The GE Money Americas - Essay Example

? GE Money Americas GE Money Americas Introduction General Electric (GE) is a diverse company which has been said to have invested in almost every sector of the world economies. GE Money Americas is the consumer finance arm of General Electric. GE Money Americas has been ranked among the largest financial services in its market. The popularity of GE Money Americas is attributed to its effective leadership styles and approaches in addition to the exemplary talent management within the company. However good leadership and effective talent management was achieved after several problems and major challenges were identified within the company by its top executives. This paper presents a detailed discussion, analysis and illustration of leadership and talent management within GE Americas as a case study. The challenges which necessitated the need within GE Money Americas are discussed in addition to the model for change theory as applied within the company. In addition an evaluation of information gathered within the company as pertaining to leadership and talent management is given in the paper. Moreover the paper presents the speculated effects of the level of success that changes within GE Money Americas would have in the future operations of the company and recommendations on correct adjustments in case the change reduces its effectiveness. Need for Change in GE Money Americas The processes of managing employees within GE Money Americas were initially less integrated. This is demonstrated by the less centralized employee hiring system. The top executives within the company considered the centralized approach to employee management to be less effective because communication and sharing of ideas within the company was not motivated (Roderick, Lehmberg & John, 2009). The top executives within the company valued the role of effective human resource management as the definition of company success. It is in line with this that change was inevitable within the company. This change was aimed at improving the processes of talent management for the benefit of the company. Change was needed in all aspects of talent management within the company such as attracting new talent, sourcing, hiring, training and developing employees (Walsh, 2011). In addition there was need for change in the promotion of human resource within the company and their movement within various aspects or units of the company. The company’s executive identified the need to fuse the talent management strategy with the wider business strategy. It is because of this that it was considered necessary to centralize the strategy of managing the company staff (Marquez, 2007). Through a centralized system of managing talent within a company, all employees are allowed to work in line with the common business strategy and business goals (Roderick, Lehmberg & John, 2009). In addition, a need for improved communication within GE Money Americas was identified. This was motivated by the view of communication by the company top executives as the most crucial element of any form of success. Communication is improved through the use of communication systems such as information technologies and applications which link all employees within an organization (Walsh, 2011). This promotes growth and innovativeness as a result of facilitated process of sharing ideas. More importantly there was a need for promoting interaction between the company leadership and all employees. This was aimed at ensuring that the needs of human capital were understood and efficiently met by the company leadership so that employees were left motivated. Model for Change Theory The lean approach is the model of change theory which was employed within GE Money Americas to bring about changes in leadership and talent management. Lean approach is a model for organization change which is designed to significantly cause improvements in the flow of business activities while eliminating any forms of wastes in work processes (Rothwell, 2012). This approach as employed within GE Money Americas is disclosed by the objectives of change in talent management which were aimed at removing all interruptions and barriers in work flow and achievement of common goals. In addition, the management of talent within the company was designed to ensure that value was delivered with a tendency of minimizing the level of waste. Flexibility was also encouraged among employees of the company who were encouraged to accommodate change within business processes and activities. These are attributes of a lean approach to change and management of human resource and talent within a company. In order to effectively implement the lean approach within the operations of GE Money Americas, training of employees was doomed to be necessary. The social cognitive or social learning theory is used to understand the ability of employees to learn on the basis of environmental, behavioral and personal factors (William, 2012). It is within the social learning theory that GE Money Americas was able to determine the factors which affected the learning process and as a result employed the most effective models of training and employee development within the context of talent management. The theory of reasoned action can also be used to define learning process in the training and development of human resource so that they would adapt to the inevitable changes in doing business. According to the theory of reasoned action, individuals consider the consequences that would emanate from specific behavior in deciding whether to avoid it or not (Goldsmith & Carter, 2010). This theoretical framework was employed within GE Money Americas to promote productivity because the consequences of unproductive behavior to the individual employees and the organization in general were effectively communicated. Evaluation Information The evaluation information which was gathered within GE Money Americas on its employees falls into two main categories. These categories are information on employee potential and employee performance. The potential of employees and their performance within the company was specifically measured in line with the effectiveness in adoption, implementation and use of information systems inn facilitating business activities and functions (Rothwell, 2012). Advancement in technology has resulted into increased adoption and implementation of computer systems within companies and business organizations because of the efficiency and productivity which they cause these organizations to achieve (Marquez, 2007). This justifies the focus of GE Money Americas in evaluating employee potential and performance in the context of information systems and their implementations within the company. It is though effective leadership within GE Money Americas that the need of employees for skills and knowledge on the use of information systems was made possible. The top executives within the company portray a transformational trait and style in leadership as postulated by the relational theories of leadership (William, 2012). As a result of this, the top executives aligned the talent management of the company with its vision. Decisions were therefore made in relation to the needs of employees. However the most important effect that the company leadership had on the success of change implementation is related to the motivation that they gave their followership. Though exemplary leadership and influence of the leaders on employees, positive attitudes were motivated among the company’s employees on the organizational change which especially on the implementation of technology in business processes and activities. Success of Changes The most important aspect of organizational change which defines its future change is the implementation of technology in talent management. This includes the use of management information systems to achieve effective monitoring and evaluation of employees. Secondly the improved performance which is attributed to the plication of technological applications is an important organizational change which is likely to be felt within the company now and the future. This change involves improved communication, team work, work morale and efficiency in business activities. However technological changes which are speculated in the future application of information systems may make the current changes within the company less effective. Changes in business operations and the implementation of technology must be maintained through constant updating of computer systems to match the new platforms of hardware and hardware (Goldsmith & Carter, 2010). Therefore if the current change within GE Money Americas become less effective in the future, updating of both the computer systems and policies must be adopted as the best approach of adopting new technologies and challenges of the future. Conclusion In the light of the above discussion and illustrations from the GE Money Americas case study, it is notable that effective leadership and talent management are the most effective approaches in facing challenges which face companies and organizations. At GE Money Americas talent management system challenge was identified by the top executives. This was related to the fact that the management of employees was less integrated. This led to the design of talent management to match with the company’s main business strategy. As a result employees were able to work towards the achievement of common goals and objectives of the company. This resulted in increased productivity and improved company performance. The change which the company required its employees to adopt was the implementation of information technology in facilitating business operations. This was achieved through effective leadership traits and style of the company leadership in which relational leadership theory and approaches were used to interact, communicate and understand the needs of employees. These needs were met through training and development of talent through the application of learning theories in understanding the needs of employees for skills and knowledge including the factors affecting the learning process. References Goldsmith, M. & Carter, L. (2010). Best practices in talent management: How the world's leading corporations manage, develop, and retain top talent. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons. Marquez, J. (2007). GE's people power. Workforce Management, 86(13), 1-28 Roderick, E. W., Lehmberg, D., & John, R. P. (2009). General electric: An outlier in CEO talent development. Ivey Business Journal Online, 1 Rothwell, W. J. (2012). Talent management: Aligning your organization with best practices in strategic and tactical talent management. Training & Development, 39(2), 12-14 Walsh, D. (2011). GE targets homegrown talent in hiring blitz. Crain's Detroit Business, 27(36), 1 William, J. R. (2012). Talent management: Aligning your organization with best practices in strategic and tactical talent management. Training & Development, 39(2), 12-14 Read More