Talent Management - Porter Novelli - Case Study Example

? Talent Management: The Case study of Porter Novelli of Introduction Porter Novelli is a leading global marketing communication organisation and in 2004; the firm carried out strategic assessment to come up with a vision that would guide it over a period of five years (Waldron, 2010). The process was led by the firm’s CEO and the new vision entailed a new approach in planning of the client’s accounts, a customer focused structure and fostering operating interdependences among its offices distributed globally. The three initiatives were considered as strategies that would enhance the ability of the company to attract the complex and dispersed customers and support the marketing strategy of the firm (Waldron, 2010). Consequently, senior management recognized the need to streamline the human resource management to ensure that it had the ability to implement the strategy and therefore the firm hired a chief talent officer (CTO) (Waldron, 2010). He had the role to design and implement a systematic human resource process and from his perspective, the implementation of the vision revolved around ensuring that all the employees became engaged by understanding what it meant to them (Stahl et al., 2012). The four principles identified by the CTO in ensuring engagement among all the employees is to define what is expected of them, understanding how success would be defined, the reward that awaits them in achieving the results and whether the firm was ready to eliminate the barriers that hinder success and provision of the necessary materials (Waldron, 2010). The CTO was familiar with the Drotter Leadership Pipeline and intended to use it in the organisation. Drotter result-based approach is intended for use by professional firms and is useful in selection, talent management, and planning trainings. Performance in the organisation was a problem given that there was lack of leadership competencies model. This paper will evaluate the effectiveness of roles performed by leaders in creation of performance management strategy and will bring out a five point criteria for assessing the effectiveness of talent management strategy. It will also provide a critique of the components of talent management strategy and outline functional components of talent management. Evaluating Effectiveness of roles played by strategic leaders in creation of performance management strategy The leaders played various in the development of a performance management strategy. Firstly, the senior leaders headed by the CEO enforced a clause that would ensure that each individual would be accountable of their actions. Moreover, the leaders enhanced the interconnectedness of the operations of the company. The leaders were called upon to prioritize global interests above the interests of individual offices and multi-regional client accounts were became critical. This call by the leaders is critical in ensuring the company grows internationally but has several weaknesses in when developing a performance strategy. When advocating of individual accountability, the leaders allowed the company to evaluate the performance of its employees but fails to recognize the role of team work in enhancing productivity of a company (Nuria and Rafael Garcia Rodriguez, 2010). The call on employees to assess the performance of its employees based on the multi-national client accounts fails to recognize to allow the offices to concentrate on the customers within their region and promote overall growth of the company (Saini, 2010). This may lead to unnecessary competition among the offices. The second role played by leaders was to develop a vision for the company which entailed business planning and team building for the senior management where the company would review its internal and external environment and proposing alternatives strategies. The leaders developed a small team to guide the process of strategy implementation. The team proposed a new methodology for management training and adoption of project management approach. This was a critical role in development of a performance strategy given that it set pace for communication which is important in enhancing the performance of a company given that consultation and reviews allows the company identify weakness and address them. Project management approach is also recommended in strategy implementation as it is cyclic reviewing of the process to identify shortfalls before proceeding to the next stage. The method is effectiveness in developing a performance strategy as it allows the company identify areas of weakness and propose corrective actions. The leaders also played a role in defining the set business results. They defined the targets which they envisioned the company achieving. This is a critical aspect in developing a performance strategy as it acts the benchmark against which the company can be evaluated (Saini, 2010). The leaders also play a role in assessing the culture of the company and this is dome within thirteen dimensions. All the dimensions are indicators of the performance of accompany and include teamwork, strategic planning, organizational culture, customer satisfaction, learning, communication, morale and loyalty, empowerment, quality, and implementation of the results of the survey. Lastly, the management played a role in getting feedbacks where the CTO was able to collect information from the CEO, chief financial officer, and the president. Developing a five (5) point criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of the talent management strategy and how the data could be collected. The five criteria that may be applied in evaluating the effectiveness of talent management strategy include: business results, employee climate survey, employee turn-over, interviewing and selection of new employees and creative thinking in the company. In evaluating the management of the talent in a firm, one would evaluate the financial performance of that firm. The second important aspect that may be considered in evaluation of the talent strategy is how recruitment is carried out; that is how the company uses various strategies to ensure that it attracts the best work force and maintains them (Sharma and Bhatnagar, 2009). Additionally, talent management may be assessed by evaluating the employee retention rates in the company. Data for this can be collected by analyzing staff attrition and reasons for their exit (Sharma and Bhatnagar, 2009). The other way of assessing talent management is to assess the creative ideas that employees come up with and how they are implemented to enhance the performance of a company. Lastly, employee surveys can be carried out to collect their feelings on how they are treated by the company. Critiquing the components of talent management strategy and suggest alternative ways to achieve effective results. Business results as indicators of talent management may not be good indicators of talent management especially when business results are considered from the viewpoint of financial results. However, talent management strategy should be holistic looking at other aspects of management such as teamwork and cooperation among the employees. Moreover, it should assess personal growth of the employees where individuals should be able to undertake various roles such as leadership. Secondly, employee turn-over as a factor considered in evaluation of talent management should be evaluated against the ability of the company to attract highly competent staff from other areas. The company should evaluate whether its employees are offered a competitive reward package compared to employees in other organisation in similar positions (Cappelli, 2009). The considering the recruitment process, the assessment should go ahead and assess whether the employees fit in the job description. This is because it is not enough to hire compete employees without having tom carry out job analysis. Carrying out of employee surveys to get their feelings on the company can be enhanced by getting reports from their supervisors which will enhance the ability of identifying the problems such employees go through. The customers are the recipients of the services from the company and therefore they should also be evaluated to point out any areas that they consider as requiring change or to complement the employees. Outline the functional expertise component of this strategy and how it optimizes the company’s ability to identify highly qualified individuals. The functional expertise component of the talent strategy was to first start with defining the work, roles and carrying out an organizational analysis and then proceeding to the organisation could embark on managing and selecting its employees. This approach helps the company to work from the perspective of its demand rather than from the applicants. This approach can be optimized by ensuring all line managers are involved in the recruitment rather than having the human resource department carryout this role (Waldron, 2010). References Cappelli, P. (2009). A supply chain model for talent management. People and Strategy, 32(3), 4-7. Nuria, C. B., & Rafael Garcia Rodriguez. (2010). Talent management in professional services firms: A HR issue? International Journal of Organizational Analysis, 18(4), 392-411. Saini, D. S. (2010). Talent management in the developing world. Vision, 14(4), 340-341. Sharma, R., & Bhatnagar, J. (2009). Talent management - competency development: Key to global leadership. Industrial and Commercial Training, 41(3), 118-132. Stahl, G., Bjorkman, I., Farndale, E., Morris, S. S., Paauwe, J., & Stiles, P. (2012). Six principles of effective global talent management. MIT Sloan Management Review, 53(2), 25-32. Waldron, G. (2010). PORTER NOVELLI. In Goldsmith and Carter Best Practices in talent management. John and Wiley and Sons, Inc. Read More