Sustainable Talent Management - Research Paper Example

? Sustainable Talent Management Introduction As discussed earlier on talent management strategies, it is evident most of the modern organizations are seeking the competitive advantage over the rival firms by optimizing talent search and management in line with the business’ vision and mission. The evaluation of how, when, who, and for which department that the organization will recruit are basically the worrying factors of the Human Resource Department as the cutting edge of productivity and realization of the company’s set goals. The fact that the major objective of both private and public organizations is growth and expansion, then a factor of time and analysis of the forces involved within the provided time frame, that is, the change of the business environment in the process of growth and expansion; calls for effective measures by the Human resource and the respective stake holders to come up with strategies and long term policies to accommodate and maintain the structural changes within the employees sector. In this paper we are going to evaluate different talent management processes to sustain the talents and the organization’s work force in the lon run. Context of Performance management Process Performance management seeks to ensure efficiency and reliability in achieving the pre-defined goals in line with the laid out procedures. In modern organizations there are different departments which are run/ assigned to different professionals who have not only specialized with the field but have other side skills and talents which can be modelled to fit with the department/ organization’s culture. Performance and potential of a given employees forms the basis of employing optimum measure and prediction of his/ reliability in future (Cokins, 2009). Long Cycle performance measure: This is whereby I evaluate the employee’s productivity annually, semi-annually or on quarterly basis. This process gives an insight of long term fairing of the employee’s reaction to the business environment, application of his extra skills and how they converge/interact with his immediate tasks over the given period of time and the changes from the external business forces. Short-Cycle Performance measure: On this evaluation, I would consider gauging the employee’s performance on either weekly, by-weekly or on monthly basis. Depending on the nature of the project, some areas require urgency and to ascertain the individual to be assigned to these areas require critical analysis of their speed in responding to critical issues within a selected department. For instance, a qualified Accountant with extra skills in software management and can work with strict deadlines, will be a resource towards the end of a project where much needs to be done with a fixed deadline. Micro Performance measure: Measurement based on shortest time spans of minute, hours or a day. The diversity of talents within an organization will enable me to ascertain who can work better on some issues during different hours of the day and how much he can achieve with respect to his/her colleagues. The above performance measure processes can be pegged on Program specific output which generally defines the expected departmental results; Program specific performance measure due to diversity of program/department needs and the corporate culture/ laid out policies/procedures within that department; Respective employee’s specialization and performance within an assigned task, and all governed by the organization’s strategic goal and objective. This will ensure a sustainable talent management because reliable data will be available on the employee’s competencies, their time response and consolidation with the organization’s goals with time. In management of talent pools managers are required to develop both short term and long term talent review process to maintain smooth running of the organization’s personnel. With major objectives of recruiting, developing, rewarding and maintaining a sustainable work force, managers need to understand their employee’s career preference and strengths so as to help them in the talent review. For instance, in management of talent pools, managers need to consider the following: Talent identification and assessment of the potential: This will be pegged on the employee’s demonstrated skills, knowledge and behaviour in his/her current position, helping them come up with the talent definition in that they can find solutions to, can the employee perform this task better and /or if we increase the roles and activities of these job, can the employee handle them efficiently? This will form the basis of talent review at the end of the business period. Before the review process management needs to identify feeder roles and evaluate readiness. At this point managers seek to channel optimum succession of duties and roles within the organization from the talent pool and assess how ready is the selected lot to assume new roles and the measure of the impact. In general, managers should ensure the following from the talent pool; Identification of the possible successors which is based on the current functions of the organization and the intended long term objective; they should align individual’s career aspirations with the organization’s requirement for maximum productivity; they should identify the gaps in the leadership pipeline so as to predict the long term succession process and management and sharing the post talent review with the employees so as to agree strategies and actions going forward (Berke & Wakefield, 2008). This will enhance smooth succession and monitoring of talent mobility within the organization and ease talent search in area where exceptional talents are inevitable. Talent assessment and Employee performance management processes Talent assessment can be directly linked and /or associated with the performance management processes employed. For instance, in competitive talents assessment, an individual can be evaluated on the three processes, the long term, short term and the micro, to ascertain his/her behaviour, productivity within the given time frame and to critically analyse the leadership/succession pipeline with respect to each process, thus enabling prediction of the future talent management and retention. In addition, in the