Training and Employee Development Talent - Case Study Example

Talent management

Talent management include the process of attracting, scouting, controlling and managing the skills, knowledge, competencies and abilities of employees and an organization personal. The process of drawing and scouting for employees is a technique that requires a lot of precision regarding getting the best, able people out of the labor market. What an employer looks for are competent people who are well versed in their profession and well experienced, with exceptional traits and knowledge.

Therefore, this process is not just employing people. It involves hiring the right candidate, analyzing them and bringing out hidden talents and qualities of the employees and eventually nurturing this quality (Lepak & Snell, 1999). The development of this quality by employers aim at eventually incorporating them and transitioning them into the organization culture and ensuring they benefit optimally from such talents.

From the case study, the organization's expansion has led to much concentration put on profit maximization and less concern has been placed on the development of human resource.

Talent management opportunities and challenges

Talent management as defined in the above section is a process that involves managing the employee’s development. Given this definition, an organization has to go through a very competitive process because every other team is also scouting for the talented employees out there. Therefore, this process possesses a lot of opportunities and challenges within the labor environment and business conditions. According to the MWTCo assessment, the following opportunities exist within their organization. Opportunities include lack of a human resource function to oversee the next recruiting talent, training and development talent, retaining talent, developing leadership talent and creating artistic, ethical culture (Lepak & Snell, 1999).

1. Recruiting talent

The economic environment is characterized by a lot of downturns and strains such recessions and depressions and financial institution crises. In this scenario, the core result of this crisis and economic problems is mostly linked to unskilled personnel and poor management skills. This leads to the organization reshuffling people and retrenching people when faced with certain issues. The opportunity to talent management arises when an organization recruits the best talent from the market. The best talented employees ensure that an organization shield the group from the crisis but practicing the best practices. Skilled employees pose as an opportunity to the group because during a crisis fewer retrenchments, and less reshuffling will be required.

2. Training and employee development talent

Other models of employment are providing opportunities for groups that have been engaging in talent management for some years. Talent management is a very costly business since every step of the process has huge cost elements for example training costs, workshop costs and seminar costs.

Therefore, opportunities arise from contractual and part-time employment which does not require addition employee development cost reducing the number of values incurred by the organization.

3. Holding on to talent

It is highly recommended that organizations invest a lot of resources on employee and human resource development during periods of crisis to motivate and retain its top talent. This is because when an organization is faced with economic downturns and crises it engages in a lot of short run decisions such as retrenchment which reduces the morale of the remaining employees. Talent management becomes an excellent opportunity to boost the morale of the few remaining employees.

4. Developing and improving leadership talent

Leadership is the act of managing, controlling, organizing and coordinating organization activities to meet the overall organization goals (Lepak & Snell, 1999). When it comes to developing employ skills, the group benefits entirely as well as the employees.

Performance appraisal tool

There is one major weakness in the Moving Weight and Tracking Company. There is lack of a human resource function in place to oversee all matters related to human capital within the organization. Lack of this feature means there are no procedures to carry out performance appraisal for employees. The organization doesn’t have a communication system and mechanism for sharing information with staff. This section tries to formulate a performance appraisal procedure based on four main basic tools. These tools are discussed as follows;

1. Ranking technique

It is an idea that is used in many fields.

But to be more specific a ranking system is an approach that requires a human resource manager to rank their employees or a supervisor or immediate manager to rank his subordinates on a specified overall outcome or performance. Ranking can be done either in a single group where an individual’s performance is rated and measured against that a group member or between different competitive groups where the performance is ranked against that of another group’s individual (Lepak & Snell, 1999). This would be very applicable in the case of Moving Weight and Tracking Company where the corporation has expanded operation wise having more than one division. Individuals from these different categories can be ranked to determine the best.

2. Critical incident approach

This is another method that is used to conduct performance appraisal within an organization. In this technique, an organization's manager or the immediate supervisor to employee is required to come up with a list of various critical employee characteristics and on job behaviors, separating the most efficient and ineffective traits and behaviors. These written down incidences are used to categorize the best employee behavior and the weak responses critically while doing their jobs. Continuous recording of the employee behaviors on how they are performing on the job is compiled on given period, and the, analysis can be used to evaluate a workers performance.

