Introduction
Every business’s sustainability and survival depend on its talent management, which involves identifying, attracting, and recruiting the right employees, helping them grow their skills, and instilling the organizational culture and objectives. Due to factors such as age, death, and technological development, businesses always need to reinforce their workforce for continuity and growth. Therefore, organizations’ human resources must be proactive in identifying talent gaps and finding the right people to fill them.
Similarly, human resources should have strategies that predict the future needs of talent, and how to identify and manage the candidates to match the needs of the company in the process, which involves planning, attracting, selecting, developing, retaining, and transitioning. Talent pipeline, therefore, refers to the group of passive candidates engaged by a company to fill future talent gaps. The candidates can be sourced externally from institutions and rival organizations or internally, especially in cases of promotions. Talent pipeline management has various benefits to a business, including continuity and sustainability.
Talent Pipeline
In the past, most companies were reactive and would wait until there was a gap in the workforce to conduct recruitment. However, this strategy was not fulfilling, considering some positions demanded high skills and experience that the candidates did not possess. In addition, the reactive talent pipeline was not effective since many organizations did not have the opportunity to assess the right candidates or enjoy a wide range of talents due to the urgency created by time constraints.
As a result, many companies were forced to compromise their meritocracy and accommodate undeserving and unworthy candidates to fill their vacant positions. In cases where high experience was needed, as in leadership positions or technical areas, organizations would suffer from recruiting amateurs and under-skilled individuals. However, recently, businesses have shifted to a proactive approach where they identify the right candidates for future roles early enough in a process called talent pipeline. In the proactive strategy, organizations create a talent pool comprising potential candidates, making it easier for selection and training.
Benefits of the Talent Pipeline
In the talent pool, businesses must identify and mark individuals with the required attributes early enough. In cases where the talent is internally sourced, a company would identify those employees who have shown promise and are believed to possess the right attitude, skills, and personality. For example, team leaders would identify and mark members with potential for promotion. In technical aspects, companies would identify potential candidates and groom them for future tasks.
A company would identify and groom individuals with potential early enough for externally sourced talent (Kravariti et al., 2022). For example, an organization would identify students at early stages of training and education, such as the 2nd and 3rd-year levels, and mark them and include them in the talent pool without directly engaging them through interviews. The recent proactive talent management approach has proved effective due to its numerous benefits, such as;
Saving Time and Money
Talent pipeline saves time and money by providing candidates early enough, thus cutting the cost and time of advertisement, interviews, and assessment. A talent pipeline enables a company to identify various talents early before they are needed and groom them for future vacancies and roles. For instance, students are identified in schools, assessed, and marked early enough, thus when the time of need arises, a company simply absorbs them without having to conduct advertisements, interviews, and scrutiny (Kaliannan et al., 2022).
Similarly, internally sourced talents are identified and groomed earlier for future roles, thus saving time and cost for training and interviews. For example, a team leader would identify potential members early enough and groom them according to their future needs. When the time reaches, they are simply promoted to the tasks.
Elevating the Quality of Hires
A talent pipeline enables a company to identify the best individuals, thus elevating the quality of hires. Identifying talents earlier gives an organization sufficient time to assess the best talent for future roles. Since there is enough time, an organization can assess various individuals and identify the ones with the right qualities, unlike reactive, when companies are forced to pick candidates in a rush to compete with time and thus may be forced to settle for less (Guerra et al., 2023). For instance, a talent pipeline provides an organization with time to identify talent among various students and choose the ones with the best qualities.
Ensuring Mission-Critical Projects for Minimal Disruption
Talent gaps created by retirement, death, dismissals, or organizational expansion normally disrupt the company by delaying its operation. However, by having ready candidates, an organization will simply fill the gap without disrupting the operation. For instance, a company promotes one of the employees already identified for the vacant role, thereby reducing delays caused by the recruitment process (Kwon & Jang, 2022). Similarly, a company would invite and incorporate candidates from the talent pool into the system, thereby reducing the interruption caused by the talent gap.
