We wanted to do the special edition in conjunction with this piece on the benefits of Talent Pools. Those trends are the driving requirements behind the Talent Pool concept.

As you know, we're great fans of Jason Davis, over at Recruiting.com. Here's what he's saying:

I liked your series on talent pools. I agreed with all of it. Software cannot do it alone. you need someone looking at the group of 15-50 people and say how can I make the next 5 years of our relationship meaningful. -  lots of love, lots of dialogue, lots of engagement - Then maybe you get to hire one of them.

Why bother? Because your future depends on it. Jason is describing the relationship a first level supervisor needs to have with his/her talent pool. McKinsey sees them as an integral part of 21st century organizational design:

Companies can not only build this new kind of organization but also reduce the complexity of their interactions and improve the quality of internal collaboration by implementing four interrelated organizational-design principles:

1. Streamlining and simplifying vertical and line-management structures by discarding failed matrix and ad hoc approaches and narrowing the scope of the line manager's role to the creation of current earnings
2. Deploying off-line teams to discover new wealth-creating opportunities while using a dynamic management process to resolve short- and long-term trade-offs
3. Developing knowledge marketplaces, talent marketplaces, and formal networks to stimulate the creation and exchange of intangibles
4. Relying on measurements of performance rather than supervision to get the most from self-directed professionals

(The 21st-century organization, Mckinseyquarterly.com

A company can create similar efficiencies by developing a talent marketplace that helps employees in a talent pool, either within a single organizational unit or across the enterprise, to explore alternative assignments varying from short-term projects to longer-term operating roles. Simultaneously, anyone with assignments to offer can review all of the people looking for new opportunities. As with marketplaces for knowledge, companies must invest in their talent markets to ensure that gifted men and women looking for new jobs hook up with managers seeking talent.

Companies must define the talent marketplace by specifying standardized roles, validating the qualifications of candidates, determining how managers receive the job seekers' performance evaluations, and so forth. The other requirements include pricing (the compensation for a particular role or assignment), an exchange mechanism to facilitate staffing transactions, and protocols and standards (how long assignments run, the mechanics of reassignment, the process of conveying decisions to reassign employees). Talent marketplaces do exist—particularly in professional organizations—but like knowledge marketplaces they are at an early stage of development.
(The 21st-century organization, Mckinseyquarterly.com

- John Sumser © TwoColorHat. All Rights Reserved.