3. Weighted checklist and checklist approach

This is another critical approach that is crucial for establishing and evaluating employee performance within an organization. A checklist or weighted list involves having an already predetermined measure that is used as a basis for determining whether an employee is performing as expected. This already determined action and checklists are usually compiled in statements and in specified job descriptions. A manager then uses this to evaluate an employee’s behavior according to different lists. After a rating is done the average is computed to establish the performance rate. When it comes to comparing employees against one another a board of judges is usually convened to give a ruling based on the values attached.

4. Field review approach

Lastly, performance appraisal technique is more demanding than the rest regarding official involvement. This method requires an on job supervision where the supervisor goes to the workplace and observes employee performance first hand. The analysis is done on the spot, and evaluation is given. It is somehow more efficient as one gets to examine employee’s behavior as they are working as opposed to the feeling of forms.

Applicability to moving weight and tracking company

All four techniques are crucial in setting up a performance appraisal tool for the enterprise. The human resource function if developed should have in place a combination of the four methods to be applied in all divisions of the company for purposes of measuring employee’s performance against the overall organization performance.

An action plan for low-performing employees utilizing a 6-step model

In every organization we have different categories of employees based on performance. Even in Moving Weight and Tracking Company, there are those employs who struggle with performance issues and those that are excellent performers. Given such a scenario an organization should have in place an action plan to accommodate the slow learners and steps to bring them up to speed with the rest of the employees. There are several steps that apply to this situation this include;

1. Recording and documenting performance issues

A sound management system is required to have in place a system of documenting the issues that employees with performance problems have. Documentation should be objective, factual and precise with relevant examples attached. This process will help the management when developing an improvement plan to solve the looming employee issues. Using this information and example of a performance improvement plan may contain details such as employee information, a description of performance shortcomings, expected outcome or performance and a description of the actual employee performance. Finally the plan should have a depiction of consequences and repercussions and the projected plan of action. Finally, an evaluation is usually done to determine the progress of the entire program (Lepak & Snell, 1999).

2. Developing an action plan

After documenting the issues that employees are facing and clearly stipulating the facts behind the issues, a manager should specify a plan which is usually integrated and adjusted to particular employee performance related problem. To have an effective action plan, it should contain specific and operationalize objectives that can easily be measured to give accurate and relevant time bound results. The action plan, on the other hand, should be in line with the organization's HR policies that clearly identifies the employee performance or behavioral problems and the final expectations. In other cases, these employee issues are brought about by group-specific factors. Therefore, the action plan should have in place clauses that may identify whether the organization is required to provide further resources such as time, development and training or employee coaching especially for jobs that are very technical and involving.

3. Assessment of the performance plan

It is critical to bring a third party to review the laid out action intended to allow for objectivity. Also if possible, identify any errors made in the plan. The third part plays an overall role in ensuring all aspects have been captured to be sufficiently comprehensive about employee issues that have been documented.

4. Introduction to employees

A pilot test should be implemented whereby the plan is tested on a few employees to see how it integrates into the working environment. The manager should collect the employee feedback and make changes to the plan where necessary. After the work plan is now acceptable to all parties it has to be signed as part of the organizations accredited pans.

5. Monitoring and evaluation

A regular checkup strategy or procedure should be put in place to evaluate the progress of the performance improvement plan. These provides room for discussion and question-answer sessions for purposes of providing further clarification and guidance on what is expected from all parties involved.

6. Conclusion

After the full implementation of the plan, the outcome expected should be achieved. If performance has improved, then the procedure is documented for future use and the process ends. If the performance has not improved the employer has a choice of either reassigning the employee, termination of employment or demotion based on circumstances and results from the plan.

Develop an outline of how the action plan will be used to evaluate performance.

From the action plan, the following outline can be used to implement them and evaluate the employee performance.

• Employee information
• A description of performance shortcomings
• Expected outcome or performance
• Description of the actual employee performance
• Depiction of consequences and repercussions
• The projected plan of action.
• Finally, an evaluation is usually done to determine the progress of the entire program.