TALENT MANAGEMENT – DRIVING FORCE FOR EMPLOYEE RETENTION
R. Anitha., M.Sc., MBA., M.Phil G. Sindhu., MCA., MBA
Lecturer Lecturer
PPG Institute of Technology PPG Business School
“Talent is footless and youth will seek a better quality of life where ever and whenever”
Anil Ambani
Abstract
In today's global economy, companies must continually invest in human capital. In the role of
business partner, HR leaders work closely with senior management to attract, hire, develop and
retain talent. The vivacious nature of global business is putting an ever-increasing pressure on
companies to be constantly on the lookout for incomparable talent in a market where demand far
exceeds supply. Given the current focus on the linkage between talent and an organization’s
business challenges, effective strategy should be executed to identify the right people with the
right skills and knowledge in the right roles. Getting the right people with the right skills into the
right jobs, a common definition of talent management is the basic people management challenge
in organizations. While the focus of talent management tends to be on management and
executive positions, the issues apply to all jobs. This has made talent management as one of the
most pressing issues faced by the senior business executives in the current corporate scenario.
Hence, this paper will highlight on the need for talent management, role of HR manager in
meeting the challenges of workplace diversity, strategies and challenges of talent management
and the ways of motivating and retaining employees through gain-sharing and executive
information system through proper planning, organizing, leading and controlling their human
resources.
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Introduction: The Talent Age
In 1997, a McKinsey study coined the term: war for talent. Now in the new millennium, we find
ourselves in the talent age. During the agricultural age, the economy was based on land, a truly
physical and very tangible asset. The industrial age followed with a manufacturing-driven
economy. Higher business performance was derived through the most effective use of factories
and distribution networks. The knowledge age moved the basis of economic value to information
assets through integrated communications and computer technology. Now the competitive
battlefront is for the best people because they are the true creators of value.
Talent management is a professional term that gained popularity in the late 1990s. It refers to the
process of developing and fostering new workers through on boarding, developing and keeping
current workers and attracting highly skilled workers at other companies to come work for their
company.
The talent management is all about the management of high-worth individuals or "the talented".
The term “talent management” is usually associated with competency-based human resource
management practices. Talent management decisions are often driven by a set of organizational
core competencies as well as position-specific competencies. The competency set may include
knowledge, skills, experience, and personal traits. Talent management is the recruitment,
development, promotion and retention of people, planned and executed in line within an
organization’s current and future business goals. Because it is aimed at building leadership
strength in depth, it creates flexibility to meet rapidly changing market conditions.
Companies engaging in a talent management strategy shift the responsibility of employees from
the human resources department to all managers throughout the organization. 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." Talent
management is also known as Human Capital Management.
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Strategies for talent management
Talent Management, usually referred as Human Capital Management, is the process recruiting,
managing, assessing, developing and maintaining an organization's most important resource—it's
people. The typical strategies includes incorporating exceptional capabilities in learning,
performance, and compensation management software, reducing time and costs of performance
reviews, recognize employee performance gap, align training demand with performance needs,
reliable, fair pay-for-performance initiatives.
Talent Management processes is typically found in numerous parts of an organization. Thus,
many organizations struggle to align their talent management under one consistent strategy.
Need for Talent Management
Pressing business necessities, such as increasing turnover as the economy improves,
globalization of markets and labour forces, aggressive competition and heightened
corporate oversight, have intensified the need to acquire, develop, deploy, motivate
and retain key talent.
Matching the right person to the right job is an acknowledged need in organizations. But one of
the toughest challenges in selection often overlooked is matching the right candidate to his
immediate boss. What makes that goal particularly tough is when the boss does not have a clue
what kind of candidate would work well with him. Working with various tools, we can design
and customize assessment exercises and materials. We also identify critical competencies your
people will need, develop success predictors and consult with you on general recruiting
strategies.
Reducing turnover and aligning talent with organization goals is must for any organisation. With
75% of employees looking for new employment opportunities at any given time and five million
Baby Boomers expected to retire in the next few years, the war for talent is back on. Most
companies today would acknowledge that their human assets are their most important asset. But
since companies can’t own employees the way they own factories or product, the success or
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failure hinges on the quality and duration of the relationships with the employees: retaining
talent.
Developing Talent is essential for both employee and organisation development. A full range of
services should be provide for developing talent, ranging from career development, executive
coaching and leadership development to new job integration, team building and succession
planning.
Career Development programs are designed for professional and entry- to mid-level managers.
CPI provides assessment and feedback, planning, support, coaching and other tools, tailored to
help your people realize their career goals, aligned with organizational goals.
New Job Integration is important as the first one hundred days on a job are critical for new
leaders. Assess and coach leaders to gain effectiveness more quickly, avoiding common pitfalls
of their new roles. The organisation should provide feedback, planning and coaching, based on
assessments.
Leadership Development programs include a wide variety of leadership and management skills
for developing talent, including coaching, conflict management, decision making, delegating,
mentoring, and motivating and performance management.
