Talent Management
Talent Management is a process that has the goal to hire, develop and integrate new workers, develop and retain current workers, and attract highly skilled workers to work for a firm. Talent Management is part of the Human resource management process. It is really important for several reasons. Actually, it can be a significant source of competitive advantage. It is also an important part of organizational strategies. Finally the way organizations treat their employees has been found to affect a lot organizational performance.
The quality of an organization depends on the quality of people it hires and keeps. Getting and keeping competent employees is the key to success in every company, whether the company is a start-up or has been in business for years. All managers have to engage in Human Resource Management and Talent Management such as interviewing job candidates, orienting new employees, and evaluating their employees’ performance.
Talent Management can be divided into four parts that we are now going to develop here: hiring talent, assessing talent and performance, compensating and rewarding employees, developing employees and their leadership.
I) Hiring Talent
Once a company’s structure is settled, it is indispensable to find people to fill the jobs that have been created. That is the “hiring part” of the talent management process. It is an important task that involves the right number of the right people in the right place and at the right time.
People in a company are the most precious asset, so it is really important to choose them well when you hire them. This is the job of the recruiting specialist from the Human resources and also the Manager which is going to work with the new employee.
The Hiring phase of the talent management process is divided into three parts: human resource planning, recruitment and selection.
The Human resource planning is a process by which managers make sure that they have the right number and capable people in the right places and at the right times. Thanks to planning, companies avoid people shortage and surpluses. This is the theoretical part the hiring process. Human resource has two steps: assessing current human resources (take inventory of the current employees) and meeting future Human resource needs (determined by the company’s mission, goals and strategy).
An important part in the process of hiring new talents is for the company to create a job analysis, a job description and a job specification. A job analysis defines the job and the behaviors that are required to perform it. A job description is a statement that describes the job. A job specification is also a statement that specifies the minimum qualifications that an applicant must have to be successful in the job.
Then comes the recruiting part. There are several means to look for candidates before recruiting them. They can be summarized like that:
| Source | Advantages | Disadvantages |
| Internet | Large number of people, immediate feedbacks | Many unqualified candidates |
| Employee referrals | Provided by current employee, most of the time good candidates | Don’t increase the diversity of employees |
| Company Web site | Possibility to target specific groups, wide distribution | Many unqualified candidates |
| College recruiting | Large number of candidates | Limited to entry-level position |
| Professional recruiting organizations | Good knowledge of the industry goals and requirements | Little commitment to specific organization |
Even if online recruiting is popular and allows companies to indentify candidates quickly, those applicants may not be as good as the ones found by using other sources. Actually, research has demonstrated that employees’ referrals produce most of the time the best candidates. As the current employees know both the job and the person being recommended, they have a tendency to refer applicants who are well qualified. Moreover, current employees often feel that their reputation is in danger if they advice a person that is not qualified.
The next step in the hiring process of talent management is the selection. The selection has the goal to determine which applicant is the best qualified to do the job. Managers have the obligation to select very carefully because hiring errors can have significant implication for the future of the company.
Selection involves predicting which applicants will be successful if hired. A decision is correct when the applicant was predicted to be successful and proved to be successful on the job, or when the applicant was predicted to be unsuccessful and was not hired. It is really important to make the right decision because hiring the wrong person can generate a lot of costs for the company (for example training costs that a qualified person would not need).
They are a lot of different selection devices that help managers to select the right person. They include application forms (best used for gathering employee information), job related written tests, work sampling (appropriate for complex nonmanagerial and routine work), assessment centers (appropriate for top level managers), interviews (widely used, but most appropriate for managerial positions), background investigation (used to verify application data), physical exams (used for work that needs physical requirements and for insurance purposes), tests of personality (to see if the personality of the applicant fits with the company culture and team work), etc.
When managers want to hire someone, they need to explain really clearly the job to the applicant. They have to tell him the good things but also the bad things of the job and the company so as the future employee will not be disappointed by his job. A realistic job preview is really important because it gives an applicant realistic expectations about the job he is going to do. This should increase employee job satisfaction and reduce turnover.
