Article 1: Employer Branding: Sustainable HRM as a

Competitive Advantage in the Market for High-Quality

Employees.

Employer brand is characterized as all the procedures performed by a business to convey its
own distinctiveness to a target group consist of employees and the candidates, thus the brand
becomes a focus for these subjects parallel with the corporate traditions and principles. As an
organization, whether you’ve taken the time to define it or not, you have an employer brand.

Sullivan defines employer branding as ‘a targeted, long-term strategy to manage the

awareness and perceptions of employees, potential employees, and related stakeholders with
regards to a particular firm (Sullivan 2004).’

Employer branding is a cost-effective, sustainable strategy with a far better return on

investment than traditional recruitment advertising. Companies need to proactively
understand what prospective employees are looking for and map what they can provide to
them.

Employer branding is therefore concerned with the attraction, retention and most importantly
engagement initiatives targeted at enhancing a company’s employer brand.

Increasingly, firms are using employer branding to attract recruits and assure that current
employees are engaged in the culture and the strategy of the firm. Employer branding is
defined as ‘a targeted, long-term strategy to manage the awareness and perceptions of
employees, potential employees, and related stakeholders with regards to a particular firm’.

There are three reasons for this focusing on building and maintaining employer brand. First,
organizations are realizing more and more that they cannot take the commitment and loyalty
of their staff for granted. The old notion that if you give someone a decent job, they will
gratefully do your bidding is ill-conceived and somewhat irrelevant in modern organizations.
Valuable employees, just like profitable customers, are free to make their own choices and
engage as they wish. The way to attract and retain skilled and able employees who perform to
the best of their ability is through a coherent benefit-led approach that many companies are
not accustomed to providing.

Second, employer branding provides an effective bridge between HR, internal

communications and marketing. Recruiting, retaining and engaging the right people are
becoming all the more important in business as most organizations now recognize their staff
as their most important asset.

Third, employer branding draws on a discipline that has proven lasting value in the
marketplace. Employer branding draws on established principles of branding and brand
management. This is the most effective way to sustain people’s commitment and loyalty.

Employer brands are developed to be consistent with the firm’s product and corporate brand.
There are some similarities between the employer brand and the product and corporate brand,
but there are also two key differences. One, the employer brand is employment specific,
characterizing the firm’s identity as an employer. Two, it is directed at both internal and
external audiences whereas product and corporate branding efforts are primarily directed at
an external audience (Frook, 2001).

More recently, Ewing et al emphasize the usefulness of employer branding in an increasingly

knowledge-based economy where skilled employees are often in short supply. Companies
invest great sums of money and intellectual firepower on clever ads and recruiting
campaigns, but next to nothing on making sure they actually deliver a great work experience
that makes a great Employer Brand possible.

ARTICLE 2: Authentic workplaces don't try to make everyone the same

A team is said to a group of people who work together while depending in each other
together with cooperating each other in order to satisfy to accomplish common objective or
goal. A team can be create to achieve long term and/or short term objectives. For example a
team for product development will last more longer to achieve planning and operational
objectives. Other example of teams lasting for longer time are senior of company.

Some people also use the word “team” when they mean “employees.” A “sales team” is a
common example of this loose or perhaps euphemistic usage, though interdependencies exist
in organisations, and a sales team can be let down by poor performance on other parts of the
organisation upon which sales depend, like delivery, after-sales service, etc.. However “sales
staff” is a more precise description of the typical arrangement.

[edit] From Groups to Teams

Groups develop into teams in four stages. The four stages are: dependency and inclusion,
counterdependency and fighting, trust and structure, and work. In the first stage, group
development is characterized by members’ dependency on the designated leader. In the
second stage, the group seeks to free itself from its dependence on the leader and groups have
conflicts about goals and procedures. In the third stage, the group manages to work through
the conflicts. And in the last stage, groups focus on team productivity. [5]

Importance of team

Teamwork and leadership

There is no single of definition of team but generally agreed definition with with team is
group of people with a different technical knowledge who join each other to achieve a
common objectives or goal.

Working in a team is generally everyone agreed that would benefits every one whether its
participant and company.

There are number of reason why the way teams were used are changed including the
changing technology together development of new ways of doing business but the benefit
that can obtain from are not changed together with the underlying principle for the formation
of teams.

In the working of team distance is not very important barier and changing technology and
communication methods allow people to work in a team despite of being separated wide a
part with in different location with in same country or at diferrent location spreaded across
the globe.

Infact in some companies due to difference in time zones team members can work and make
progress on a project around 24 hours in a day six days a week and by doing so they are
actually utilizing maximum time.

As practically seen people working in organization use this geographical different and
difference in time zone in the advantages of company in such a way that for example a
company office in Australia or in the UK with location in other countries have benefit from
such arrangement.

One of the common example of this is virtual team s which are getting more and more
common with time and there member of teams are never saw each other face to face but they
collaborate through vaious channels through telephone, online meeting methods through use
of internet and of course emailing.

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Many organization are now aware with the benefits of working in teams and importance of
team as most effective and efficient of running a business and doing a task. The old job title
of supervisor is now used as team leader.