Current Challenges in Talent Management
Business success relies on successful talent management. In the 21 st century there are new
challenges of globalization before the business organization, and new issues in talent
management to deal with. Employee aspirations are high and there is an intensifying competition
among the companies to attract and retain the best talent, even in the midst of downsizing, cost
cutting, mergers, acquisitions and alliances. In this scenario, it is imperative for the organization
to focus its attention of smart talent management in order to be successful in an increasingly
complex and competitive global economic environment.
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Anticipated workforce changes and cost-effective ways to access talent are key issues to the next
generation of talent management. Predictive workforce monitoring will lead to effective strategic
talent decision-making. Factors such as flexible talent sourcing, customized and personalized
rewards, distributed and influential leadership, and unified and compassionate workplace
cultures will be important for successful talent management. Companies will increasingly utilize
different types of employment relationships, and nonstandard employment models will continue
to evolve. To benefit from the knowledge, skills and corporate memory of mature workers,
phased retirement will become prevalent. Keeping workers engaged particularly the next
generations may call for HR to redesign the workweek, benefits packages and reward programs.
The challenges of finding, keeping, developing, and motivating people in key positions are
precisely what progressive HR professionals should be focusing on. These managers face
ongoing talent management challenges that are critical to their achieving business goals. The
main challenges of talent management are attracting high quality candidates, identifying and
developing high performers for key positions, retaining their top-performing employees, filling
high-impact positions to support their company’s growth, keeping employees engaged and
focused on high priority goals and optimizing compensation to serve business objectives.
Effective talent management processes and systems can have a significant positive impact on
business. The most valuable systems are those that deliver direct value to the business manager,
which are easy to use, and that are integrated across functions. Processes and systems that meet
these criteria are well-suited to help companies meet their critical talent management challenges.
The management should be innovative and proactive to win the war of talent. With the next-
generation predictive modeling systems, talent management and workforce planning can be
transformed from reactive administrative functions to proactive systems capable of accurately
forecasting talent demand right to the individual job. Attracting and nurturing talent has become
the single most dominant force. Today attracting brains is more difficult than foreign direct
investment. However, talent is what will make India enduringly competitive.
Strategies are to be framed for overcoming talent shortages. Obstacles to talent are to be
identified and overcome. This can make talent flourish if the enabling social and physical
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infrastructure is in place. A rightly managed talent turns out to be a gold mine. It’s inexhaustible
and priceless. It will keep supplying wealth and value to the organization. In turn, management
needs to realize it’s worth, extract it, polish it and utilize it. Don’t hoard. Talent-spend it lavishly,
like a millionaire flashing his luxuries, because Talent is wealth.
The role of the HR manager must parallel the needs of the changing organization. Successful
organizations are becoming more adaptable, resilient, quick to change directions, and customer-
centered. Within this environment, the HR professional must learn how to manage effectively
through planning, organizing, leading and controlling the human resource and be knowledgeable
of emerging trends in training and employee development.
Success of Talent Management
Corporations around the world are in the process of deploying the next generation of
enterprise technology. It is not a trivial transition. Enhanced functionality, dynamic global
influences and requirements, new solution delivery models and an infrastructure shift to services-
based architectures are changing the way companies upgrade and adopt new technology
solutions. The success of the talent management market rests on integrated functionality and
usability, dynamic influences in shaping the global workforce, rapid acceptance of the on-
demand model, demand for service and support excellence and multinational capabilities.
The time is now to leverage talent management technologies. Today’s available talent
management solutions can not only support the changing dynamics of organization workforce,
but help plan for the future in building both a high caliber workforce and performance-based
culture.
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Conclusion
To sustain outstanding business results in a global economy, organizations will rethink and
reinvent their approaches to talent management. Effective talent management calls for strong
participatory leadership, organizational buy-in, employee engagement and workplace scorecards
with talent management metrics. Companies that master talent management will be well-
positioned for long-term growth in workforce performance for years to come. Failures in talent
management are mainly due to the mismatch between the supplies and demand not due to the
failure in the concept. A new framework for talent management has to begin by being clear about
the objectives. Talent management is not an end in itself. It is not about developing employees or
creating succession plans as the most important task of Talent Management is to help the
organization to achieve its overall objectives.
Reference:
1. Retaining talent: Retention and succession in the corporate workforce, AberdeenGroup Inc.,
Boston.
2. Management value imperatives: Strategies for execution, Morton, L.
3. The Talent Management Handbook: Creating Organizational Excellence by Identifying,
Developing, and Promoting Your Best People, Lance A Berger & Dorothy R. Berger
4. Talent Management Systems: Best Practices in Technology Solutions for Recruitment,
Retention and Workforce Planning, Allan Schweyer
Website:
1. www.shrm.org
2. www.towersperrin.com
3. www.hewitt.com
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4. www.talentManagement101.com
5. www.indianmba.com
