Talent Management in the New Work Environment - Essay Example

The capabilities for agility, alignment, and engagement should also be assessed as they are three competencies that every company requires to succeed in the current business environment.

            Jean Martin (2013), further states that talent management drives tremendous business results and points out some of the associated trends. The first trend that she considers is the changes in the complicated new work environment as far as the structure of the organization is concerned which has resulted in a shift in the manner in which work gets done. There have also been shifts in the number of people who are required to make decisions in companies in the past several years as well as changes in demographics in the workforce with has resulted in the workforce of organizations having three to four generations of workers working together. These different generations may have varying preferences, knowledge backgrounds, and work styles. Additionally, employees have to deal with the new complicated work environment of organizations while at the same time seeking more from what they have creating a difficult changed environment. With the changes in the environment of the organization, the demands for better performance from the workers have increased straining them with newer realities like changes in the amount of work that needs collaboration with other workers.

According to Jean Martin (2013), four generations constitute the current workforce. These generations include the veterans, who are those that were born before 1946 and are associated with a strong work ethic. The majority of them served in the military and thus usually respect their seniors while being associated with dedication and self-sacrifice. The baby boomers are those who were born in 1946 and 1964 and are thought to have come up with the sixty-hour workweek whilst being too competitive in some instances. This generation of workers turns endings to beginnings and they consider retirement as the beginning of their career’s transition. The baby boomers are usually associated with values such as hard work and being team players. Generation X workers were born from 1965 to 1979 and are mainly considered free agents of the workforce since they are usually entrepreneurial, self-dependent, and independent. Since these employees do not find any value in aspects that are not essential and time wasting, they make sure that everything is running smoothly. The main values that are associated with this generation include respect for individuality as well as achieving a balance in life. The millennials are those who were born in 1980-2000 with most of them getting legitimate jobs even before they were out of high school. These workers are technologically shrewd and consider themselves citizens of the world as a result of their connection to the internet.

There are significant realities in workplaces that have to be faced by employees including changes in the amount of work that needs collaboration with other workers. More than sixty-six percent of workers consider their jobs as being more collaborative at present than they were previously. Additionally, the networks of employees are increasing and becoming more cross-functional but this increased collaboration has some barriers that hamper it. Declining staff levels and reducing budgets have led to increasing workloads that have jeopardized collaboration by encouraging workers to concentrate on individual responsibilities rather than group activities.

Further, Jean Martin (2013), identifies some steps that companies should consider when seeking to drive more effective and successful business outcomes. The first step is leveraging the contribution of the enterprise so that organizational performance can be increased which has changed from concentrating talent management to individual performance. The second step is moving to talent management which intends to collect data and report newer driving talents in the transformation of businesses via analytics. The third step entails integration between development recruitment and learning and companies should reorganize the HR departments in terms of strategy objectives instead of functional silos. The fourth step entails talent management to achieve a competitive advantage that is driven by talent as this will increase knowledge in industries that are based on intellectual capital.

Ultimately, the human resource function in a company has some implications, and internalization of the operations of a company leads to competitive advantage only under specific conditions. Having a worldwide presence may result in a competence advantage when an organization integrates differences in local markets, realizes the economies of scale globally, and successfully transfers knowledge. However, the best practices may not in all cases translate in other cultures as there might be challenges in the implementation of profit-sharing plans and piece rates.