And the reason why more and more companies are using this ways is because it gives benefit
and produce desirable results and also because in this companies can motivate their
employees and keep their morale up through making them feel themselves being valued and
realizing them of their role in achieving overall objective.
Its very motivating for people to become part of something that give them
recognition and where their worth is acknowledged.
The key question to ask here is why some companies fail to obtain any
worthwhile benefit from teamwork which why should have.
The are number of answer for this question but most importantly is why a team
fail to achieve is objective depends on poor composition of team.
The composition of team is very important and should be said as critical for the
overall success and the reason why its is essential hidden in the definition of
team.
The definition of team says that a team is what we called a group of people who possess some
specialize but individual knowledge and/ or skills when join with each other to achieve a
common objective then a synergy( when the sum of individuals potential result in more
collective whole ) is obtained but it can on work when teamwork is consistent and
effective.Team work give benefit to company because not every individual can be perfect and
therefore in team one member overcome the lacking of other member.

In order for the team to perform well and achieve synergies, people working in
the team must work with a positive attitude and with firm commitment to the
achievement of the objectives of team. Working in harmony with effective
communication and cooperation within team is critical to achieve the success and
if team is not follow above principle the team can’t obtain the expected benefits
as it should have.
In order for a team to work effectively, a very clear and common understanding
of the objective and goals and strategies to achieve those objectives is very
critical. Team members must know why reason behind the existence of the team
and what are its objectives and goals.
The above mention three factors are very important for the formation of a team
and therefore must be in place in order for the team to achieve its objectives as
not every team get success or formation of a team is not gurranteed to success
but one has to make sure that above mention characteristic must be there for its
success.
And important thing companies need to ensure in order to make an effective and
efficient team is to make sure that team has all the required knowledge and
resource whether its financial or human resource or any other one. Team
members selection must be done with care and companies need to ensure every
required knowledge is present in the team and together with teams need to have
firm commitment towards the achievement of goal of a team.
If an organization have right team members in place with all the required
knowledge and with right approach towards the objectives of team, a team
synergy will definitely take over. But first they required element must be there
and team members must be kept motivate and participative.
Financial service industry team:

Financial serives industry is a industry which provide service related to finance or in other
words financial services are those services which are provided by finance industry which
include a very wide variety of companies and other organization as well whost prime activity
is to deal with money or to be more precise its management of money. These example of
these organization includes banks, companies operating in insurance industry, companies
working for consumer finance, those organization which deal with stock commonly known as
stock brokerages and also included funds for the management of investment such as mutual
funds.

Types of team

There are number of classification to divide team into various types include distinctinction
based on the fact that some teams are independent and while others are interdependent for
example a rugby team can be said as interdependent due to following reason:

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Success of team based on cooperationwith in the team as team members comprises of

individual with specialize skills such goal kicking etc and success of team is very much
dependent on the team work of team members as one individual no matter how much talented
he is cannot win this game on its own.

Now if we look the independent team the most common example of this type teams is chess
team.

In the chess individual play either in partner ship or individually and win matched on the
basis of their own performance as if a team member win a game or loss it wont affect directly
the performance of other individual.

There are many other examples of independent teams such as group of people in class solving
individually a particular maths problem and therefore the outcome of one individual
performance wont affect the performance of other class mate.

As the teams classification make them either independent or dependent that’s exactly how the
approaches to manage them is different for example if coaching provided to interdependent
team for example a football team will emphasis on different tasks while coaching of an
independent team will emphasis on exactly different factors. The reason behind this argument
is the requirement of the team members with in these two different categories differ
significantly in terms of intrinsic incentives to motivate them and keep their behaviour
positive.

The interdependent team would focus on approach of getting to know each other in order to
understand each others behaviour, nature and develop trust on each other.

While on independent these acitivities have no real importance and will be consider by
participant of independent team as waste of time while they prefer more training related to
job.
Self-managed teams:

Under normal circumstance a manager act as team leader who is largely responsible for and
have authority to define the goals, objectives, strategies and proper functioning of a team but
there teams which are structure with hierarchical models of control are often unable to
properly the issues that may arise due to interdependencies and any possible conflicts across
the organization’s different parts. On the other hand use of self manage team create clear
borders in order to give freedom and responsibility regarding completion of task in hand with
in effective and efficient way.

The key idea behind these of type of teams is mutual consensus to the extend that leaders in
these team do not act authority in decision making due to its positioning but in an ideal self
managed team decisions are made with mutual consensus through voting.

Organization normally use self managed team for those project which are highly complex in
nature which involve normally research, process improvement, design or systemic issues
resolution, normally include people from different departments within people involve are of
same seniority. As mention the type of leadership required with in self managed teams is very
different from the way traditionally leadership style followed in normal circumstance and the
reason this difference is due to overcome the problems found in traditional models of
leadership but still a self manage team required guidance and support from the top
management to keep it working effectively.

The characteristic found in self managed team are very different from the traditional teams
and therefore simply calling a team as self manage wont make it self managed team until it
contain the characteristic identified above in it.

