Global Talent Management in Novartis - Assignment Example

• What is Talent Management (TM)? What are the main challenges and opportunities of global talent management?

Simply stated, talent management entails how organizations anticipate the specifically required human capital as well as planning to meet the specified needs (Borisova, Silayeva, Saburova, Belokhvostova & Sokolova, 2017). Talent management encompasses everything that a company does in developing, retaining, recruiting and performance management and as such, falls under strategic workforce planning area of the organization. In Novartis’s case, it is evident that talent management entirely involves the explicitly unified strategy used in making the best possible decisions on how to harness the human capital presently and in the future, effective use and development of human capital with the aim of meeting the vision of the organization and as such, ensuring that maximum returns are gained or realized from the talent pool. In addition, it equally entails how human capital is managed with the emphasis on creating effective organizational culture that can encourage commitment and happiness.

A major opportunity with global talent management is the possibility of outsourcing professional experts who have the skills and competencies on talent management areas or incentives (Ming-Chang, Didik & Siti, 2016). However, higher cost of managing talent at the global arena is a profound obstacle. For instance, Novartis experienced the challenge of hiring undervalued talents globally and from the assessment of the talent management incentives, it was identified that the individuals came at an exceedingly higher cost. Cultural differences are another major challenge, especially with organizations and companies transcending their operations to overseas (Borisova et al., 2017). Novartis, for instance, outlined some of the challenges with talent management in China. In addition, it becomes more challenging to align the business goals with the talent management strategies and as such, presents a major implication to talent management within the global arena.

• Why is it necessary to match pay to performance, and how does Novartis approach this issue?

From Novartis matching pay to performance is implemented with the central belief that it leads to increased or higher productivity. The implication is that when a specific behavior has been compensated, the employee feels the recognition of such incentive and as such, puts more effort towards ensuring that he or she becomes better at performing duties (Brenčič & Norris, 2010). Overall, matching pay for performance, as shown in Novartis’s compensation plan, ensures that there is a standardized approach to evaluating employees. Eventually, the approach reduces inherent fears of favoritisms and all employees have a clear view of their expectations and those of the organization. Ultimately, it leads to a committed and engaged workforce who works hard to improve performance so that they can get better pay. Conversely, it leads to a sense of security whereby employees are given or have the notion that their performance is being evaluated based on the work standards or expectations and as such not based on the whims of the supervisors. In Novartis, for instance, payout is matched based on the expectations of each role, division and department.

Novartis approaches matching of pay to performance by adopting a uniform pay-for performance measurement system or approach used worldwide. All jobs have base salaries with target incentives, also determined or set according to the existing market data. From this, the employee’s total compensation is gotten by multiplying the market-determined based by the performance rating or the company payout factor stated for the specific business performance. In essence, the payout factor determined for each job or compensation provided subjectively reflects how the employee achieves both long and short-term performance targets. The performance targets include how the employee contributes to the overall revenue growth, market share growth, his or her role in overall economic value creation including economic value added, earnings per share, operating net income while also focusing on other or such incentives as the efforts considerately focused at optimizing overall productivity and effectiveness of the organization. In essence, to align pay and performance, the payout factor is set differently in divisions and functions like operations or sales.

• Is there one universal way for a MNC to motivate its employees around the world to exert maximum effort and be accountable for their results?

Given the cultural difference, that define the business environment of most MNCs, it becomes entirely difficult to employ a universal way of motivating employees (Minbaeva, Pedersen, Björkman, Fey & Park, 2014). In essence, a major drawback is that within the multinational environment, the differences in comprehending legitimacy of specific output and input rights highlights the necessity to adapt to the specific institutional framework or culture. Accordingly, what may seem or be regarded as a motivation in one institution or culture may be a non-motivator in another context.

However, maximizing results depends on how motivational factors are aligned with the expectations of the specific culture (Minbaeva et al., 2014). Hence, a universal approach or model will fail to recognize the diversity in intrinsic and extrinsic motivators implying that a universal approach may not help a MNC to maximize results. In essence, it is recommended that within different MNCs, the best approach or incentives will be to investigate each individual preference. If possible, the application of a universal method or approach to motivating employees should be done by first engaging in an economic analysis of the specific reward preferences with the implementation of the universal approach. For one, analyzing the reward preference helps in reducing motivational costs that are related to moral hazard problems. On the other hand, knowing the specific rewards or preferences of the individual employees aids in providing employee’s rewards at lower costs while equally, analyzing reward preferences is an incentive by the employer to specifically maximize employee-utility at specifically given costs, hence offering low costs and highly motivational rewards (Aselstine & Alletson, 2006). Given the multicultural nature of the global business environment, a universal approach may only be applied through a detailed analysis of the individual preferences towards rewards and motivation. On the flipside, an example of Novartis having a specifically different approach or perspective to motivating employees in China shows that, to a greater extent, a universal approach or incentive may not be plausible for a MNC.

4. Further, is there one universal way to motivate scientists, salespeople, and other professionals? Please explain how you would approach motivating and rewarding all these different types of employees working in the same organization.

The universality of motivating different professionals like sales persons, scientists and other professionals is because, from the needs theory, individuals are either motivated by monetary or non-monetary rewards. For sales people, non-monetary rewards and motivation can be implemented by focusing on recognition; the work or operational area is very or entirely competitive and as such, they are high likely to enjoy the spotlight (Santos Ferreira, 2017). On the other hand, providing gifts as well as prizes are incentives for the sales representatives while their motivation can also come from being given flexible hours. However, for both scientists and sales persons, motivation comes when individuals have been provided with opportunities for career growth and development, more so through training. In essence, training provides opportunity for climbing the ladder, hence, a non-monetary motivation for both sales persons and scientists, especially when pay is matched with performance. Training aids in nurturing skills, improves individual’s efficacy in completing tasks and overall, productivity or efficiency in performance.

Monetary rewards also apply for scientists but for their rewards, it takes a different turn because their tasks are entirely knowledge-based whereby incentives like recognition and appreciation (Aselstine & Alletson, 2006). For instance, for every achievement or task, the supervision or the executive management can recognize and explain to the individuals how their actions and contribution have been crucial to the performance and success of the organization. Another non-monetary reward for the individual scientists is the timely provision of feedback, especially positive feedback which aid in recognizing how their performance is contributing towards the progress of the organization.

Overall, for scientists, sales persons and other professionals, their job tasks are different and in essence, there may not be accurate universal way of rewarding and motivating them, especially for the non-monetary rewards. Monetary rewards can be standardized by aligning their performance to the compensation. However, it could be different for the non-monetary rewards because there are entirely different factors that motivate professionals towards performing their tasks.

• What was Novartis´ main challenge in managing talent in China?

A major challenge in managing talent in China was on balancing the salaries and making the requirements or perquisites competitive in the global market. Within the global talent pool, specific roles or talent related tasks have converging salaries and this presented foremost challenge or drawback for the company. An excellent example has been provided of the En Li as the Institute for Biomedical Research head in Shanghai who headed the institute and had been given lucrative pay or compensation to remain in the organization. Moreover, the competitive pay for all other scientists and senior search managers equally meant that higher costs or expenditures were directed towards managing talent in China.

Another major challenge in China was the high employee turnover rate much attributed to the younger talents who generally had limited or little experience in operations beyond China. Although the Chinese recruits would enter the organization ready to learn, the organization had to spend a lot of resources on training and development. After gaining the much-needed experience in the organization, the young talented Chinese trainees would leave after 12-18 months thereby impeding on the productivity and stability of the organization. Hence, high turnover rates and the ever increasing global competitive salaries for the specific talent pools were major challenges to talent management in China.