TALENT MANAGEMENT

INTRODUCTION:

Talent management refers to the process of developing and integrating new workers,
developing and retaining current workers, and attracting highly skilled workers to work
for a company. Talent management in this context does not refer to the management of
entertainers. The term was coined by David Watkins. The process of attracting and
retaining profitable employees, as it is increasingly more competitive between firms and
of strategic importance, has come to be known as "the war for talent."

DEFINING TM
TM is a strategic and holistic approach to both HR and business planning or a new route
to organizational effectiveness. This improves the performance and the potential of
people – the talent – who can make a measurable difference to the organization now and
in future. And it aspires to yield enhanced performance among all levels in the workforce,
thus allowing everyone to reach his/her potential, no matter what that might be.

HISTORY

Talent management is a process that emerged in the 1990s and continues to be adopted,
as more companies come to realize that their employees’ talents and skills drive their
business success. Companies that have put into practice talent management have done so
to solve an employee retention problem. The issue with many companies today is that
their organizations put tremendous effort into attracting employees to their company, but
spend little time into retaining and developing talent. A talent management system must
be worked into the business strategy and implemented in daily processes throughout the
company as a whole. It cannot be left solely to the human resources department to attract
and retain employees, but rather must be practiced at all levels of the organization. The
business strategy must include responsibilities for line managers to develop the skills of
their immediate subordinates. Divisions within the company should be openly sharing
information with other departments in order for employees to gain knowledge of the
overall organizational objectives. Companies that focus on developing their talent
integrate plans and processes to track and manage their employee talent, including the
following:

• Sourcing, attracting and recruiting qualified candidates with competitive

backgrounds
• Managing and defining competitive salaries
• Training and development opportunities
• Performance management processes
• Retention programs
• Promotion and transitioning

Talent management is also known as HCM (Human Capital Management), HRIS (HR
Information Systems) or HRMS (HR Management Systems), and HR Modules.
TM INVOLVES
Talent management is the integration of different initiatives, or constructs, into a coherent
framework of activity. There are certain crucial components and a useful model for
defining TM is to think of it in these key words:

• Ethos – embedding values and behavior, known as a “talent mindset,” to support the
view that everyone has potential worth developing.
• Focus – knowing which jobs make a difference and making sure that the right people
hold those jobs at the right time.
• Positioning – starting at the top of the organization and cascading throughout the
management levels to make this a management, not HR, initiative.
• Structure – creating tools, processes and techniques with defined accountability to
ensure that the work gets done.
• System – facilitating a long-term and holistic approach to generate change.

IMPORTANCE OF TALENT MANAGEMENT

Talent management (TM) brings together a number of important human resources (HR)
and management initiatives.

Quite often, organizations adopting a TM approach will focus on co-ordinating and

integrating:

• Recruitment - ensuring the right people are attracted to the organization.

• Retention - developing and implementing practices that reward and support

employees.

• Employee development - ensuring continuous informal and formal learning and

development.

• Leadership and "high potential employee" development - specific

development programs for existing and future leaders.

• Performance management - specific processes that nurture and support

performance, including feedback/measurement.

• Workforce planning - planning for business and general changes, including the
older workforce and current/future skills shortages.

• Culture - development of a positive, progressive and high performance "way of

operating".

An important step is to identify the staff or employees (people and positions) that are
critical to the organization. They do not necessarily have to be senior staff members.
Many organizations lost a lot of "organizational knowledge" in the downsizing exercises
of a few years ago. The impact of the loss was not immediately apparent. However, it did
not take long for many companies to realize their mistake when they did not have people
with the knowledge and skills to either anticipate or solve problems that arose.

TRADITIONAL UNDERSTANDING OF TALENT MANAGEMENT

Traditional talent management systems have clearly defined components including:

Training and development, skill inventories, performance management, recruiting, and
succession management. According to Kevin Wheeler, internationally known expert in
talent acquisition and management says, “Most companies perform two or three
components of a talent management system well, but the total system seems to be elusive
without executive level involvement.”

CURRENT APPLICATION OF TALENT MANAGEMENT

In current economic conditions, many companies have felt the need to cut expenses. This
should be the ideal environment to execute a talent management system as a means of
optimizing the performance of each employee and the organization. However, within
many companies the concept of human capital management has just begun to develop.
“In fact, only 5 percent of organizations say they have a clear talent management strategy
and operational programs in place today.”

INTEGRATING TM THROUGH A SYSTEM

This will not operate in isolation from strategy, business planning and the organization’s
approach to people management. In this sense, the work of talent management cuts
across what has been a traditional HR silo. If integrated, it functions in a more
facilitative, OD-like nature. It will also reach higher up the organization than other HR
initiatives, often attracting the attention of boards and senior teams. Similarly, TM
reaches down the organization, to include new recruits along with tenured professionals.
Lastly, talent planning must be done in parallel with business planning, creating a rich
integration of people and strategy. One way of achieving such system integration and
alignment is the CRF Talent Management System.

This systemic view of talent has five elements:

1. Need – the business need derived from the business model and competitive issues.
2. Data collection – the fundamental data and “intelligence” critical for good talent
decisions.
3. Planning – people/talent planning guided by data analysis.
4. Activities – the conversion of plans into integrated sets of activities.
5. Results – costs, measures and effectiveness criteria to judge the value and impacts of
TM.

Using this system can help TM become a strategic differentiator rather than a standard set
of HR processes – if the right conditions, context, timescales and offerings exist in the
first place. System integration and alignment ensures that TM efforts are rational and fit
for purpose. Since the arrival of the current era of “talent” is widely acknowledged, it’s
not surprising that renewed significance is being placed on the management of that talent.
And as talent continues to be viewed as a strategic differentiator, its management will
take more of a strategic role. How fascinating it will be to take the pulse of talent
management in the business community in another five years. We believe that while the
management of talent will most likely become embedded in the fiber of cultures by then,
the HR executives who led those initiatives will have achieved much more prominence.

OPPORTUNITIES AND BENEFITS OF INTEGRATING TM WITH BUSINESS

STRATEGY

In summary there are many benefits of taking on the complicated multi-layered project of
creating an integrated talent management and workforce planning structure.

• Predictability of performance
• Higher customer satisfaction rates
• Lower employee turn-over
• Increased profits as a result of right people/right time
• Increased revenue as a result of efficiencies
• Increased employee engagement
• Assurance of stable management team today and in future

FIGURE 1. THE CRF TALENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

10 TALENT MANAGEMENT PRIORITIES FOR HR

Based on interviews in case organizations with HR/OD practitioners, talent managers and
talented individuals, it concludes with these 10 priority issues. They will guide the choice
of appropriate approaches and practices that could make a difference to talent
management efforts:
1. Rethinking/establishing the talent focus
2. Positioning talent management
3. Integrating talent and business
4. Leading the talent focus
5. Examining culture and talent mindset
6. Assessing capability and accountability
7. Process design and implementation
8. Assessing talent performance
9. The talent agenda
10. Reviewing talent management

CONCLUSION:

The current discussions about traditional understanding, current application and

integration with business strategy are also helping organizations to focus on the talent
management issue. It may not be possible to simply go out and recruit new people to
meet operational needs. Many leading companies have decided to develop their own
people, rather than trying to hire fully skilled workers.

In summary, every organization should be implementing talent management principles

and approaches.