Failing to manage your company’s talent needs is the equivalent of failing to manage your supply chain. Supply chain managers ask questions like ”Do we have the right parts in stock?“ “Do we know where to get these parts when we need them?” and “Does it cost a lot of money to carry inventory?” These questions are just as relevant to companies that are trying to manage their talent needs. The principles of supply chain management, with its emphasis on just-in-time manufacturing, can be applied to talent management.

This is a fundamentally different paradigm for thinking about talent. HR practices have typically been about meeting individuals’ needs, figuring out what psychological profile they fit and what should be done to help them grow and advance—touchy-feely, squishy stuff with little applicability to business problems. But if you’re an employer who is worried about issues like the finances of the company, you would like HR to think about personnel from the perspective of money and costs, and what happens if you don’t have the right people in place to do the necessary jobs.

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