TMA Talentmanagement at Gemeente Arnhem
A Valuable Guide for Employee Development Perspectives
Becoming more efficient and innovative? Embrace collaboration! The Taxation team, already working for the municipalities of Arnhem and Renkum, is now also collaborating with the municipality of Rheden this year. This entails new functions and roles for employees. Manager Willeke den Hartog opted for the TMA Method to provide her team with greater insight into their talents and effectively prepare them.
"The Taxation team has been around for a while and has undergone several changes since 2012. Time is needed to navigate these transitions," Den Hartog explains. "For instance, we struggled to become more self-directed, while the Municipality of Arnhem aimed to decentralize responsibilities within the organization."
"We focused on team building, getting to know each other better, and taking a day out," she continues. "However, we ultimately chose a team coaching trajectory of six or seven sessions over three-quarters of a year because we wanted to empower team members. That's when we encountered TMA, and we saw it as a good developmental tool: it allows us not only to identify employees' competencies but also the competencies required for new roles. Moreover, it enables an objective assessment of where everyone stands."
Providing Tools
Den Hartog recounts how the process unfolded. "A year ago, over forty people completed a TMA talent analysis, including employees we hire long-term. We quickly realized that the employees' talents mainly lie in being process-oriented. Given the administrative nature of tax collection and processing, attention to detail and precision are crucial. Before the reorganization, there were always managers overseeing the team, which worked fine for the team itself. However, self-direction requires different talents, such as being result-oriented and able to look beyond the process."
External factors, besides reorganizations, influence the competency profiles of roles. "Our field is also rapidly evolving," Den Hartog elaborates. "Not long ago, we used to measure municipal taxes manually with a measuring tape, but now we extract information from various databases. Tasks are increasingly digitized with connections between databases. It's become more dynamic. What used to happen every five years is now done every year."
The TMA experts from Kat-Haros discussed the talent analyses with everyone. "The emphasis was on the development opportunities for employees concerning the competency profiles of the old roles and those of the new Taxation team," Den Hartog notes. "How can you develop your talents to fit into a new role?"
The municipality's goal is to provide employees with tools to gain insight into their talents themselves, empowering them. "This benefits us all," says Den Hartog. "That's why, in the spring, we offered a 0-degree feedback. Each person filled in how they thought they scored on certain competencies. This self-assessment, along with the TMA report, forms essential and objective content for planning and progress discussions. These discussions can be a bit nerve-wracking: are you and your manager looking at your competencies in the same way?"
Next comes a 360-degree feedback. "This also yields new insights. We conduct it in broad groups, but anonymously because we want people to freely express what's going well and what isn't. The results are then incorporated into follow-up discussions. Combined with TMA, this provides a solid guide for developmental steps."
Positive Approach
What has TMA brought to the organization? "At the moment, we're still at the level of individual employees. Beautiful things are happening there: you can show someone stuck in a negative spiral the wonderful palette of talents they possess. I hope that soon there will be a moment when we can gather the team and collectively discuss the talent analyses: this is who we are, these are everyone's talents, how can we complement each other? That level of openness is still premature."
Den Hartog believes that TMA facilitates a different kind of conversation. "It brings openness to how people perceive their competencies. Objective and positive. Until recently, development discussions were always focused on improving things that weren't going well. Now we take a much more positive approach. As an organization, we still need to get used to that. Also, translating TMA into personal goals isn't easy for everyone. It requires more effort from the manager for some employees than for others. The negativity traditionally associated with the discussion cycle isn't completely gone. But we're heading in the right direction!"
She believes that TMA offers a valuable guide for employees' developmental perspectives. "That's why I think the TMA Talent Compass is a good addition to Raet's Performance Management software. If it's available to everyone, it prompts the organization to think about its vision for employee development. How do you embed that in your organization?"
About Gemeente Arnhem
Gemeente Arnhem is a '100,000-plus' municipality with approximately 1700 employees. The municipality offers citizens and businesses a wide range of products and services in the areas of housing and working, public services, and social and spatial projects. The Taxation team is responsible for collecting and processing all municipal taxes. Arnhem is collaborating with the municipalities of Renkum and Rheden under the name De Connectie.
