Talent Management of the Bank of America - Essay Example

? The Bank of America Talent Management The Bank of America Bank of America was founded in 1904 as the Bank ofItaly by Amadeo Giannini. The main intention of the bank at that time was to meet the needs and desires of immigrants residing in the United States. After its expansion after World War I, the bank diversified its products and services for all the Americans. It is at this point that the Bank of Italy merged with the Bank of America founded by Orra Monnette to form the current Bank of America. Upon the merger, the bank showed a great deal of stability. Presently, the bank is the biggest institution of finance services globally. The Bank of America is the second largest commercial bank globally, continuing to record the best credit ratings despite the credit crunch in the 1970s (Johnston, 1990). The Bank of America has a variety of leadership and talent programs which enable it to nurture and promote talent among both the existing employees and upcoming and promising talents. As a result, the bank has put in place various talent management programs that have led to its success in the industry. This paper will evaluate the strength of the talent management program, assess available opportunities for growth and recommend the best approaches in dealing with the challenges in the talent management program. Talent Management Programs That Led to Success for the Company Bank of America has for a long time been a leader in talent management, especially in the financial services sector. The main philosophy of the bank in connection to management and development of talent is steered by a number of principles which guide the company in creating the way forward that is supported across the executive ranks of the bank. According to Effron, Greenslade and Salob (2005), some of the principles include: Leaders are important people in the process of managing and steering accountability, output and tradition. Rules of performance where excellent performers have high ability. The most precious resource is the person’s talent. The current excellent performers are not fundamentally future top performers. A wide set of experience and exercise is the preeminent lesson; but a mutual approach is essential for growth. Venture in the top talent and spotlight the rest. The current best 100 performers leave a heritage of potential talent by training, guiding and being the exemplars to others on features of success. In putting this philosophy into practice, the efforts of talent management and growth of the bank are modeled on the main set of systems consisting of the core values of the bank which have a common 70-20-10 growth framework. When broken down, the model represents 70% of experience based growth, 20% of training and response and 10% of learning (Goldsmith, 2006). The main objective is to have a transitional growth for the leaders at every phase of the leadership development and a constant evaluation to have an intense in-depth analysis into the knowledge, leadership potentials, susceptibility and aspiration for top executives. This joint philosophy and system give room for an incorporated approach to management of talent and development of leadership that centers on promoting the current performance and shaping the future leaders. With this kind of firm foundations for the growth of leaders already in place, the Bank of America has shifted its attention to upgrading the top team’s line of sight to the bank’s high ranking 50 executives and selecting leaders with the ability to take up positions at the top level of the bank for the next five years of operation. The action program has been named Next Generation Leadership forum which comprises intensive evaluation program as a section of the experience in learning process (Goldsmith, 2006). Using these evaluations, every member is assessed based on experience, inspiration and leadership potentials by use of a multifaceted evaluation tools, observation and interviews. The merging of intensive evaluation, identifying the best minds in the company on mission-critical matters through active learning, on top of hands-on observation and participation of the top executive team, has led to an in-depth comprehension of the top leadership rank of the bank at both levels of collective and personal management. Strengths and Opportunities of the Program and How They Led To Goal Accomplishment Organizations around the world have adopted this talent development program to attain high business outcome through the process of recruiting and hiring, growing and maintaining unique talent. Through this experience and wide-ranging study there are a number of strengths and opportunities which can be drawn from the entire program. First and foremost, through the program the right person for the precise job can be hired. This is possible through an appropriate screening of the skills and strengths in individuals getting the right decisions to acquire a strategic agenda. The skills or proficiency alignment provide an opportunity for the personnel to take account of the inventory kinetic skills within the organization. This is particularly significant from the dimension of employee as well as the organization given the fact that the correct person is positioned in the right place and the employee output is improved. Moreover, there is a better mapping amidst a personal interest and the corresponding job description increasing satisfaction at the work place (Conger & Fulmer, 2004). Besides, there is an opportunity for retaining of top talent. In spite of the variations in the world economy, abrasion is still the main challenge ofor the company. There is a chance to retain as an important aspect to leadership and development in the market. Companies that are unable to retain their best talents are in danger of losing out to the main rivals. The attention is currently on putting down the employee retention programs and tactics to recruit, enhance, hang on to and engage people of high quality. Growth of employees is an occupation which has to be considered, whilst progression in organization is being conducted where those being mapped are kept in the loop so that they are aware that their actions are being rewarded. Efficient Hiring: the efficiency of a company is vested in the quality of its labor force. The quality way to have talents at the executive level is also to have them at the bottom. Presently, talent management programs and lessons and hiring evaluation have developed into an integral factor of the human resource procedure. A good understanding of the employees involves employee evaluation which provides an intensive in-depth analysis of the employees by administration, their requirements of the employees, career ambitions, strengths and weaknesses, potentials, likes and dislikes. It is simple to establish what inspires and enhances plenty of job improvement process. A good development of professional decisions is efficient when firms have the knowledge of high ability; it gives an easier opportunity to venture in the development of the profession. Given the development desires for investment choices towards teaching, training and growth of the personality either for growth, progression planning, management of performance among others. A company sustains its strategy where it creates this venture and management of talent in the course of making them simpler. Other opportunities involve mechanisms to recognize and establish the next generation of top performers. Effective Approaches to Meet the Talent Management Challenges In The Future A variety of effective measures have been identified in meeting the talent management challenges in the future period. Some of them begin with an end in consideration, whereas the talent strategy must be closely mapped with the right business strategy. Proficient talent administration stipulates that business objectives and tactics which drive the quantity and quality are required. A good example of a company that has made maximum use of this approach is Procter & Gamble which uses business decisions based on talent ability. It is common for the organizations to take decisions based on the management ability as opposed to the talent they posses. This is in the perspective of the bureaucratic relationship that exists limiting the scope of organizational success. In addition, management of talent calls for the professional management to shift from their seat at the table to setting the table. It is common to find groups of human resource experts for occasions and events pointing at the senior management when asked to identify those responsible for talent management (Watkins, 2003). They are only involved in decision making in a business and leadership tactics behind closed doors in the boardrooms. On the contrary, they are supposed to secure appropriate tactics of listening and getting talents. They are required to identify the talents and use them in the organizations. Furthermore, management of talent should be all about placing the relevant personnel in their right places of work or jobs. They need to understand that not every talent employed can be developed. There are those talents which must be identified with the right job specifications as opposed to developing their abilities where they do not fit. This seems to be a common mistake among most organizations which must shift from this perspective to talent recruitment. There are times when wrong people are picked for wrong jobs which limits the scope of organizational development and growth. References Conger, J., & Fulmer, B. (2004). Growing Your Company’s Leaders: How Great Organizations Use Succession Management to Sustain Competitive Advantage. New York, NY: AMACOM. Effron, M., Greenslade, S., & Salob, M. (2005). Growing great leaders: Does it really Matter? Human Resource Planning Journal, 28(3), 18 – 23. Goldsmith, M. (2006). Try feed ‘forward’ instead of feedback. In M. Goldsmith & L. Lyons, Coaching for Leadership. San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer. Moira, J. (1990). Roller Coaster: The Bank of America and the Future of American Banking. New York: Ticknor & Fields. Watkins, M. (2003). The first 90 days: Critical success strategies for new leaders at all levels. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Read More