Talentmanagement is schadelijk voor organisaties. Dat weet iedereen. Toch kunnen velen de neiging om rottende delen van HR te herverpakken en te verkopen als kunstmest (1) niet weerstaan. Dit leidt tot onderpresteren (2), fnuiken van ambities (3), vergroten van frictie op de arbeidsmarkt, (4) domme werknemers (5), geldverspilling en – en daar stopt de vrijheid van handelen van zelfs de domste ondernemer – discriminatie en racistisch gekleurde toewijzing van taken en middelen. En daarom moeten HR professionals die het woord talent gebruiken gekielhaald worden totdat ze ermee stoppen. Nothing new, maar meer en meer wetenschappelijk onderbouwd. En de tip, trouwe lezertjes, is dus om geld te reserveren voor belangrijke taken, niet voor blanke mannen met een symmetrisch gezicht. Dus, vriendelijk verzoek aan iedereen die talent management promoot om zichzelf aan te geven voor aanzetten tot discriminatie.

Full disclosure: dit blog probeert een graantje mee te pikken van Michels Rijnders recente tractie door de criminalisering van het schadelijke maar veel minder schadelijke videorecruitment.

(1) The term talent management has escaped a standard definition, and nearly every article written on the topic begins with handwringing over the conceptual boundaries of the term…. the use of the term talent management is often little more than a rebranding of a range of typical HR activities (Lewis & Heckman 2006)

Gallardo-Gallardo et al. (2013, p. 291) assert, “It appears that talent can mean whatever a business leader or writer wants it to mean, since everyone has his or her own idea of what the construct does and does not encompass.”
“disturbing lack of clarity regarding the definition, scope and overall goals of talent management.” Similarly, Collings et al. (2009, p. 1264)

Collings et al. (2009, p. 1264) conclude that “the concept of talent management is lacking in terms of definition and theoretical development and there is a comparative lack of empirical evidence on the topic.”

(2) However, using archival data, found that although self-directed investments in human capital among top managers are more likely to improve performance than firm investments are, the use of noncompete agreements encourages firm investments while discouraging self-directed investments. Using an experiment design, Amir & Lobel (2013) found that individuals in the noncompete condition were generally less motivated and thus more likely to leave a task uncompleted, although the results on overall job performance are mixed. Garmaise (2011)

(3) However, the lack of a definition for what constitutes potential, both within firms and within the academic literature (Fernández-Aráoz et al. 2011, Silzer & Church 2009), gives us little reason to believe that this process should produce valid information, despite its widespread use.

(4) continues to focus on practices associated with lifetime careers in corporations, despite the fact that the most profound shift over the past 30-plus years in how organizations manage their workforces has been an increase in dismissals and external hiring at all organizational levels (Cappelli 1999)
reduce exits (see Garmaise 2011 for evidence on executives and Marx et al. 2009 for evidence on inventors)

(5) It is incredibly difficult to predict future performance in a new role (see Cascio & Aguinis 2008b).
[no] subset of employees or jobs as creating disproportionate value (Gallardo-Gallardo et al. 2013, p. 295)

there is also substantial research showing that exceptional performance is not entirely dispositional. Studies of investment bankers (Groysberg et al. 2008) and doctors (Huckman & Pisano 2006) have highlighted the importance of intrafirm social networks to performance, with Groysberg et al. (2008) finding that star investment analysts were often unable to replicate their previous levels of performance owing to the loss of social capital associated with a move to a new firm. Groysberg et al. (2011)cast doubt on a more-is-better approach to talent management, finding a curvilinear relationship between group performance and the percentage of star analysts in investment-bank research groups. More generally, the field of HRM is based on the notion that management practices, and not just individual differences, drive performance

some jobs are more critical to organizational performance than others, and firms should devote more resources to those jobs in which individual performance has the greatest potential to impact firm performance (Boudreau & Ramstad 2007, Delery & Shaw 2001, Huselid et al. 2005)