Role of HR in Developing Talent at Work - Literature review Example

?Role of HR in developing talent at work “Globalization has changed us into a company that searches the world, not just to sell or to source, but to find intellectual capital - the world's best talents and greatest ideas”. Jack Welch, CEO – General Electric The business environment in the 21st century has dramatically transformed the manner in which human resource influences and impacts the management and development of talent in organizations. Human resource in the recent times has evolved from its humble role of supporting and managing administrative tasks to acting as a strategic partner to organizations, and managing and developing talent - since people are the key force and one of the greatest assets any organization can ever have. Hence the role and responsibility of HR as facilitator and developer of talent of its workforce with a view to achieve its overall business objective has assumed key significance over the years. The recent decades has seen a drastic change in demographic patterns, along with significant transformation in the political, economic as well as corporate fields. This has largely contributed to the changing perceptions of the way in which HR addresses issues related to hiring and training of employees (Gandossy & Kao, 2004). Such changes in almost all factors external to the organization are shifting the trends of corporate world, whereby there is a change in negotiation of power as well as the relationship between employers and employees. Talent management and development is being touted as one of the most significant and crucial aspects within the corporate world, today, as established and confirmed by various researchers (Gutheridge, Dommm & Lawson, 2006; Sandler, 2006; Handfield-Jones, Michaels, & Axelrod, 2001). Such studies indicate that effective development and management of talent by the HR has significant impact on the finances of the firm, i.e. there is a direct relationship between talent development and financial returns of the company. The better the talent development and management the higher the profits and returns. The concept of talent management was first conceptualized during the second World War (Capelli, 2008) and assumed greater significance during the late 1990s (Scullion and Collings, 2010). The twentieth century saw a sudden change in the attitudes of the HR management team, whereby the focus was shifted to developing, managing and retaining talent in the workforce. It was during this time that the need and realization for a talented workforce was on the rise and the significance of a talented workforce became one of the crucial aspects of organizations worldwide (Makela et al., 2010). It was established through various studies that the key to maximizing productivity and ultimately profitability was through adoption of a systematic and effective strategy aimed at developing talent at work and through hiring, selecting, developing and retaining a talented pool of employees (Huselid et al., 2005). Developing talent at work has increasingly been accepted as one of the key strategic functions of the HR, in most of the organizations globally. The development of talent, however is not restricted to merely hiring of talented workforce but also includes incorporating development programs with a view to sharpening the skills of the current pool of employees. According to the ex-CEO pf Procter and Gamble - the world's largest consumer groups, their company spends half of their time in developing talent (Holstein, 2005), thus re-affirming the significance of talent development as a key HR function. In the most broadest term, the concept of talent management / development indicates developing a wide range of strategies and policies aimed at enhancing and developing the skills of employees at the workplace and includes attracting, hiring, developing, utilizing as well as retaining the skills crucial to the organizations and using the abilities and skills of the employees in an optimum manner, for the benefit of the organization as a whole. According to Ringo et al., (2010) talent development is mostly concerned with the adoption of practices and policies designed with an aim to identify the weaknesses of the workforce, identifying gaps between the required talent and the existing skills-set of their workforce, and bridging this gap through appropriate measures such as through education and training and motivating the employees to perform better through various incentives. According to Farndale et al., (2010) the concept of talent management has assumed supreme significance as a key HR function, especially during the 21st century. According to Krewson (2004) talent development focuses on developing skills of the workforce through various means, and since skills can only be developed through a vast and diverse range of experiences, the HR must aim to assimilate a wide range of meaningful activities to build talent. According to Barlow (2006) people hired for various jobs belong to varied backgrounds and possess different types of skill-sets and hence the HR must focus on designing activities according to their individual backgrounds i.e. through development of a personalized skills development program. In various organizations the development of talent is done through positive activities such as promotions at work, incorporating training programs, and the likes. Such positive measures enhance and speed up the process of developing talent at work, as employees are known to respond in a better and positive manner to such programs. According to Morton et al (2005) the excessive focus on negative talent culture in an organization include excessive reliance on working on / overcoming the weaknesses or shortcomings of the employees such as identifying the poor performance in various fields rather than focusing on developing their strengths and capitalizing on the same. Some organizations on the other hand, focus on the negatives while designing programs and strategies for developing and managing talent at workplace. According to Digeorgio (2004) the sign of an able and efficient HR team is their ability to work around the weaknesses of their staff rather than