Workforce – “not assets to be managed”

I owe thanks to Ali Webster, Assistant Director for Workforce at West London Mental Health Trust, for opening her presentation at a meeting yesterday with a compelling quotation from a 2015 King’s Fund paper on talent management[1]:

“Successful deployment of workforce talent is about rethinking your view of your employees. They are not assets to be managed but rather people with options who have chosen to invest their aspirations and motivations with your organisation for a while and who will expect a reasonable return on their investment in the form of personal growth and opportunities.”

This is Escondido Framework thinking. You do not own the people who work for you – even if the way that you treat them may leave them thinking of themselves as wage slaves. You have secured their services in a market transaction in which there are two parties, selling to each other and offering opportunities to each other. And both parties are making an investment in the relationship, with both “expect[ing] a reasonable return on their investment”.

[1] Sarah Massie, “Talent Management: Developing leadership not just leaders”. Kings Fund 2015