II) Accessing talent and performance management
Organizations require more and more to compete in a quickly changing business environment and that’s why they need to make better and faster strategic decisions at several stages: recruiting, performance assessment, compensations…
New companies or online companies provide new solutions on talent and performance management to others, especially because it need time to implement a new management strategy.
Indeed, performance management is becoming essential in companies, and especially to build a productive and engaged workforce. The aim is to align all the talents with the business goals. This kind of management is used to help the employees to understand their roles, to be informed of the strategic business objectives and of what they are expected to do or to allow them to be aware of the performance success as viewed by the management and customers…
Several solutions on talent and performance management are used have been adopted by a large number of companies.
So, one of them is to give to the employees access to their own information through a username and password that allow them to check their goals or some reports on their progress… This solution contributes to make the employee responsible of its own career, to allow them to feel empowered in determining the course of their career path and in that way, to participate to the growth of the company.
Another performance tool is to improve communication between managers and employees by teaching managers to engage a constructive conversation with their team.
On other objective is to implement new tools based on the simplicity to allow the company to gain time. For examples, many managers have a lot of good ideas but have a “blank page syndrome”. The issue could be to hire a “Writing Assistant” to help managers to quickly find the words for any situations…
- the goal management
- the development planning and training
- the workforce and succession planning
The goal management consists in recognizing goals of individual team-member, in resolving conflicts among goals and in prioritizing goals for optimal team-collaboration and effective operations. It makes the employee aware of its mission and it allows to clarify his missions.
The workforce planning has the goal of choosing the right people across the organization in the right place and in the right time.
The succession planning also participates to the implementation of talent management because its focus is specifically on having the right leadership in place at every level of the organization. Indeed the quality of employee work life is influenced by the quality of the leader they work for, what give all the importance of the elaboration of a succession planning
III) Compensating and rewarding employees
It is absolutely necessary for a company to have a good system of reward and compensation, because employees feel that their work is not valued, they will loose motivation and maybe even counterproductive, which may be a very serious issue for the company.
That is why successful talent managers must be able to create an environment that will drive employee performance… Of course, this is not that simple. There are many different ways to reward somebody’s work, and it is hard to find what will stimulate someone, what will make him committed to his work.
Obviously, the first thing that comes to mind is money. If an employee has a good salary, plus a bonus if he meets his objectives, he will certainly be motivated. And when we take a look at the study carried out in 2006 by Innecto Reward Consulting, saying that nearly three-quarters of the 690 UK executives aged under 40 years old polled said they now expected a pay rise every year, and that two-thirds of them claimed that financial reward is now the number one career motivator, it seems that money have a colossal impact on motivation.
However, compensating and rewarding employees with money is a huge cost for the company. Fortunately, it is not the only way to motivate employees; on the contrary: lots of studies claimed that simple recognition delivers better results than cash!
Indeed, one result of the Japanese National Institute for Physiological Sciences is that �paying people a compliment appears to activate the same reward center in the brain as paying them cash.� Very surprising, but there is more: with a study of 2008, consulting firm White Water Strategies found acknowledging staff achievements had the same impact on job satisfaction as a 1 percent increase in pay. Finally, a study realized in 2004 by the University of Chicago say that noncash incentives were 24 percent more powerful at boosting performance than cash incentives.
As this may seems a little bit theorical, an exemple might be helpful. MBNA is a credit card company had a problem to motivate its 2600 sales team. In order to solve this matter and increase productivity, the firm contacted consultancy Maritz, which designed a programme called HITS!, offering weekly, monthly and bi-annual music prizes based on performance. This program, supported by posters, weekly e-bulletins and promotions at team meetings, consists in offering ipods, cds, live concerts when employees meets their objectives.
This program was very efficient on the young employees of MBNA, they were talking about it, eagger to know what the next event will be,…
Thanks to this program, MBNA achieved its revenue targets and stabilized its retention rates.
Andy Grannell, internal communications manager at the firm, says: “The programme has provided MBNA with an opportunity to reward our people to the next level. The money-can’t-buy prizes on offer have re-invented the whole incentive genre within our corporation.”
