Managing Talents in Uncertain Times - Essay Example

The business impacts result in an impact on the talents. The impact of global pressures on talent can include a drop in employee engagement, destruction of company reputation or brand, acute shortage in workshop productivity, delayed retirement, and organizational restructuring.
Uncertainties create problems Employee turnovers increase and the pressure to reduce costs emerge on the horizon. However, these responses do not consider the long-term consequences. For businesses to survive given the global external pressures, innovations are necessary and the keys to innovations are talent.
In other words, global pressures require innovations for companies and firms to survive the pressures. At the same time, talent management is key for the required innovations for business survival. Some of the key questions that become more important in talent management are as follows:
1. Shall I acquire new talent or stop hiring new talent?
2. How and where should I reduce the workforce?
3. How shall keep employees my employees productive and committed to the company?

The above questions are the key questions in managing talent. Good talent management will enable the firm to position itself for survival, advantage, and growth. Good talent management that enhances positioning for survival implies workforce rightsizing, labor cost optimization, improvement in operational efficiency, and doing the basics. Good talent management that promotes positioning for advantage should imply measures that promote accelerated innovation, creation of new operating models, upgrading of critical skills, talent acquisition, flexibility in strategy, and rapid engagement and alignment. Finally, good talent management that results in positioning for growth should imply the following:

1. speed in the organization of mergers and acquisitions;
2. alignment of cultures or the toleration of a multi-cultural environment within a single corporate culture;
3. an integrated human resource management system that covers talent management;
4. an organizational architecture that promotes the optimal performance of the workforce including the talent; and
5. the use of governance models appropriate to the organization and the problems that the organization confronts.
Thus, talent management is a strategic imperative for business firms (Lubitsh and Smith, 2007, p. 6). The discussion of Cheese et al. (2008) is consistent with what we have discussed in the course. Talent management is about retaining the best talent. We have to selectively retain the talent we need. We ought to fire some if talent does not have a good fit with the business organization (Hedger, 2007, p. 44). At the same time, retaining them is more than a question of wages and benefits because, generally, a talent can earn relatively higher wages compared with the average worker. We have to understand better what makes the talent tick. Money is important for retaining talent. Thus, money counts but is probably not the factor that is most important in motivating talents to work at their optimal important but possibly not the most important in motivating optimum performance among talent. Thus, the work of Cheese et al. (2009) serves to reinforce what I have learned from the class, texts, and course materials.
As for its application in the real world, I consider the work of Cheese et al. (2009) very important. However, I am disappointed that one has to read between the lines in the work of the authors to understand its deeper meaning. I regret to say that the work of Cheese et al. (2009) is probably vague to others who are unfamiliar with the literature on talent management. However, when the work of the authors is articulated as I have articulated in this work, I think it is easier to see the importance of the work of Cheese et al. (2009).