designed to minimise the time spent away from the workplace, so that participants’ ability to focus on achieving their business objectives is not compromised. Delegates learn what they want, when they want and where they want. They get to learn with people similar to themselves from a variety of business environments enabling them to learn from and with others.

The Talent Pool was formed in the summer of 2008, amidst the chaos of the recession, which has meant that Sally and Lisa have had to work harder than they could ever have imagined to get their dream off the ground and to ensure that their delegates receive the outstanding levels of experience they envisaged.

“Each quarter, members can question a key business figure — this has so far included the CEO of a Championship Football Club, a Director of a property company which builds and manages high profile retail shopping complexes and, of course, Deborah Meaden. All are from very different environments but they face similar challenges when it comes to managing customers, employees and even themselves.”

“One of the things that we are keen to do is to give the delegates the opportunity to speak to key business figures. We think that this is important as we want them to learn from people who have been where they are now and have achieved great success as a result of ‘who’ they are” explained Lisa Smale, Director of Management and Leadership Development.

There is definitely a need for organisations to begin managing and developing their talented people in a more focused way if they are to survive the demographic time bomb that is surging toward us. We know that 50% of the workforce is due to retire over the coming 10 years. Interestingly, the latest figures for the Department of Work and Pensions are that 60% of their managers will retire in the next 5 years. These figures give us a rough idea of how the shape of our workplaces will develop in the next decade, so, bearing in mind that the Engaging Leadership Study by the CIPD found that 37% of leaders are currently failing in their roles as they don’t have the appropriate basic skills, we need to be firstly promoting the right people into leadership positions and perhaps, more importantly developing them to be effective. Managing our talent is no longer just a good idea, it is a fundamental requirement for ensuring we have the people in place to create successful futures for our businesses.

“We are so pleased that Thornton’s have agreed to sponsor us. We have been using their chocolate blocks to create our logo as part of our marketing campaign. We believe that the chocolate fits so well with our corporate brand and image as it is innovative and well respected”, commented Lisa Smale, Director of Management and Leadership Development.

Talent Pool members will join Deborah Meaden from the BBC’s Dragon’s Den to share her experience and expertise of the business world. The conference coincides with the launch of her new book “A Common Sense Approach to Business”. Speakers from Bath Spa University and the HSBC will also be sharing their common sense approach with delegates.

The conference is themed around this title and delegates will enjoy an action packed day of learning where they will gain new skills, listen to industry experts, and network with other members. A limited number of places are available to non-members – register today.

The session was very interactive with lively participation from all of the attendees. Attendees were given access to the most up to date research on Talent Management so that they could use this to influence their key stakeholders on the importance of this area in delivering the organisational objectives.

They were also invited to think about the criteria that future leaders will need to meet and how they can do this. Delegates were encouraged to get everyone in their organisation “Talent Spotting” to ensure that their Talent Management practices support the needs of both their senior managers and more importantly their employee potential.

We do hope that all of the attendees enjoyed the evening and were able to come away with some new thoughts and ideas to make a difference in their organisation.

Thousands of HR professionals came to the event in search of innovative or tried and tested ways to sustain organisational performance by improving people and organisational development.

The conference featured over 40 sessions from thought leaders and best practice organisations. Delegates actively participated in the sessions and engaged with their fellow professionals through stimulating discussions and debates in the following six key themes:

• Organisational development
• People development
• Coaching
• Learning delivery
• Talent management
• Performance management

Lisa and Sally ran a 3-hour workshop to help delegates to understand how and why there is a need to “Embed Talent Management across the Organisation”. Delegates were asked:

Having defined your talent management strategy and identified the talent that is right for your business, how do you then create the cultural shift from HR initiative to organisation-wide business strategy?

“It was a pleasure to lead one of the Talent Management Workshops at this years HRD event and to gain an understanding of how motivated the HR profession is to keep Talent Development on the agenda during the economic downturn. Despite the challenges people are facing it is encouraging to hear that manyt organisations still see it as a key business priority” commented Sally Rixon, Head of Collaborative Learning.

The Talent Pool team were also asked to host a ‘Swop-Shop’ session in the new MyEvent arena. Delegates and exhibition visitors were encouraged to make new contacts, share their expertise and help each other tackle their business challenges.

For CIPD HRD 2009 conference information, please visit the CIPD website.

Having defined your talent management strategy and identified the talent that is right for your business, how do you then create the cultural shift from HR initiative to organisation-wide business strategy?

Our workshop will enable you to devise a workable strategy to implement talent management and development successfully across the business.

“We are delighted to be talking about the challenges that are often faced by talent management and development professionals and how to overcome these as part of the HR strategy. It is important that organisations create a talent pool and ensure that succession planning is in place so that talent retention is moved to the top of the priority list”, says Lisa Smale.

For further CIPD HRD 2009 conference information and booking details, please visit the CIPD website.

Deborah Meaden of BBC’s Dragon’s Den will be meeting The Talent Pool delegates to share her experience and expertise of the business world. She will join you over lunch to answer any questions you have.

The event coincides with the launch of Deborah’s new book “A Common Sense Approach to Business”. The conference is themed around this title and delegates will enjoy an action-packed day of learning where they will gain new skills, listen to industry experts, and network with other members.

Overview of the day

A Common Sense Approach to Business:

Session 1 – Common Ground

Session 2 – When Common Sense isn’t common practise

Session 3 – A Common Sense Approach to People – Arlene Stone, Head of HR, Bath Spa University

Session 4 – A Common Sense Approach to Business – Deborah Meaden

Session 5 – Self-selection workshop – a Common Sense Approach when:

• embracing change
• I need to be at my best
• developing my personal brand

Session 6 – A Strategic Approach to Money – Richard Bottomley, Head of Liquidity Sales & Business Development, HSBC

Session 7 – When Common Sense Becomes Common Practise

Deborah was educated at Exeter College where she studied Business and Commerce. She started her career working in the public sector for Exeter City Council where she worked in economic development. In her next role in 1994, she established Lisburn Development, a public-private sector organisation to improve retail regeneration in Northern Ireland. Following this, she spent three years with Westfield – the largest property company in the world – in Sydney, Australia managing their portfolio of properties in new South Wales.

Deborah then moved back to London and managed Westfield’s emerging property business in the UK. She left Westfield in 2004 and after a brief sojourn working with managing agents she joined Land Securities in London. Deborah is based in Strand, London and spends much of of time travelling.

Deborah has a team of management surveyors working for her in London as well as responsibility for centre managers and centre directors throughout her area. Her centres include: Cabot Circus in Bristol, St David’s in Cardiff, Princesshay in Exeter, The Bullring in Birmingham, as well as five further centres in London, Cambridge, Northampton, Kent and Salisbury.

The good news is that investing in existing internal talent can be highly effective when compared with recruitment costs and on-boarding time. It also ensures you can constructively channel the efforts of your high-performers. If you neglect these people, their talents may become destructive. We need to understand how they achieve good results and share that knowledge and experience with others in the same role. This will help to avoid them becoming complacent or careless.

It is hard to believe that 11% of organizations are investing thousands of pounds identifying talent but then doing nothing with it! Organisations need to find simple solutions to talent management that allow individuals to progress into their next role whilst delivering their day-to-day objectives.