required roles/ best performers assessment, incorporation of the management processes can best evaluate the pre and post-hire analysis, define a competency frame work and link the organization’s performance metrics throughout the employee’s life cycle (Davies, 2007). In contrast the processes my not apply to all organizations and at all times due to diversity in talent searches and requirements among the organizations. Talent Management Objective and Developing Functional Expertise The major objective of talent management is to recruit, develop and retain with a speculative impact within the business structure, however, developing a functional infrastructure to maintain a pool of talent is far more important. To develop a functional expertise within the organization, the recruitment and development parts of the objective must move an extra mile to achieve this. For instance, they need to be articulate on how they source, that is, what qualities match the company goal, what age bracket, what other skills are paramount within a certain department and with what qualifications? They also need to select and attract the functional brains/application to their immediate need and the forecasted motive. In addition, to develop a functional expertise, training and development is of great importance. This can be supported by the fact that in the process of growth and expansion of the firm/organization, several departments will arise, new perspectives of the mechanisms to be applied will arise and that since the organization is expanding in terms of its operations, new employees will be a perquisite of which training and skills development will be a key factor to make them understand the structural organization, orientation/induction and all that is expected of them to fit in the organization’s culture. On the retention objective, functional expertise can be built and grounded on promotions, that is, leadership/succession based or remuneration based to enhance motivation and sense of ownership/control which is a factor promoting talent development. Further, adoption of evaluation mechanisms based on performance and potential, linked with effective post-evaluation communication to the employees will nurture talent growth as each and every employee will understand his/her strengths and/ weaknesses and through effective motivation strategies, they will improve the potential and performance hence achieving the functional units of expertise (Rausch, & Ayesh, 2013). Globally, talent management is pegged on the basis of crucial business areas such as cost management, productivity, consumer satisfaction quality and revenue with a need to optimize the operations environment, increase profitability and realize the organization’s goals. The key element of talent management seeks to align the laid down objectives with the available labour market. They may include corporate goals supporting culture of employee development; communication and leadership on the succession and career growth; an inventory of talents to support the corporate goals; internal career development platform within the organization; a workflow system to facilitate each of the elements, and measurement system to allow tracking and identification of performance of employees in each talent pool. Effective talent management, which puts into consideration the above mentioned key elements, will not only achieve a sustainable pool of expertise and talents, but excel even in foreign expansions. This is because applying the above elements in a multi-dimensional business organization with branches or networks overseas will enhance smooth incorporation of diverse talents into the structural and organizational structure of the firm, subject to overall employee satisfaction and talents definitions. Benefits accruing to a strategy driven talent management and as a result of sustainable talent development process can be summarised as effective delivery of strategic or operation goals, however, looking at them in terms of management/leadership, financial and motivational gains will be much clearer. For instance, in a strategy driven talent management, there is improved leadership in terms of simplified communications within the organization, flexibility and responsiveness in case of a management need and clear relationships within the organization. Depending on the nature of the business run by the organization, there is increase in profits due to increase in sales and a functional cut in operating expenditure, few or no projects over runs and minimised reaction time in creation and adoption of strategic changes. Motivation wise, there is transparency and confidence that the employees will get their bonuses, there is a laid out incentives plan and the professional alignment of programs to achieve designed goals (Daniels, 2009). These benefits can only be achieved if sustainable talent management is effective and policies/measures are long term based. A program goals and measure/ program specific output scientific approach would be a recommendable talent management process as it offers holistic and timely data/ information on the talent’s performance and potential in which appropriate measure can be applied to improve the efficiency of the talent with respect to the area of operation/ specialization (Tippins & Adler, 2011). Conclusion Talent management as it has been discussed forms the basis of achieving the long term goal of organizations growth and expansion. Sustainable talent management can be vaguely seen as a liability to the organization but the benefits are outstanding. References Cokins, G. (2009). Performance management integrating strategy execution, methodologies, risk, and analytics. Hoboken, N.J: John Wiley & Sons. Rausch, P. & Ayesh, A. (2013). Business intelligence and performance management theory, systems and industrial applications. London: Springer. Daniels, A. (2009). Bringing out the best in people how to apply the astonishing power of positive reinforcement. New York: McGraw-Hill. Davis, T. (2007). Talent assessment: A new strategy for talent management. Aldershot, England: Gower. Berke, D. & Wakefield, M. (2008). Developing leadership talent. San Francisco: Pfeiffer. Tippins, N. T., & Adler, S. (2011). Technology-enhanced assessment of talent. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Read More