This is the second chapter on human resource

management interventions—planned change

efforts intended to address the attraction,

development, and retention of human capital in

organizations. It presents three interventions concerned with talent management. First, coaching

interventions attempt to improve an individual’s

ability to set and meet goals, lead change, improve

interpersonal relations, handle conflict, or address

style issues. These resource-intense interventions

focus on the skills, knowledge, and capabilities

of an organization member, usually a manager

or executive but in the case of mentoring also

can apply to individual contributors. Second, management and leadership development processes

are the primary human resource interventions

for transferring knowledge and skills to many

individuals. They can include in-house training programs, external educational opportunities,
actionlearning projects, and other activities. Third, career

planning and development interventions address

different professional needs and concerns as organization members progress through their work

lives. All three interventions can support the training and development aspects of performance

management described in Chapter 15. In the following chapter, interventions that address workforce
diversity, stress, and employee wellness are

presented.

Boudreau argues that HR and organization

development (OD) professionals need to increase the

decision-making rigor regarding talent management.He suggests that talent management investments
are as critical to organization effectiveness as

finance and marketing investments and warrant a

more reasoned decision science in human

resources thinking. In the absence of such an

approach, human resource policies resemble a “one

size fits all” point of view and lead to blanket human

capital policy statements like “everyone should get

40 hours of training each year.” In fact, some talent

pools are more important to effectiveness than

others are.

In times of scarce investment resources,

organizations should determine which talent pools

(e.g., customer contact positions, engineering

positions, or leadership) are most “pivotal.”

Those talent pools where improvements in skills,

knowledge, and competence are most likely to

have the biggest impact on performance should2get a disproportionate amount of investment.

This perspective will likely conflict with OD’s

traditional egalitarian values, but reflects an

important future trend in human resources

management as the function matures and

becomes more strategic in nature.

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