Once a self manage team start working successfully, organization can delegate more and
more authority and responsibility to it which makes it more productive and members of team
will develop an understanding and trust within themselves and therefore work in meaningful
ways.

Project teams:

Project team is said to be a team which is made for predefine time period with clearly define
and comprehensive objectives and purpose of formation such feasibility study team for a
particular project etc.

Project team are called team because a group of people work together to achieve a common
objective and in most these team members came from across the organization from various
disciplines and function with different knowledge and expertise, they work in project team by
taking in the teams activities together with continuing the traditional job (some time). They
are viewed as one separately identified unit who is charged with responsibilities towards
achievement of common goal.

Sports teams:

Sport normally played by a group of people to achiever common objective such as winning
the match and therefore sports team are called team as they match the definition of team but it
must be remember sports team no only include those people who are playing match but
include people who don’t directly play on the ground but still they are crucial for successful
achievement and therefore part of the team such as coaches etc.

Virtual teams:

Virtual is said to be a team which use the technology in order communicate and coordinate
includes a group of individuals, work for achievement of common objectives, their work may
be interdependent and these individual may share same common purpose to achieve with in a
time, resource and other boundaries set when developing a team.

The massive development is information and communication technologies make this virtual
team idea possible in reality as virtual teams are spread all over the country even sometime
all over the globe and therefore may expose to completely different culture who have rarely
met face to face with each other. Most of the virtual teams comprises of people from cross
functional area whose main objective is to solve the problems of customers or to generate
process for the work.

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Interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary teams.

Some teams are interdisciplinary or multidisciplary like in the case of medical science where
a number of professionals treat same patient with various problems independently, there
eeach one emphasise on their own area of specialization. The problems treated by one
professional may or may not related with or any connection with the problem treated by
another professional .

What is good team and bad team difference

A team can’t be said as good if it got talent but will be good if it is flexible enough to rapidly
evolve and adapt to changing methods in order to carryout work effectively and efficiently.

Critical Thinking Is Essential

Team performance is sharpened by rapidly testing and evolving methods that work for each
team member, despite personality differences, skill sets, and critical thinking skills.

Participative leadership – creating an interdependence by empowering, freeing up and serving

others.

Shared responsibility – establishing an environment in which all team members feel

responsibility as the manager for team performance.

Alignment of purpose – having a sense of common purpose about why the team exists and
the function it serves.
High communication – creating a climate of trust and open, honest communication.

Future focused – seeing change as an opportunity for growth.

Focused on task – keeping meetings and interactions focused on results.

Skill Utilization – applying individual talents and creativity.

Rapid response – identifying and acting on opportunities.

Sharpen Performance Through Simplification

Good teams don’t just happen, they become good through consistent action and constructive
feedback within an high morale workplace. Feedback that doesn’t get bogged down in the
realm of vague philosophy or nitpicking.

Business teams happen in the real world; discovering what works and is a process of
collaborative learning and then focusing on what works. The results for your business can be
amazing.

We want to be in control of our own destinies. But the old hierarchical model of dictating
people’s thoughts and actions doesn’t work in this highly networked yet polarized business
world.

The characteristics of a good team that we all enjoy, become liabilities and threats under the
thumb of a tyrant. Free thinkers and highly talented and skilled team members don’t need the
stress or pressure of putting up with a manager breathing down their neck

Develop a Code of Conduct

Staying consistent within a team setting is about not wavering when hardships occur. Coming
up with your team’s code of conduct is about setting rigid boundaries about what is
acceptable and what is not. This type of team building is not for weaklings, but it’s essential
for establishing the characteristics of a good team.

If you’re serious about extracting top notch performance from your team, the code of conduct
you agree upon can not be deviated from. So what are some characteristics of a good team
Code Of Conduct? It depends upon you unique objectives, purpose, and values.

According to Jim Collins, discovering a company’s core values is about asking the “right
questions,” these questions can be scaled down to fit the needs of your team:

What can we be best in the world at?

What are you deeply passionate about?
What drives your economic engine?
Team building is finding the answers to these same questions, but on a smaller scale. To build
an effective team the answers to these questions must mesh in order for you to find alignment
in your purpose.

Team members must assign similar value to the core characteristics of a good team and their
team’s code of conduct.
You Can’t Force Feed Values
Trying to force values onto people who don’t believe in them is a lesson in futility and
frustration – kind of like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.

Team members, employees, managers and companies thrive within effective systems and
culture where people are empowered by their work. Team members want a culture where
their unique knowledge, experience, and motivation make a difference for themselves and
their team.

People will choose the values that reflect their own, and easily accept a code of conduct that
allows them to take personal ownership over their position. They want to be an integral part
of the team.

It’s simple, if your team or company cannot meet the needs of your people or customers, they
will find one that can.

The characteristics of a good team are those which choose their values and purpose with care,
focus and passion. Then they create a culture that holds people accountable for their actions,
while at the same time creating a system of empowerment for the team’s members.

