Small wonder, perhaps, that a massive 85% of organisations have no systematic way of assessing whether they are getting a return on investment (ROI) from talent management processes.

Quite simply, businesses are failing to "walk the talk" according to the UK Talent Report.

One problem, of course, is that there is no agreed definition of talent, let alone talent management. Some use the phrases to encompass all training and development activities, while others think in terms of succession planning at the top of the organisation.

So no real surprise, then, that most of the organisations in the survey have neither a talent management nor a talent development programme.

The report tries to pull together a whole swathe of "talent" issues in its report, from recruitment to training, to the measurement of return on investment. And you may not be surprised to hear that the three main problems identified are a lack of senior management support, a lack of clarity about policies, and a lack of financial investment.

More constructively, however, here are the top six methods used by respondents to assess the return on investment of their talent management processes (whatever those might be):
1. Cost per individual (58%);
2. Overall cost of talent management (53%);
3. Cost of talent management against retention of talent (43%);
4. Cost of talent management against other career progression (40%);
5. Cost of talent management against productivity (40%); and
6. Cost of individual talent management techniques (33%).

And here are the six most widely used methods of measuring return on investment in talent management shown in a graph.