THE PROCESS OF TALENT MANAGEMENT
An ideal talent management process aims at competency and power of employees within an organization (Sweem, 2009). Therefore, the main task of an HR manager/executive is to forecast the shortfalls in advance based on the organizational changes and experience. But prior to all of this, the talent gap should be identified. Different initiatives should be taken to improve the availability of the required talent and knowledge. Armstrong & Taylor (2014) presents the process of talent management from a higher level as a pipeline that operates within the parameters of talent strategy and policy and starts with talent planning, followed by a sequence of resourcing and talent development activities to produce a talent pool.
Figure 1, The Talent Management Pipeline
(Armstrong & Taylor, 2014)
To get a clearer picture of the above pipeline, Armstrong & Taylor (2014) provides a detailed flow chart of the process of talent management shown in Figure 2 where the process begins with a strategy which provides the best outcome for individuals which eventually results in a talent pool that preserves the talent stream required by the organization.
Figure 2, The Talent Management Process
(Armstrong & Taylor, 2014)
Talent Management originates from the term, “the war of talent”, which arose to point out the difficulties faced in organizations during the recruitment process of talented people (Armstrong, 2006). Organizations that implement the “the war of talent” approach tends to focus more on external applicants, rather than the internal employees. A successful talent management strategy should encompass the strength to address and resolve any imbalance between the supply and demand of talent. Many organizations consist of employees more than the required amount but never for the actual positions. Even if talent management is about employee development and succession planning, suggested in many definitions and articles, it should also focus on an organization to achieve its objectives (Cappelli, 2008, in Armstrong & Taylor, 2014).
To build a strategy, first, the key competencies of the organization should be identified. Key competencies can be defined as the elements which are critical to the success of the organization. Secondly, it is crucial to stabilize the flow of these competencies (Merlvede, 2014). The flow can be summarized with 5 keywords.
- Buy – Recruit new talent
- Build – Invest in learning by supplying training to the existing employees
- Borrow – Bring external consultants/professionals to enhance the skills
- Bounce – Remove employees who interrupt the talent development process.
- Bind – Pay attention to talent retention.
Berger & Berger (2004) describes four steps that should be followed to create a successful talent management system.
To begin with, the necessary assessment tools and the scales should be developed. Each employee should be assessed based on an agenda which consists of accepted measures to monitor employee competency performance and potential. Next, application tools to develop training and development solutions should be supplied, in order to support an organization’s core competencies. Certain knowledge gaps exist between an employee’s expertise and an organization’s requirement. This gap can be eliminated by providing the required training and development. Subsequently, assess each employee’s core abilities with the expected forecast. i.e. evaluate the employee based on the measures that were set in the first step. Finally, action plans are prepared after employee evaluations. A perfect action plan is a plan that can be readily adapted to an organization (Berger & Berger, 2004). Therefore, an ideal talent management strategy takes an approach where the skills of everyone is highlighted in such a manner that an individual’s success contributes to the organization’s success (O’Reilly and Pfeffer, 2000, in Armstrong, 2006).
REFERENCES
Armstrong, M. (2006) A Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice. 10th ed. London, Kogan Page.
Armstrong, M and Taylor, S. (2014) Armstrong's Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice. 13th ed. London, Kogan Page.
Berger, L. A and Berger, D. R. (2004) The Talent Management Handbook: Creating Organizational Excellence by Identifying, Developing & Promoting Your Best People. 1st ed. New York, McGraw-Hill.
Merlvede, P. (2014) Talent Management: A Focus On Excellence. [Online] Available at: https://bookboon.com/ [Accessed 18 April 2019].
Sweem, S. L. (2009) Leveraging Employee Engagement through a Talent Management Strategy: Optimizing Human Capital through Human Resources and Organization Development Strategy in a Field Study, s.l., Benedictine University.
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