Don’t Pull Their Weight: They simply do not contribute enough. They do not live up to
commitments. They do not do enough- adding to the workload of others in the team.

Unwilling to Share: While quick to learn from others and find out all that’s going on, they are
loath to share their knowledge and experience with others. They think learning and sharing is
“one way traffic”.

Not worthy of Trust: They share the wrong things. If you happen to share a confidence with
them, they misuse that information. They do not keep a secret. They like to talk of the
problems affecting others while keeping theirs to themselves.

Pursue Personal Goals: While there is nothing wrong in pursuing personal goals- indeed all of
us do that- this should not be at the cost of team goals. Ineffective team members are not on
the same page as the team. They choose their own priorities and areas of interest- which do
not necessarily fit in well with the team’s agenda and priorities.

Blame & Excuses: Excuses for non-performance and blaming others is a common behaviour.
Faults lie with others, the kind of work, the facilities, the client- well almost everyone other
than themselves.

Unduly Pessimistic & Negative: They are gloomy and pessimistic and do not keep this to
themselves. Any idea is met with a cynical comment that it won’t work. Any move to be
different is met with resistance without understanding what is involved.

Lack of Sensitivity: Feelings and needs of other team members do not concern them. Yet,
they expect their colleagues to be very careful about trampling upon their own feelings. As a
result, ineffective team members have no sense of timing, bring up issues at the wrong times
and exaggerate perceived insults when none are meant.
Quick to blame others: At the first sign of something going wrong, they look for a scapegoat.
Their first priority is to protect themselves. Blame is spread over team members, customers,
suppliers, well -almost anybody other than themselves.

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Quick to hog credit: Instead of sharing credit, they present information in such a way to
suggest that they have been responsible for every success. They bask in the glory though the
real work has been done by others.

Unwilling to decide, procrastinate: Really tough to get a decision from them, mainly because
they spend huge amounts of time and effort in playing their cards as described above. If they
get blamed for the delay, the blame is passed on to others. They would rather use the passage
of time to solve problems rather than act vigorously and pro actively to resolve them.

Dump rather then delegate: Under the guise of delegation, low priority or the most difficult
work tasks are dumped on their team members. The more visible and glamorous parts of the
task are kept to themselves. Dumping takes many forms including passing on tasks without
adequate briefing about its importance or priority.

Not worthy of trust: Simply stated, they cannot be trusted. They ask for information, opinions
and views, which they then retail depending on the perceived value of the idea. Problems
shared are not kept confidential and they lose no time in passing them on as pieces of gossip .

Add no value to their team: Team members do not get the value addition they look up to in a
boss. Due to a lack of competence, they are not able to solve issues raised by team members,
not able to offer alternates and not able to guide them in times of difficulty.

Poor role model: They don’t walk the talk. They say the organization values some trait but
behave in ways totally contrary to stated values. They exhort others to follow norms of
behaviour that they don’t follow themselves. They have one rule for themselves and a quite
different other for team members.

Thing to consider when building a team

A team building success is when your team can accomplish something much bigger and work
more effectively than a group of the same individuals working on their own. You have a
strong synergy of individual contributions. But there are two critical factors in building a high
performance team.
The first factor in team effectiveness is the diversity of skills and personalities. When people
use their strengths in full, but can compensate for each other’s weaknesses. When different
personality types balance and complement each other.

The other critical element of team work success is that all the team efforts are directed
towards the same clear goals, the team goals. This relies heavily on good communication in
the team and the harmony in member relationships.

In real life, team work success rarely happens by itself, without focused team building efforts
and activities. There is simply too much space for problems. For example, different
personalities, instead of complementing and balancing each other, may build up conflicts. Or
even worse, some people with similar personalities may start fighting for authority and
dominance in certain areas of expertise. Even if the team goals are clear and accepted by
everyone, there may be no team commitment to the group goals or no consensus on the
means of achieving those goals: individuals in the team just follow their personal opinions
and move in conflicting directions. There may be a lack of trust and openness that blocks the
critical communication and leads to loss of coordination in the individual efforts. And on and
on. This is why every team needs a good leader who is able to deal with all such team work
issues.

Here are some additional team building ideas, techniques, and tips you can try when
managing teams in your situation.

Make sure that the team goals are totally clear and completely understood and accepted by
each team member.

Make sure there is complete clarity in who is responsible for what and avoid overlapping
authority. For example, if there is a risk that two team members will be competing for control
in certain area, try to divide that area into two distinct parts and give each more complete
control in one of those parts, according to those individual’s strengths and personal
inclinations.

Build trust with your team members by spending one-on-one time in an atmosphere of
honesty and openness. Be loyal to your employees, if you expect the same.

Allow your office team members build trust and openness between each other in team
building activities and events. Give them some opportunities of extra social time with each
other in an atmosphere that encourages open communication. For example in a group lunch
on Friday. Though be careful with those corporate team building activities or events in which
socializing competes too much with someone’s family time.

