Managing People for a Competitive Advantage - Essay Example

Managing People for a Competitive Advantage The following are the areas where talent productivity leaders achieve the very best results: Employee engagement Goal alignment Cultural alignment Organizational agility 1. Four trends that drive tremendous business results a. Complex new work environments for organizations- The way that an organization executes its work functions has changed due to the many changes in the organization environment. Employees have had to diversify and now have the ability to work across cultures, time zones, and market segments. Through supervision from shareholders and managers, employees have become more responsible in the running of their day-to-day activities. Workplaces have also become diverse as most workforces have people that have unique abilities, behaviors, and expectations and from different generations working together for the good of the organization (CEB). Organizations have also developed the culture of involving employees in the decision-making process, which makes employees more responsible. b. Performance improvement by engaging HR managers and executives towards the desired business outcomes. In this practice, the human resource function seeks to improve the performance of the workforce without having to hire new people for the job placements available. These managers can improve the performance of their workforce by demanding that the team members deliver more (CEB). c. Talent effectives strained by new realities Interdependence has tremendously influenced how work is done within an organization as many opt to collaborate for the good of the business and the achievement of organizational goals. Collaboration makes the job of managing the workforce to be easy as they work towards the achievement of effective processes. Additionally, the performance of one employee tends to affect the performance of his/her peers making it important for managers to influence them to put in more effort (CEB). Interactions are also necessary when it comes to getting the job done as employees need each other for them to complete their tasks. d. A new Convergence between talent and business management The workplace has continued to change over the years while the talent has also been challenging, making it needful to collaborate talent management to ease the complex situation. Employees have to align themselves with the visions of the managers so as to be relevant to the business and its practice. 2. Four generations of people The silents- these are individuals born between 1925 and 1946. They are loyal, dedicated and risk averse as their values are influenced by the fact that that they were present during the Great Depression and World War II. They are committed to teamwork and are highly collaborative as they have high regard for developing interpersonal and communication skills (CEB). These are the ideal workforce as they have the nature of conserving and saving based on their experience during the post-war era. Baby boomers- These individuals are born between 1946 and 1964. They place work as their priority in life over their agendas. They have the tendency of mistrusting authority as their values were shaped during the time of civil rights movements and activism. As compared to the silents, baby boomers are more optimistic to change but are more in pursuit of personal gratification. Most of the baby boomers find themselves having to work part time in their retirement age while others opt not to retire as they have the desire to regain their lost retirement savings (CEB). Generation Xers- In a workforce, these are the individuals born between 1965 and 1980 and they mostly tend to question authority. They are usually the ones that power the work and life balance concept making them be viewed as the ‘slack generation’. They have excellent technical skills, as their birth was during the time that there was declining population growth and are more independent as compared to the other workforce generations. They do not consider work to be a priority, which influences the baby boomers generation to view them as not dedicated to work. They are adaptive to job instability as compared to any other generation because of their need to develop their skills more for their good (CEB). Generation Ys- These individuals are the ones after 1980 and the age is characterized by an increase of global terror and the growth of the internet. In essence, this generation is resilient and navigates change excellently as they also have a deep appreciation for diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Also known as, the millennials, these individuals are the most educated workforce and they are patriotic. Their parents that are from the baby boomer generation making them work hard instill their values (CEB). These values also influence them to set goals that will complement the lifestyles that they would want to live. They are more demanding as compared to any other generations. Leaders working in cross-generational workforces should understand each of their characteristics and allow them to feel appreciated within the workplace for them to bring in their valued contributions. 3. One significant reality is that businesses have to drive talents and influence the outcomes they desire. Individuals should be supported by the organization on a broader level to influence the overall business outcomes. Analysis of data can also lead to a competitive advantage as this allows a business to realize their strengths and weaknesses to develop strategy objectives. 4. Five big steps in driving better talent and better business outcomes The shift is from the old view of talent management to what leading companies are doing so as to achieve better results. a. Moving from focusing on individual contributions to encouraging enterprise or collective contribution as a way of influencing organizational performance. b. Moving from data collection and reporting, to applying analytics to business transformation and driving talent. c. Moving from being limited by silos or departments to reorganizing the strategy objectives all round. d. Viewing talent as an element in strategy execution to viewing talent as an influencer towards strategy. e. Talent retrospectives to charging forward on planning in support of talent management that is future driven. 5. The functions of the human resource department in an organization should be on managing talent and the different generations of the workforce. Future related practices should guide Their management practice for a business to achieve superior business results. Focus should be on enterprise contribution away from individual contribution, which is not as significant. Informal and formal relationships should be developed so that employees are able to gain as much as possible from the business. Network performance competencies should also be adopted as business practices because they have the ability to influence enterprise contributions. These competencies include teamwork, self-awareness, managing others, influence, risk management, and creativity. The others include process design, organizational performance, resource allocation, and systems thinking. When these competencies are applied, an organization will be able to perform highly because there will be the achievement of enterprise contribution that are in line with the business goals. Work cited CEB. Talent Management in the New Work Environment. YouTube. Web. 1st July 2015. Read More