Streamlined business processes and talent management are crucial to the success of any business. While good business processes are easy to acquire or design, the same does not apply to talent management. Difficulties in business operations cause overworking negation, and under-appreciation of talent, which can cause the exodus of the same talent at a great business cost. Many firms fail to handle talent management needs when they are in their fast-growing period. Consequently, they end up with a talent problem when they are too big to design effective systems without incurring substantial costs. Most businesses prioritize high-growth and fail to pay attention to sub-optimal opportunities like the talent processes.
When owners or managers of a business have no formal experience of dealing with organisational performance, they lack an understanding of how talent lapses limit or destroy the performance and the growth of the business they are building. At the same time, they rarely know what they should do. When the damage caused by talent lapses occurs, most business owners do not notice because the lapse hides behind an overwhelming success witnessed in various other aspects of the business. For example, when there is considerable sales growth and demand for expansion, a business will find individuals to fit the various roles without preparing those individuals for the roles assigned to them.
Design and the Introduction of Talent Management Programs
The essence of having talent tools or programs is to shift the management of talent from ad hoc strategies to well-calculated plans that take care of unforeseen challenges when they occur. Instead of dropping talent when business circumstances become hard, most organizations now realize that they can use adequate talent management programs to hold on to the redundant talent and make it available for future needs of the business. This saves the business the cost of recruiting new talent and training to align new talent capabilities with business demands (Wilska, 2015). One essence of talent management is to provide sustainable growth for organizations via empowerment. The main principles of talent management include governing talent management, advising firms to identify the right mix of talents, embracing communication, supporting and recognizing talent, and appreciating the talent accordingly.
Leaders of any organization must consider objective metrics when designing talent management programs. There are measures needed to evaluate talent and associate talent management with business opportunities. Most job descriptions go into a flux when businesses are experiencing high growth. Associated opportunities become blurry, and the business is unable to match talent with its required role. Nevertheless, companies still need to get the most out of their workforce. The only way to do so is through the identification and definition of clear goals. Moreover, companies must address arising issues, such as incentives in the form of compensation and career advancement. Failing to address these issues ensures that any prescribed programs for managing talent fail (Wilska, 2015). Questions worth asking at the design level of talent management systems would include the way the organization measures performance and whether all employees clearly understand the way they fit into the system.
Other than objective metrics, companies also have to consider the strategic alignment of talent. Instead of treating talent as an afterthought, they must place it at the forefront of their strategic objectives. Companies make a critical mistake when they fail to align talent strategies intimately with the overall strategic planning, yet they rely on people to execute. Consequently, it is appropriate for leaders to incorporate the views of HR, which entail putting talent as part of strategic planning. When this is done, talent management programs become useful tools for optimizing the overall performance of the organization.
The ability to manage talent successfully ensures that companies maximize the talent they have. Firms have benefited mostly when they include mentorship programs in the employee recruitment process (Gorrell & Hoover, 2009). Having senior managers and experienced executives develop relationships with employees who are just joining the firm at middle-level management levels, or subordinate employee levels help the firm to cultivate a close-knit relationship. Moreover, using rotational assignments, firms can ensure that high-potential employees receive enough exposure to different roles available in the organization. As they change roles, the overseers will also notice any compatibility with particular roles that the employees exhibit.
Talent programs can exist beyond the organization. For example, a partnership with a training institution can provide benefits to both the training facility and the organization to refine the existing talent and provide new talent that meets the needs of the employer. Nevertheless, additional factors must be considered for symbiotic relationships involving higher education institutions and commercial training firms to succeed.
First, companies must retain the power to identify key talent and retain it. After training and development, companies need to utilize the skills of their talent. An excellent way of achieving this is by ensuring that employees are engaged and satisfied. Companies have to look at issues, such as work-life balance, then address employee concerns beyond the wage compensation issues. Also, it is the company’s task to find work that satisfies employees and to align that work with the most critical talent in the organization. Secondly, firms need well designed career-pathing programs.