For issues that rely heavily on the team consensus and commitment, try to involve the whole
team in the decision making process. For example, via group goal setting or group sessions
with collective discussions of possible decision options or solution ideas. What you want to
achieve here is that each team member feels his or her ownership in the final decision,
solution, or idea. And the more he or she feels this way, the more likely he or she is to agree
with and commit to the decided line of action, the more you build team commitment to the
goals and decisions.
When managing teams, make sure there are no blocked lines of communications and you and
your people are kept fully informed.

Even when your team is spread over different locations, you can still maintain effective team
communication. Just do your meetings online and slash your travel costs. Click here for a free
test drive.

Be careful with interpersonal issues. Recognize them early and deal with them in full.

Don’t miss opportunities to empower your employees. Say thank you or show appreciation of
an individual team player’s work.

Don’t limit yourself to negative feedback. Be fare. Whenever there is an opportunity, give
positive feedback as well.

Finally, though team work and team building can offer many challenges, the pay off from a
high performance team is well worth it.

Motivation of team members :

Motivation is described by psychologist Shay McConnon as ‘the inner desire to take action’.
Tap into people’s motivation and you will strike gold!

Motivation can be reduced to a simple form of self-interest more commonly known as what’s
in it for me? Individuals need to see and feel the reward or benefit to themselves by taking
action. The greater the perceived valued to self, the greater the level of motivation.

There is no universal source of motivation – it cannot be bought in a one size fits all form.
Being thanked personally may motivate some people whilst others may want to be given
challenges as a thank you. Money may motivate some people, but not others, and more often
is not the big motivator people think it is.

What motivates us – is it respect, the chance to be creative, the opportunity for success, the
time to think things through and develop and plan? What ever the answer, it is important to
note that different people have different needs and different motivators. So the key question
is, what motivates your people, employees and team – why will they do, what they do, even
better?

As a manager or team leader, there are more people out there that are not like you, than like
you, so be aware of using your criteria for being motivated to motivate others. Ian Botham, as
captain of the England Cricket team, rarely gave motivating talks to his players as he felt that
putting on the England cricket strip should be motivation enough. General Norman
Schwarzkopf went to great lengths to take care of his troops, personally, engaging with them.
Who is right?

The best managers and team leaders know their staff or team, and know the individuals’
motivations and can tap into these strong sources of energy, with integrity, to create an even
more successful outcome, more easily, that will benefit the people and the business.

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It is considered that some 75% of a team or companies success will come from soft skills
such as motivation and attitude – not from hard skills or knowledge. If people are not
motivated it is highly unlikely they will use their skills and talents and this will negatively
impact on the bottom line whether you are a premier football team, an events company of a
private business.

Motivated teams of people far out perform other teams, no matter how qualified they are.
Keys to motivating your people include;

1. Find out people’s criteria for being motivated and set goals in accordance.

2. Create a rewarding environment where people can feel good about themselves.

3. Invest in people – and they will invest in you.

4. Understand how to thank people, so they feel thanked.

5. Maintain integrity and honesty.

There are many ways to find out about what motivates and drives people, how to engage with
your staff or team members, to build better working relationships, increase motivation, trust,
respect and rapport, whilst reducing costly personality clashes, mis-trust, stress, sickness and
disputes. By increasing staff motivation and engagement, you can directly increase the energy
levels, interest, desire and productivity, which can lead to increased productivity and profit.

Tools such as the SDI (Strength Deployment Inventory), DISC, Myers Briggs Type Indicator
and even Belbin, are all good foundations from which to run People Development
programmes to develop communication, understanding and engagement. PJ Stevens of LEAP
favours the SDI model, as it is easy to use, accurate and highly effective in developing
communication skills, leadership, understanding, teamwork, conflict resolution and
performance. The SDI model is also part of the Rewarding Relationships programme
developed by Shay McConnon and delivered by companies such as People First and LEAP.
If you want to understand how to motivate your people, the Rewarding Relationships
programme is a crown jewel in anyones teambuilding plans.

Increase staff motivation and engagement, and you can tap into a Gold Mine!

PJ Stevens, is a motivational speaker, presenter and facilitator working across the UK,
Europe and Middle East, specialising in soft skills, teambuilding and management
development. pj@leapplc.com

http://www.leapplc.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Paul_Stevens

Application of theories on team :

Conclusion
Teamwork as a concept has grown over the last 20 years. However, teamwork success is not
automatic. Teams have to be established for the right reasons. Team member selection is very
important, as is ensuring that the team purpose is clear and agreed upon

ARTICLE 3: Are we there yet? What's next for HR?

This paper examines the rapid change in Human Resource Management throughout
the 21st century. Human Resource Management is defined as a developmental
function in an organization that helps employees and management teams maintain
rules, regulations, incentives, salaries, etc. Research was conducted to find ways of
how HRM functions have changed throughout the last few decades. Some findings
included the use of technology through recruiting and managing protected
information, the on-going fight for equality in the workplace for the LGBT (lesbian,
gay, bisexual, transgender) community, and the expansion of globalization. As a
result, the research provide will prove that change is here to stay and increase with
improvement and efficiency.

