“We’ve not had a talent management solution prior to this time,” said McCrory, who spoke with Talent Management about the state’s steps to rectify this problem.

TM: Where is talent management within the state of Nebraska at present?

MCCRORY: Currently, by statute, human resources within Nebraska state government are either centralized or decentralized. There are some aspects of it that are decentralized here in the state personnel division of administrative services. The majority of human resource management takes place in the agencies and is decentralized by statute. So if we start looking at what we’ve done with performance and some of these other issues, it depends on the strength of the agency that’s doing that under their decentralized authority. Now, what we believe we are establishing with a talent management software solution is one centralized, integrated human resource management core that these agencies can still fulfill their decentralized duties through. That means that we want a consistent approach to hiring, a consistent approach to training, a consistent approach to performance. However, we cannot override the agency’s statutory authority on how they manage their human capital.

TM: What challenges impact talent management in your state, and how are they specific to Nebraska?

MCCRORY: I don’t think our state is any different than any large organization in that change management is always difficult. People are very set in their ways. They’ve become very accustomed to this decentralized functionality that they’ve had in the past. They’ve made do in many cases, some better than others, and so I think that the change management aspect of this is significant. We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the fact that we are in an economic downturn. And that economic downturn has impacted Nebraska as it has every other state in the union and as it has federally. And so we are trying to do more with less, and we were able to start implementing this talent management solution without significant increases to anyone’s budgets.