If you follow our research, you know we spend a lot of time discussing, evaluating, writing and speaking about talent profiles. While profile management may seem like just another “bell or whistle” feature set promoted by marketing teams, we believe it is a critical aspect of this juggernaut called integrated talent management. Unfortunately, we have recently learned that many early adopter organizations have some serious challenges implementing the first generation of talent profiles offered by vendors today.

Briefly, a level set on talent profiles.
Talent profiles provide a consolidated view of all talent-related employee data that is generated by system processes, added by administrators, managers or employees, and by external systems. For example, most talent profiles available in talent management systems today probably include data for performance objectives, performance history, training, certifications, competencies, education, awards, succession plans, career plans, mobility and languages. They also usually support organization-defined fields, and the ability to expose or suppress certain fields depending on operational, legal and cultural practices. In slightly more sophisticated talent management systems, contextual segments of the talent profile are presented within talent processes (such as talent planning, succession management and pay for performance) to inform and influence the user’s decision-making and planning efforts. The information helps managers answer questions including:

• Who has the necessary background to support a project or company initiative?
• Who can fill this internal vacancy today?
• Which person is a better fit for this job?
• Does this person consistently meet or exceed performance plans?
• Can this person work in another country?
• Does this person’s career interest align with a specific need we have for him / her today?

In addition, talent management providers that have embraced social software in their applications provide opportunities for employees to connect with each other (a la Facebook and LinkedIn) for expertise finding, networking, career exploration and knowledge-sharing. Sounds great in theory, right? In practice, however, we have found that early adopter organizations are having a hard time implementing talent profiles – in part due to their own “immature” processes, and in part due to major gaps in the design and security of the talent profiles.

There are a few key points that I will touch on now. To receive our full analysis of these problems, you will have to read our 2009 update to the Talent Management Suites industry study, which is due out in early September.

Problem #1 - Organizations lack quality and consistent data due to immature HR processes and integration. No additional comment needed here – this is to be expected at this stage of the market.

Problem #2 - Many vendors do not offer processes to ensure the timely gathering of accurate profile data. Specifically, they do not offer employees and managers the ability to update profiles directly (self-service). As a result, the data is limited to whatever the system “knows” and is only maintained through system events. And if a vendor does allow employees and managers to edit and contribute to profiles, they do not always provide workflow to support an approval or validation process. Further, very few vendors go one important step further to support adoption by offering workflow and notifications to request and remind employees to update their profiles – either as a standalone process or embedded within an existing process, such as performance management, onboarding or career planning.

Problem #3 - Most vendors do not offer role-based views of the talent profile. Rather, they only offer two views of the talent profile – a public view, which everyone can see, and an administrator view.  The security model does not account for special roles (such as a talent planner, project manager, mentor or coach) that would benefit from a more comprehensive view of the profiles while conducting a talent search or working with individuals. 

Problem #4 - In conjunction with Problem #3, even the vendors that do offer support for multiple “administrator” roles do not always offer granular security controls on which sections or fields are viewable by role and by audience type within the organization (i.e., geography, functional unit, department, level etc.). This is particularly important to enforce data privacy conventions and regulations.

As a result of these “problems,” many early adopter organizations were forced to implement a “public” talent profile that honors all operational, legal and cultural differences and requirements across the enterprise – meaning that they have implemented the lowest common denominator profile, and not the insightful and robust profile described above.

Last week, we finished up our comprehensive briefings for talent management systems with 26 vendors. Through the process, I was disappointed to find that many vendors have not addressed all of these “problems” in their latest releases. I suspect this is due to the fact that, to fully address the problems, it will require serious updates to the information architectures and security models. And, at this time, vendors are unlikely to have many organizations shouting at them to do this because of Problem #1 – the organizations just aren’t ready to implement and institutionalize the comprehensive talent profile, and they haven’t encountered these issues – yet.

On a positive note, there are a handful of vendors (including Authoria, Taleo and Halogen) with scalable talent profiles. 

Halogen recently provided us with a demo of its new Talent Profile module (available in September). While Halogen is not always first to the market, the company typically does a great job once they get here. Rest assured, with the Talent Profile module, Halogen customers will not have to worry about Problems #2, 3, & 4, so they can focus on Problem #1.

Final Thoughts:

Profile management is a key system feature to support integrated talent planning and management.  Given its importance to the platform and the value it can provide, we urge organizations to invest the time to understand its benefits – and more importantly, its minefields. While the problems may not be pressing issues for you today, they certainly will be in the not too distant future.