If best-selling talent specialist Marcus Buckingham and HR thought leader Jason Averbook prevail, talent management will look very different and vastly improved compared to 2014.

In a recent thought-provoking webinar (now posted for all here), Buckingham and Averbook urged viewers to get ahead of five key fast-moving trends to better engage their organization’s talent. Not only are these trends currently changing the talent management landscape, they are rapidly evolving as well:

Top Trends of 2015
1. Personalization
2. A Focus on the Team Leader
3. Shift from Big Data to the Right Data
4. Feedback is not Coaching
5. Technology

Let’s just focus on one today–Personalization. Why is this so important in the talent management arena?

Consider the simple but powerful personalization capabilities of your Amazon account. Based on prior purchases, wish lists and products you’ve merely browsed, Amazon has an incredibly insightful lens into who you are.

Uber knows where I am when I need it. Fitbit tells me how many steps I’ve walked each day. Shazam tells me the name of that deep track from an amazing band I can’t quite place.

Can your talent management team truly explain who your people are, why you hired them and why they are so special?

People’s personal lives are filled with incredibly personalized tools, apps and software that help us create, communicate and achieve our goals. Too often, their workplace tools are the exact opposite–cookie cutter, highly unpersonalized and available in one color, beige.

The frustration workers feel living in these two disparate worlds is only growing. This disconnect has consequences for your organization.

Does your employee engagement strategy involve two soup cans and a piece of string?

Workers use Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, Vine, Pinterest, Instagram, and ten thousand other apps and brilliantly orchestrated lines of code daily. Compare these highly personalized tools with your performance review system.

Observe the vast richness of ways individuals can express themselves, be known and noticed for their individual talents and abilities–outside of your organization. Your employees are heard, acknowledged, respected and appreciated for their unique gifts and innate talents millions of times a day. Yet, you’re most likely missing out on all of this power and creativity.

Your employees live in a highly personalized world. However, talent management too often serves up tired forms, processes and box-checking exercises that wouldn’t stand out at the local DMV.

How many times have you updated your iPhone since your organization last improved its talent management tools?

Fully consider how you can better personalize your talent management today.

This is not about painting over your current system so you can try and look “with it.” Trust us. Your people can smell that coming a mile away. It is about stepping outside into the real world and engaging your employees in a meaningful, personal way.

As Greg Brown, the amazing Iowa folk troubadour sings, “If you don’t get it at home, you’re gonna go looking.”

Those lyrics also apply to retaining your key talent. Pour into them now, or they’ll go somewhere else that will. Part of that process is personalizing their growth and development specific to who they are as people–moms, dads, artists, musicians, brothers, sisters, athletes, movie critics, volunteers and coaches. Filling out a generic form twice a year won’t cut it.

These changes are happening with or without your organization’s consent. Check out the full Key Trends webinar for a more thorough discussion of how 2015 will be–has to be–a different year in talent management.

Focus on these and prepare to thrive. Dismiss these trends and get ready to lose key people to more forward thinking organizations.

Here’s to a better, smarter year!

Cheers,

DW