Literature Review:
Technology in HRM has changed the way businesses recruit possible candidates
and manage confidential information. Before posting jobs online, HR teams relied on
posting and seeking new employees through newspapers and other kinds of written
publications. Since technology has evolved, employers are now using outlets such
as social media, online job publications, i.e. Indeed.com, Monster.com, etc., and
company websites to recruit. Dr. Richard D. Johnson (2011) writer of Transforming
HR through Technology, states that: ‘Almost all firms now provide universal access
to HR services through technology and web-based applications, dramatically
changing the practice of human resource management.’ (Johnson, 2011). These
new technologies have also cut costs and are more efficient to use. A company is
able to access possible candidate’s resumes, cover letters, contact information, and
more through online publications and social media cites. This in turn saves money
on using traditional form of recruiting such as search firms, temp agencies, and
advertising methods.

Human Resource departments are usually the holders of sensitive employee

information at any company. This sensitive information includes social security
numbers, health-related information, legal issues, etc. With technology being more
prominent in the Human Resources department, this confidential information is
readily accessed in computer systems. Because of the easily accessible documents,
HR tries to be as safe and protected as possible when handling employee
information with password protection databases and other levels of security that
monitors the documents. An article written by Valerie Bolden-Barrett (2015) from
Smallbusiness.chron.com states that ‘HR often works closely with information
technology personnel to keep workplace data secure. HR and IT might draft
computer-based privacy policies on preventing identity theft, securing employees’
personal data and protecting your company’s financial information’ (Barrett, 2015, p.
5). These are just a few aspects that have shifted in the new century and human
resource departments must maintain this high level of security as technology
continues to advance.

What’s Ahead?
Although HR has taken on many new aspects, there is always more room for
change. HR Executive writer Terry Terhawk (2011) writes that ‘In the age of
advanced technology and Web 2.0, talent-acquisition tools have evolved to provide a
great depth and breadth of options to source, recruit, track, forecast and
communicate faster than ever before, and they will continue to play a much greater
role in how organizations go to market.’ The advanced technologies also innovate
the globalization agility of the 21st century. Terhawk (2011) goes on to explain that
technology innovations have made the concept of globalization even more attainable
and in the future, there will be more of a premium on companies that are globally
agile in that regard.
Human Rights Campaign (2015) also has hope for the future. As of April 2013, 434
(88 percent) of the Fortune 500 companies had implemented non-discrimination
policies that include sexual orientation, and 282 (57 percent) had policies that
include gender identity. Although there are no state laws prohibiting discrimination
based on sexual orientation, they provide ways to advocate equality in the
workplace; building allies, finding support from supervisors and HR teams, and
coming up with a proposal regarding employee policies and the importance of adding
of ‘sexual orientation’ to the Code of Conduct.
Conclusion:
Between new-age technology and the integration of a wide range of diversity and
globalization, Human Resource Management’s roles in the company must change to
successfully take charge of the company’s policies and the employee. Technology
provides new ways to recruit possible candidates in a way that newspapers and
wanted ads were never able to do. These ways are able to find the best fit for the job
available (easily accessible resumes, contact information, etc.) and keep the turn-
over low. Discrimination laws will begin to provide more detail due to the newest
diversity of LGBT. These changes will help protect any discriminatory allegations
against those in the LGBT community and provide a more diverse and happy
workforce. Integrating globalization will increase in the 21st century as organizations
grow in the competitive international market. Globalization in HR will provide an
understanding of the help organizations labor laws, policies, and to be better equip
for a global business environment. It is vital for the human resource department of
any organization to stay up-to-date with the challenges in the workplace and
maintain a secure, safe, and regulated work environment.

Article 4: 21st-century talent spotting.

TALENT MANAGEMENT: EFFECTIVE STRATEGIES

If an organisation has a strong talent management plan, which is aligned parallel to their
business strategy, then there are higher chances that they would achieve their business
success. Talent management and business strategies of an organisation can further be
strengthened together through several small but regular events that happen in an organisation,
laying attention on talent enhancement and through constant interaction of senior leaders with
the employees. This way, management could keep the employees informed of where they are
heading towards as an organisation, how they want the organisation to stage their
performance and finally what the organisation expects from the employees, to take their firm
to success.

Talent reviews are conducted in depth while organisations use strategic workforce planning.
They also re-position talent to different levels to achieve future needs, try to come up with a
mix of the available internal talent pool along with the new hires from the external talent
pool. They always make a deliberate attempt to retain the critical talent the organisation
possesses and at the same they ensure that business strategy is on same page with the human
capital strategy. Talent management strategies should be aligned to the strategic business
objectives with the support from the management, co-ordination between departments,
through the resources made available to the employees, performance review mechanisms and
a common platform to share (The Conference Board, 2010). Different departments have to
adopt different strategies which suit their functioning within an organisation.

The strategic management of talent is fundamental if people are to effectively contribute to

strategic goals and outcomes. The emergence of strategic human resource management
reflects the contention that human capital is important and that organisations must consider
how best to invest in people to meet anticipated future human resources needs that meet the
demands of increasingly dynamic and competitive operating environments. This reinforces
the need to consider talent from individual, social and organisational/institutional
perspectives. It is wider than the basic concept of employability and also introduces the
concept of the market value of staff.