This program illustrates the fact that there seems to have a new trend in the rewarding policy. Nowadays, it is not just about money. More and more, people care for other type of rewards, such as extra-holiday days, childcare schemes, flexible working and job stability. Furthermore, a successful talent manager must not forget recognition, compliments and acknowledging achievements, which are very efficient tools, because they are as important as rewards for employees, and make them more productive.
IV) Developing employees’ leadership
Today, developing employees’ leadership is becoming more and more important. In most companies, in the most recent research, we can find that leadership development is the number one talent management function that needs the most improvement, as identified by 43% of companies. In this same study, 60% of companies (up from 51% in 2007) identified “gaps in the leadership pipeline” as their number one talent issue (see Bersin & Associate: Leadership development). So, we can see that leadership development is really important.
What is leadership development?
Leadership development is the will of companies to develop their talented people who can help the company to develop, keep the company having more and more profits and manage and lead the company and its employees very well.
How to develop leadership?
Leadership has to be based on trust. A leader must have a good communication with the employees and a good leader should know the strengths and weaknesses of the employees, put them in the right position and help them to do their best. A good leader can help the employees to grow up, develop and make the employees feel that they do the work also for themselves.
If a company wants to allow an employee to be the manager, the company has firstly to find out if the employee is theory X or theory Y. If the employee is theory X, he can’t be a good leader because his motivation is extrinsic. The company has to choose an employee who is theory Y to make him a manager and a leader. Because people who are theory Y like challenges and are really motivated by their work and what they do for the company, they can do their best to achieve the goals of the company, and so become great managers and leader.
Secondly, the company has to build up a pipeline to collect all of the employees’ strengths and weaknesses that can help them to develop in the company by knowing what kind of work an employee is the best at.
Thirdly, a company has to set up a good way to exchange and speak with its employees. A leader/manager can hear their suggestions and their problems because great leaders are great listeners. A leader/manager can also help employees to make the right decisions.
Fourthly, a company has to build confidence in the staff. A good leader should have goodwill. All the employees have to believe in him and a good leader doesn’t have to impose the staff to do something, the employees are self motivated if they like their leader and they can finish the works by themselves.
To conclude on leadership, a citation by Dag Hammarskj�ld is perfect:
“Your position never gives you the right to command. It only imposes on you the duty of so living your life that others may receive your orders without being humiliated.”
How we will present “Talent Management”
What we plan to do is a little roleplay, representing the different steps for an employee in a company. One of us will be the employee, and the others, talent managers.
First, the hiring. What make this candidate special, what are is specialities, what can he bring to the company and how can it enjoy his abilities,…
Then, assessment of his performances. Has he been helpful, how did he do his job….
As the employee will be a good and serious worker, the company will reward him, trying to see what kind of reward is the most efficient for him: Money? Perks? Recognition?
To conclude, our employee will be in charge of a team. How does he communicate with his team, how does he lead it,…
To conclude, we notice that the organizational talent implemented by a company will have a lot of impacts on its ability to achieve its strategic objectives and to execute its performance improvement.
To manage talent, a company needs to identify, develop and retain people to match them to the goals they will achieve the most effectively.
There is three essential steps in the talent management. The first one will consist on a clear identification of talent to match people to fill the job that they have created. The challenge is to select people who have the profile the most adequated to the job description with skills and talent required for this job. Indeed, employees are considered as an essential asset for the company and talent management help them to use this “resource” in the best way.
The second step consists in the implementation of several tools that will allow the company to measure the performance of its staff and to take advantage at best of this resource.
Finally, the company has to think about rewarding and compensations to retain its talents and the best way to reward them is often money and bonus but it also represents a real cost for the employer.
Finally, the company will develop employee’s leadership giving them responsabilities and making them more autonomous. The goal is to find the best leaders, able to communicate and share suggestions with its staff…
References:
- http://www.talentmgt.com
- http://www.personneltoday.com
- http://www.scribd.com/doc/21954276/management-10th-Ch10-by-stephen-p-robbins