(From Canadian HR Reporter) -- i4CP sent a newsletter recently commenting on the need for "integrated" to be added to the term "talent management" in order to update it and make it more powerful as they suggest in a new book. They mention the number of providers in the area changing names - StepStone Solutions to Lumesse and PeopleClickAuthoria to PeopleFluent. It sometimes seems as if every update of strategy requires a new name, though the new ones sometimes don't seem much more enlightening than the old.

It got me to questioning the use of the term talent management itself. I have always taken it to be an umbrella that takes in finding, recruiting, orienting, developing, managing and tracking performance and then moving people up through effective succession planning all the way through their careers. That definitely calls for integration of many HR functions and beyond, since line managers have to be central in many of the pieces - from supportive coaching on the development side to career planning conversations with individuals. They are definitely needed for effective succession planning discussions among groups of managers so everyone agrees on how to rotate people through progressively challenging assignments across different divisions to season their leadership knowledge and skills.

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