Essentially, individual goals need to be aligned to the corporate strategy of a business. To

achieve such alignment the values and vision of the organisation must be effectively
embedded and communicated across the organisation to ensure that employees are able to
work together to execute the strategy required. A strategic approach allows an organisation to
be pro-active and forward looking in addressing its talent requirements, considering
industry/organisational characteristics, the time needed for recruitment and development, and
changes in future labour requirements. A more strategic approach supports the effective
appraisal of existing talent capabilities and the evolution of plans to make sure that current
competency gaps are closed, whilst also recruiting to meet future requirements.

The two methods of sourcing talent are internally – selecting current employees within the
organisation who have the required talent and can shift position or department or employees
who , for example, can participate in more than one project – and externally – looking for
talent outside the organisation. Sourcing talent internally has significant priority. One of the
first criteria that each corporate assigns to sourcing talents, as Davis (2007) suggests, should
be assuring that the needed talent does not exist or is not available within the corporate, for
the reason that, current employees have a better understanding of the business through
experience and also the corporate has a clear understanding of its employees’ profiles.
Knowing that, either sourcing internally or externally requires adopting an appropriate
sourcing talent technique. He remarks that one of the most important elements of a reliable
technique is to clarify the skills or personal qualities the source needs to have to deliver what
is required, rather than focusing on the job description. In other words, how individuals
accomplish specific tasks should receive more attention than the number of tasks they can
maintain.

One of the most influential HRM practices for retaining talents or at least their knowledge,
suggested in Human Resource (HR) literature, is motivation. Motivation is foundation of
almost all other strategies required for talent retention, for example reward systems (Menon
& Pfeffer, 2003). Reward systems are, in fact, a major factor motivating employees to
collaborate efficiently and effectively (Droege & Hoobler, 2003). Winkelen and McDermott
(2008) report that not many organisations employ proactive strategic approaches to prevent
talent loss, instead most of them seek ad hoc and reactive approaches.

After investing time and money in addition to sharing corporate strategies with talents, the
main concern for any organisation would be retaining talent as long as possible. Although the
organisation does benefit from this investment in terms of overall performance improvement,
every organisation wants continuous profit from this investment. If the talents leave the
organisation then not only the whole process needs to be repeated resulting in extra
investment but also, particularly in the cases that talents shift to competitors as they take their
knowledge of the corporate with them which is higher in risk than any other expenses the
organisation might face. Hofer-Alfeis (2008) characterises leaving experts/talents a
significant challenge for HRM more than any other function within an organisation. He
explains that retiring, shifting positions within an organisation or shifting to another
organisation raises the need for approaches through which the organisation, at least, retain the
experts’ knowledge when retaining the experts themselves is not possible.

De Long and Davenport (2003), Levy (2011) and Winkelen and McDermott (2008) affirm
that the fundamental step in any talent retention strategy should, first, include identifying
talents critical to business performance and, second, using tools and techniques assuring
transfer of their tacit/undocumented knowledge to other employees within the organisation.
Among the HR practices, Hofer-Alfeis (2008) suggests, job rotation is one of the most
reliable ones in terms of spreading the knowledge and making the organisation less
dependent on talents. Slagter (2009) adds that network building and conducting seminars
facilitates knowledge elicitation and transfer between experts and other employees. Hislop
(2005) affirms the interdependence between recruitment and selection process and retaining
knowledge. He explains that selecting and recruiting talented individuals with compatible
values to those of existing culture of the firm, and the ones who are willing to engage in
knowledge transfer practices, will further facilitate the process of talent management.

4. Concluding marks

The qualitative analysis in this essay highlighted that talent management is not limited to HR
practices. It showed that to succeed in talent management, a strategic approach, involving
many functions within a firm, is a necessity and it will benefit from covering all the four
stages of strategic process of talent management proposed, in parallel. Moreover, findings of
detailed investigation of elements of each stage revealed that there is a strong
interdependence between all the stages of talent management strategic processes and there is
a great need for continuous improvement of the process to achieve advanced business
performance. The author concludes that talent motivation – such as providing great place to
work at, opportunities for developing career and so on – has the greatest effect on success of
talent management and especially retaining experts or expert knowledge. Furthermore, talent
management strategy that aims at improving business competitive performance needs
professional leadership and management talents.

Global talent Mobility

Not only jobs are being exported and outsourced, the supply factor, around the global market
but also professional employees are turning more mobile too (Farndale, Scullion and Sparrow
2010). Global talent mobility is correlated with more advanced approach of TM, namely the
global management of talent that is fraught with many challenges (Mellahi and Collings
2010). Global mobility advocates a careful attention for HR development, in particular in
multinational corporations (MNCs). When talking about global talent; this refers to many
factors.