focusing on them, and using it as a yardstick for skills development. They must aim at assisting the employees in identifying their own skills and then work on enhancing the same, and the HR in turn, must then capitalize on the skills of those employees. In order to eliminate or reduce the impact of their weaknesses, the employees must be encouraged to work in groups or teams, where their weaknesses will be overcome by the other team members, thus helping the organizations in achieving their key strategic goals and objectives. Such activities not only help the organizations in overcoming the weaknesses of their employees but also prevent failure to achieve their goals. Digeorgio (2004) further states that the development of talent at workplace depends highly on the manner in which the HR approaches and undertakes such an activity. The fact that the knowledge and skills of an organization's workforce is an important weapon which if used effectively can help the organizations in sustaining their competitive positioning in the fiercely competitive marketplace has been documented through various researches. The HR, hence plays a key role in using this weapon to their advantage to survive the fierce competition and in the process increase and enhance the overall organizational competitive advantage as well (Collings and Mellahi, 2009). The rapidly changing trends over the years, is highly indicative of the growing need for talent development in organizations and as a key HR function in present times. The transformation within the organizations, as observed today, with regard to the strategies adopted by HR with regard to the management of its intangible capital and the growing emphasis on sustainability of knowledge and human capital development bears testimony to the fact that human capital is irreplaceable tool within all organizations to achieve their goals. In today's information age which is highly knowledge oriented the significance of human capital in the form of a highly critical talent pool, is a key strategic resource available at the disposal of organizations. The retaining of such highly efficient talent at workplace gives organizations the much needed competitive advantage (Davenport et al., 2002) and hence the role of HR today has expanded significantly to include development, as well as retaining of the appropriate skills within organizations. The importance of a skilled workforce or the knowledge worker provides the organization with an ability and expertise to adapt to the highly dynamic marketplace. The skilled workforce has the ability, talent as well as conviction to address and approach the various challenges faced by organizations and use their talent to respond and adapt to changes (Lawler, 2008). An extensive research of literature on the significance and role of HR in development of talent at work reveal that organizations today have increasingly accepted and adapted to the changing needs of the corporate world, and the role of HR has now widened to include planning and developing of strategies aimed at enhancing the performance of employees. As the competition for hiring and recruiting of critical talent intensifies, various organizations are finding the need to re-evaluate their talent development strategies, to include the same as a key business objective. The expansion of the marketplace and the blurring of geographical boundaries, due to the advent of technology, influx of new entrants, and the foray of new and developing economies has heightened the need for greater and better workforce. The role of HR as a key facilitator and administrator of organizational activities has expanded significantly and hence the strategies must be redefined from transaction based to employee based. References: Barlow, L. (2006). Talent development: The new imperative? Development and Learning in Organizations, 20(3), 6-9. Cappelli, P. (2008) Talent management for the twenty-first century. Harvard Business Review, March, 74-81. Collings, D. and Mellahi, K. (2009). Strategic talent management: a review and research agenda. Human Resource Management Review. 19, 304-313. Digeorgio, R. (2004). Winning with your strengths: An interview with Ken Tucker of the Gallup Organisation. Journal of Change Management, 4(1), 75-81. Gandossy, R. & Kao, T. (2004). Talent Wars: Out of mind, out of practice. Human Resource Planning, 27(4),15-19. Farndale, E., Scullion, H. and Sparrow, P. (2010). The role of the corporate HUMAN RESOURCE function in global talent management. Journal of World Business. 45, (2), 161-168. Gutheridge, M., Domm, A.B., & Lawson, E. (2006). The people problem in talent management. McKinsey Quarterly, (2), 6-9. Handfield-Jones, H., Michaels, E. & Axelrod, B. (2001). Talent Management: A critical part of every leader’s job. Ivey Business Journal, 66(2), 53-59. Holstein, W.J. (2005). Best companies for leaders. P&G’s A.G. Lafley is No. 1 for 2005. The Chief Executive, (November), 16-20. Huselid, M. A., Beatty, R. W. & Becker, B. E. (2005) 'A Player' or 'A Positions'? The strategic logic of workforce management. Harvard Business Review, December, 110 117. Krewson, H. (2004). Integrating Coaching, Training and Development with Talent Management. In D. R. Berger & L. A. Berger (Eds.), The Talent Management Handbook (293-306). New York: McGraw-Hill. Lawler, E.E. 2008. Talent. Making people your competitive advantage. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Makela, K., Bjorkman, I. & Ehuman resourcenrooth, M. (2010) How do MNCs establish their talent pools? Infuences on individuals' likeihood of being labeled as talent. Journal of World Business, 45, 134-142. Morton, L., Ashton, C., & Bellis, R. (2005). Differentiating Talent Management: Integrating talent management to drive business performance. London: CRF Publishing. Ringo, T., Schweyer, A., DeMarco, M., Jones, R. and Lesser, E. (2010). Integrated talent management – Turning talent management into a competitive advantage – an industry view. IBM Global Business Services. Sandler, S.F. (2006). Critical issues in HR drive 2006 priorities: #1 is Talent Management. HR Focus, 83(1), 1 & 13-15. Scullion, H. & Collings, D. G. (2010) Global talent management. Journal of World Business, 45, 105-108. Read More