Applying Portfolio Analysis to Talent Investment Decisions

The development and implementation of value-producing talent strategies should amount to more than the simplistic aggregation of individual talent management initiatives across the enterprise – either at the corporate or operating unit level, or both. The “best” talent management investments entail examining the potential, or actual, value producing payoff (e.g., ROI, NPV) associated with options confronting business priorities – current and emergent – as
well as other decision factors or logics. This forces the firm to make clear investment choices, or decisions, about its talent management project portfolio, and the allocation of resources that ultimately impact talent value creation in the business. Talent project portfolio management represents a combination of practices and decision techniques, with associated criteria, used to measure and increase the return on individual and aggregate talent investments – existing and planned – to reduce talent shortfall risks. A firm’s investment portfolio comprises all direct and indirect talent projects and assets, including infrastructure, programs,
processes, and practices, as well as outsourcing initiatives, ranked-ordered in terms of their relative standing on 5 decision logics.
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