Talent Management Principles and Advantage

 

TALENT MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES AND ADVANTAGE

 

Talent-management practices can create the most permanent competitive advantages, new technologies and innovations can be easily replicated by competitors and generate only temporary competitive advantages (Heidrick and Struggles (2011). Sustained competitive advantage comes from talent management practices in other words, how the organization attracts, develops, retains, motivates, manages, and rewards its talent. (Heidrick and Struggles (2011) Like a machine, a business will fail to operate successfully if key elements such as processes, systems, and structure are misaligned or hindered by friction between those elements and like a machine, a business must be designed, operated, and maintained. 

These functions are performed by the talent the human capital employed by the enterprise. Indeed, talent typically is the single biggest lever for driving improvements in business performance. The collective skills of the talent employed in an organization largely comprise the organization’s core capabilities. An organization’s talent injects capabilities that are very difficult for competitors to benchmark and replicate. More than any other asset, talent provides the potential for long-term competitive advantage (Lawler, 2008).

 

TALENT MANAGEMENT AND EMPLOYEE DEVELOPMENT

Talent management includes the identification and development of all talent, especially high potential talent for future assignments, positions, or projects. An integrated talent management approach includes workforce planning, talent acquisition, professional development, performance management, retention strategies, and succession planning (Fitz-enz and Davison, 2002). It is important to global organizations because it assists the organization with the development of its employees. "Supply chain is the central nervous system of a global corporation, and the more companies globalize, the more they are going to need people who can really understand all the different sides of the business" (Reese, p. 3). By developing their employees, organizations can produce optimal results. 

According to the Institute for Corporate Productivity, in a report called Critical Human Capital Issues of 2011, the top issues identified by organizations as “ most critical” included: coping with change, knowledge retention, talent management/coaching, leadership development, performance management, innovation/creativity engagement, succession planning, measuring human capital and managing a global workforce ,“Companies around the world have made talent management a top priority, and therefore, such activities are marked by a relatively high degree of sophistication” , (Sharma, D., Borna, S. &Stearns, J. M. 2009) According to Reinecke, Spiller, and Ungerman (2007), the McKinsey global survey of purchasing executives at more than 200 companies found that organizations that utilized “best practices in talent management with purchasing employees differ from ordinary companies along three talent dimensions. The dimensions include capabilities of the purchasing units themselves, talent dimension involved the way purchasers view their roles and the aspirations they associate with those roles and high performers were more likely than the other companies to involve purchasing executives more broadly in business planning”.(Reinecke, Spiller, and Ungerman (2007)

 

PRINCIPLES OF TALENT MANAGEMENT

There are no hard and fast rules for succeeding in execution of management practices, if you ask me. What may work wonders for one organization may ruin another one! For convenience sake however there are certain principles of Talent Management that one should follow or keep in mind (Sharma, D., Borna, S. &Stearns, J. M. 2009)

Principle 1

 Avoid Mismatch Costs In planning for future manpower requirements, most of the HR professionals prepare a deep bench of candidates or manpower inventory. Many of the people who remain in this bracket start searching for other options and move when they are not raised to a certain position and profile. In such a scenario it is better to keep the bench strength low and hire from outside from time to time to fill gaps. This in no way means only to hire from outside, which leads to a skill deficit and affects the organizational culture.(Sharma, D., Borna, S. &Stearns, J. M. 2009)

 Principle 2

 Reduce the Risk of Being Wrong In manpower anticipations for future an organization can ill afford to be wrong. It’s hard to forecast talent demands for future business needs because of the uncertainty involved. It is therefore very important to attune the career plans with the business plans. A 5 year career plan looks ridiculous along with a 2 year business plan.(Sharma, D., Borna, S. &Stearns, J. M. 2009)

Principle 3

Recoup Talent Investments Developing talent internally pays in the longer run. The best way to recover investments made in talent management is to reduce upfront costs by finding alternative and cheaper talent delivery options. Organizations also require a rethink on their talent retention strategy to improve employee retention. Another way that has emerged of late in many organizations is sharing development costs with the employees. One important way to recoup talent investments is spotting the talent early, this reduces the risk. More importantly this identified lot of people needs to be given opportunities before they get it elsewhere. Chou, S. Y. (2012).

Principle 4

 Balancing Employee Interests How much authority should the employees’ haves over their own development? There are different models that have been adopted by various corporations globally, but the flipside in this is that talented employees search for options. Organizations can also make use of the internal mobility programs which are a regular feature of almost all the top organizations. , Chou, S. Y. (2012) ,(Sharma, D., Borna, S. &Stearns, J. M. 2009)

 

Talent management and competitive advantage

The major goal of every organizational strategy is to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of the operation which could lead the organization to success. Talent Management is essential when the organizations will like to build winning teams which will be formed by talented personnel. The organization will use these kinds of teams to solve determinate problems or weaknesses in departments. For example, if there is a trouble in the Financial Department, the organization will build a team to solve this problem and they are going to solve it, because they are competent and experienced people in this field (Davis et al., 2007). 

The studies show that if the organizational strategies and technology would be complex, its key success is human factor. Therefore, managers should consider to the factors which effect on organizational success. In this regard, Lewis & Heckman (2006) identified three key streams of analyzing the effectiveness of talent management practices. A first stream refers to an analytical technique to tie talent management to financial performance; a second stream emphasizes the process of analyzing and optimizing the talent management system. (Lewis & Heckman (2006)

 

List of References 

Gara, R. (July, 2008). ‘Talent management in Egypt.’ Paper prepared for presentation at the Global Talent management Centre.

Kahinde James Sunday (2012)Talent management effect on organization performance. Journal of management research volume 4 No 2

Lockwood, N.R. (2006). ‘Talent management: Driver for organizational success’, research Quarterly, Society for Human Resource management.

London, M. , Mone, E. & Scott, J. (Winter, 2004). Performance management and assessment: methods for improved rater accuracy and employee goal. Human Resource,43( 4), p. 319-336.

Mendez & Stander (2011). Positive Organization. The role of leader Behaviour in work engagement and Retention’, South African Journal of Industrial Psychology,(37)1. thesis. Stellenbosch. University of Stellenbosch

Meyer, J.P., & Smith, C.A., (2001). HRM Practices and organizational commitment: Test of a mediation model. Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences 14(4): p. 319-331

Sara Ballesteros R.and Inmaculada De la Fuente(2010)Talents ;the key for successful Organization. Unpublished thesis, Linnaeus School of Business &Economics ,Linnaeus University