When designing a career path from scratch, organizations will best be served if they follow the steps given below. First, they have to create a career roadmap. A career map shows the prototype career that an employee would follow. It includes sequential positions, roles, and stages. The organization can use a diagram so that it is easy to visualize where an employee will be at different progress points. Additional details to make the process successful include the number of employees that a particular job role may accommodate and the minimum threshold for the company’s survival. The second step in the career path design is building position profiles. It entails deciding which qualifications best define a given job position. The profiles can include industry recommendations and firm-specific needs for a role. The third step involves the incorporation of training and development. Linking career paths to employee development through the prioritization of position profile characteristics is a major condition for step four. Many firms unknowingly embrace the fourth step in career path building when they provide developmental opportunities for talent. The fifth step in the career path design is to establish accountability. Firms and employees need to be responsible for the actions that are critical to the firm’s performance. The organization must provide checks and balances to make sure the goals of the talent management program are achieved; more so, the career path design.
Beyond talent identification and career paths, organizations must also question the motivations of talent. Leaders must inquire and find out where employees want to go in their career, and then look for ways that they can be of use to the organization. On its part, the organization has to consider its opportunities for improving the work-life balance for its employees and offering any work experience and training that its employees would need. Success comes when employers can align the interests of individual employees with the interests of the entire organization. As a result, employee engagement and performance enhancement are improved.
A splendid strategy to use in organizations is talent mapping. This is a formalized process of ensuring that the talent on hand and the future talent are known. Most importantly, firms must realize that the process of creating a comprehensive and value-generating talent function does not appear immediately (Chang & Chen, 2011). Salient opportunities appear only when talent, strategy, and operations planning are knotted. Rather than pick talent when most needed, organizations need to rely on a formula that allows them to start with the areas that are most crucial to organizational performance and then address the fundamental factors in this section. The process can move on to less important areas. However, firms should not neglect talent altogether when they set up an appropriate system.
An organization can enhance its ability to gain from the process by incorporating the six pillars of talent management as explained below (Jackson, Schuler, & Werner, 2012). This can be done by designing and introducing talent management programs that are based on the factors and concerns that this second part of the paper raises and the concepts discussed so far. An effective plan for talent management needs structure, method, and measures, all incorporated into one framework. With the appropriate framework, any organization will be able to find talent actions and solutions that meet its strategic needs (Baqutayan, 2014). The six talent pillars provide the required structure, method, and measure. The pillars are reward and recognition, business strategy alignment, organizational design, talent resourcing, learning and development, and organisational performance.
Before applying the six pillars, organizations must embrace their uniqueness and use leadership as the mechanisms to hold the pillars together, according to a building analogy. Talent is a determinant of strategy, which has already been mentioned earlier in this paper. Therefore, employees are in charge of executing business strategy. The second pillar, organisational design, deals with the processes that prevail in the business, which canvas its structure and chain of command. They include the quality systems and financial mechanisms employed by the business to achieve success. They affect decisions, collaboration endeavours, customer service delivery, employee commitment, and talent satisfaction (Jackson, 2012).
Talent resourcing is all about meeting the current and foreseen need employee needs (Hatum, 2010). An organization will achieve talent resourcing by making talent identification a part of its daily business practice (Dimba, 2010). Learning and development, which is another pillar of the talent management framework, allow firms to improve the output of individual employees. It requires the organization to consider evolving needs and challenges that it encounters and create ways to make sure talent can cope with them (Davis, 2007). Organizational performance goes beyond performance reviews and looks at the culture of the business and the traditions followed by the managers and employees in keeping commitments, respecting others, and obeying appropriate codes of conduct (Kehinde, 2012). Finally, attracting excellent talent and retaining talent is tied to rewarding and recognizing the efforts of the employees. The organisation must strive to become an enviable employer by finding the right employee compensation and recognition stimuli and incorporating them into its human resource policy.
Conclusion
Organizations have to embrace the fact that people can be crucial business differentiators. When designed and introduced correctly, talent management systems can attract, retain, and develop employees, such that they gain most from the organization and the organization achieves salient competencies for realizing its corporate goals. Part two of this paper sought to deduce the factors that organizations have to consider when dealing with design and introduction aspects of talent management. The section first provided an overview of talent management and then proceeded to describe the tools that are needed for managing talent. In describing the tools, the section also highlighted the factors that affect talent management programs and validated the use of the prescribed tools. Having offered a background understanding of talent management program constitutes organization challenges and how they interact with the suitability of the programs, the section ended with a description of the six pillars of talent management as a framework for summarizing the factors worth considering.
References
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