Talent management means implementing processes to attract, identify, develop, engage, and retain individuals valuable to an organisation. To be effective, these processes need to align with strategic business objectives. Strategic talent management has several benefits: it creates a high-performing workplace; it fosters a learning climate; it adds value to the employer brand, and it improves diversity. 

For these reasons, people professionals consider talent management to be a key priority. The CIPD Profession Map recognises talent management as one of the specialist knowledge areas within the people profession and sets out the expected standards to follow. 

This factsheet looks at the context of talent management and its compelling benefits. 

This factsheet was last updated by Giorgia Gamba Quilliam: Global talent and learning partner, Christian Aid, and independent consultant

Giorgia is an award-winning learning and development professional with more than 15 years' experience in the field, and a former Learning Content Manager at the CIPD. In her nine years at the CIPD, Giorgia led the development of digital learning content and was instrumental in the launch of the CIPD digital learning platform.

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