First, there is a growing recognition of the contribution of globally competent talent in

organization’s success and to remain competitive where talent is needed in different locations
of the global business (Ready and Conger 2007). Research shows that 12 % of the senior
mangers in MNCs operating in emerging markets cannot be replaced by managers from the
host country natives (Li and Scullion 2010).

Second, employers shift the competition from country level to regional and more to global
level (Scullion, Collings and Caligiuri 2010, Farndale, Scullion and Sparrow 2010). Third,
shortages in managing talent internationally especially leadership talent have been an
important limitation to implementing global strategies successfully (Cohn, Khurana and
Reeves 2005). At last, the exponential growth of emerging markets urges the demand of
significant managerial talent with specific skills and potential, who can operate in different
economic, cultural and distant markets (Scullion, Collings and Caligiuri 2010).

Rotating talented people into various roles and functions will give them the chance to round
out their competencies and skills and be ready for general management. It is important to
track global manager performance regarding his extra-cultural openness and adaptability,
family situation, motivation, and his local (host country) and contextual knowledge that
impede his decision making and threaten his performance in that market. For this reason, Li
and Scullion (2010) propose a theoretical framework from a knowledge-based perspective to
develop ‘expatriates’ local competence in emerging markets.

Talent development includes mobility between business units domestically and abroad. It is
essential that job shifts and production structure be fundamentally aligned because
developing large pool of talent could lead to oversupply and the developed cadre would
simply have no place to go. Therefore, mobility into upward movements will be limited
(Nalbantian and Guzzo 2008). Mobility is an advantage considering that consistently growing
and developing employees would result a large leadership bench that first has become an
expensive inventory who can walk out of door because they do not wait sitting on the bench
then employees’ motivation to reach higher positions would diminish (Cappelli 2008).
Hence, lateral moves with new and challenging tasks in different country, contribute to retain
those overachievers who lead the company to a sustained competitive advantage.

Despite the fact that high potential workers have an expectation that they could be often faced
with new challenges, some skills are compatible with new environment and other are more
difficult. Five types of human capital shape the mobility or “portability” of employees and
they range from most portable to least, which means those skills that fit with the new
company or not. (1) The general management, those related to skills, traits and knowledge
required for management are more likely to fit in the new position. (2) The strategic ones,
those related to growth and specific experience, (3) the industry specific skills that fit in one
industry but do not in another one. (4) The relationship skills namely the interpersonal
relationships within the organization; those could be hard to adapt and are significantly
different from one country to another. At last, (5) there are the company specific skills that
are specific to knowledge of the organization’s rules and procedures (Groysberg, Sant and
Abrahams 2008). Consequently, companies have to ponder the kind of mobility to be
performed and for whom, then the size of talent mobility (Nalbantian and Guzzo 2008).
Besides, managers should not only focus whether performance in the new role is portable but
rather on how much performance is portable and in which position it fits (Groysberg, Sant
and Abrahams 2008).

Mobility as a leadership development strategy contains several disadvantages. It disrupts and

weakens accountability because workers may leave before their decisions play out. In
addition, employees who are not in the cycle of mobility and development may suffer of the
routine and may feel demoralized especially when they stick to jobs too long. Global mobility
is expensive; it deals with international assignments. It helps people chasing new experiences
perhaps in favour of other strategic and operational aims (Nalbantian and Guzzo 2008).
Mentoring and coaching are wise means to support global mobile talent. It is essential for
managers who are performing globally to nurture managerial ties and relationship with the
new environment in order to enhance acquiring and sharing knowledge. Li and Scullion
(2010) suggest that strategies for managing global talent that are based on conventional local
competence development tend not to succeed in the context of emerging markets.

Recently, several international business management scholars identified that MNCs earned
advantage over domestic firms for simple reason that they acquire a global diverse talent pool
that increases the opportunity to learn new skills and improves innovation abilities (Mellahi
and Collings 2010, Tarique and Schuler 2010).

Conclusion

Talent management has been into debate for more than a decade and practitioners and
scholars have long argued about the concept. We categorized talent management approaches
into two main categories, inclusive and exclusive. Lewis and Hackman (2006) suggest that
TM should focus on employees with high-value added skills, those who are difficult to
substitute. Two inclusive perspectives are first, the rebranding of the human resource
management and the second focuses on the management of talented people and aims to fill all
the roles in a company with ‘A’ performers or top grading the roles; in these two perspectives
talent management is not differentiated from HRM (Lewis and Heckman 2006). Two
exclusive approaches where the first is an extension of succession planning and leadership
development with the emphasis on talent pools, the second differentiates TM as a function in
charge to identify pivotal talent positions and backup with the pivotal talent pools indeed.
Cappelli (2008) advocates a flexible balancing of internal development and external hiring,
Scullion and Collings (2006) discuss the need for bringing together global and local talent
and cultural and gender diversity, and Tarique, Schuler, and Gong (2006) examine the fit
between personal characteristics and the requirements of various jobs. There is obviously a
need for further research, not only to set up a clear and consensual definition of talent
management and its positioning within the theoretical body of human resource management
but also to demonstrate the value of talent management through empirical studies in order to
build up its scientific validity and its managerial relevance.