The other day I saw an online ad where Arby’s called their sandwich “talent”. Now, do you think I can find the ad anywhere? Of course not! Maybe I was just really hungry and imagining things at the time. That said, it got me to thinking about the idea of “talent” and how it is really an overused catch phrase.

In our culture, talent has come to mean everything from a valued employee, to a celebrity actor or athlete, to um, a really good sandwich? I have to wonder if somewhere along the way, we’ve lost the idea behind the term talent. While talent is actually a noun, without meaningful action on the part of HR and management, you can’t really have talent per se. Yes, you may have talented professionals – but they sure aren’t going to feel valuable or like talent at all if that meaningful action isn’t demonstrated.

Which brings me to the idea of a talent management strategy, if you don’t have a cohesive strategy, can you really have talent? Without consistent, clear communication, rewards and recognition, or career and development plans, there’s not much of a talent management strategy in place. If you only appraise employees once a year instead of having managers work with them to develop and improve competencies, you aren’t doing much to make people feel like talent. And I’m pretty sure doing replacement planning instead of succession planning isn’t helping matters either.

While economic conditions may make it more challenging to execute on talent management best practices in the short term, the reality is that organizations that truly have talent – and not just employees – are better equipped to weather the storm. The talent you do have needs to feel valued now more than ever, because when the storm’s over they may very well jump ship, and you’re no better off than you were when it began.

I submit that talent is an action word. It takes a systematic approach, and a lot of action to ensure your employees feel like they are talent.

If you happen to see that Arby’s ad, please send it to me. In the meantime, I’ll be trying to figure out if a single type of sandwich has enough talent to carry a fast food chain.