Enjoying a Wide Range of Talents
A talent pipeline enables an organization to enjoy a wide range of talents from a large pool of potential individuals and thus identify the best candidates. While creating a talent pool, a company can select and identify numerous people with various skills as candidates for future organizational tasks (Donald, 2023). When the time is ripe, the business can identify the best candidates from the group to fill the talent gaps.
Building Relationship and Organizational Culture
A talent pipeline enables a company to build strong relationships with potential candidates and instill organizational culture. By spotting and marking the potential candidates earlier, a company gets enough time to learn more about the individuals’ characters, strengths, and weaknesses and inculcate the organizational culture and important aspects (Kravariti et al., 2022). In addition, new employees are affected by adaptation anxiety; however, the talent pipeline allows potential candidates to learn and embrace the organizational culture early enough, thus reducing the adaptation challenge.
Best Practices for Talent Pipeline Management
Having a talent pool is not enough for a company; organizations must ensure they have the right people in the pool. However, this is always challenging, as there are chances for an organization to select the wrong candidates for the talent pipeline, especially if the wrong strategies are employed (Edeh et al., 2022). Therefore, businesses must embrace best practices for talent pipeline management.
Pulse on the Present, Eyes on the Future
When building a formidable talent pipeline, companies must focus on the present and future. Due to the dynamic nature of the workforce, an organization must consider its present and future labor needs while constituting its talent pipeline to include the right candidates in its pool (Pagan-Castano et al., 2022). Considering internal factors such as the growth rate, profit, and technology can help an organization know how many and what type of candidates to look at and gather.
Deficiency Needs vs. Growth Needs
Most organizations focus on the talent gap when gathering potential candidates. They look at the areas and departments that may need reinforcement. For example, a sales company may look at the sales department while constituting its talent pool (Kravariti et al., 2022). However, while gathering candidates, businesses need to look at critical positions such as the technological department, which influence success and growth. This will help create sustainability and improve the growth of the business.
Organizational Style and Culture
The talent pipeline’s main aim is to maintain an organization’s continuity. However, the culture and style of business must be taken into consideration. Therefore, companies must identify the right candidates with qualities that match their culture and style. For instance, businesses with a strong culture of cooperation and teamwork must identify and select individuals with qualities that match their needs while constituting the talent pool.
Similarly, some companies have cultures where employees work independently with little supervision. Thus, the talent pool must comprise candidates with similar attributes that can fit the style of the business for easier adaptation (Jooss et al., 2022). The same applies to businesses with strong work ethics and values; those forming the talent pipeline must possess the relevant characteristics.
In addition, various companies have different goals, and the employees are responsible for attaining the objectives. Therefore, businesses constituting the talent pipeline must identify candidates who can help them achieve their goals. For example, the talent pool must comprise dedicated, hardworking, and goal-oriented individuals who will help a company achieve its goals.
Evaluating Performances
Not all employees may perform well in the workplace; therefore, organizations need to conduct regular performance evaluations to identify which personnel are doing well and in what areas, and those that are performing poorly and the challenges they experience in their departments, limiting their potential. Evaluation will help to improve the overall performance by solving the problems facing the business and the workers. Some employees may face some challenges in the workplace but suffer silently.
On the other hand, personnel doing well in their various roles require rewards to encourage them. To get knowledge of all these, a manager must conduct a performance evaluation (Donald, 2023). Thus, a performance evaluation reviews a worker’s competence regarding the task assigned, the job description, and expectations over a specific period. Several factors can be used to evaluate employee performance, including quality work, execution, progress, adaptability, job knowledge, problem-solving, and decision-making. Performance evaluation has several benefits for managers, employees, and the organization.
Benefits of Performance Evaluation
Increased Employee Efficiency
Generally, every workplace is characterized by various challenges. While some employees may find a way to maneuver and overcome the challenges, the problems affect and limit others. Performance evaluation gives an actual picture of the workplace, positive departments, and challenging areas that need improvement. It helps to track individual progress and identify the problems experienced by different workers, thereby improving their efficiency (Afrasiabi et al., 2022). For example, employees who are underperforming in their areas due to problems such as poor skills can be helped by training.
Similarly, workers with positive progress can be rewarded to encourage them, thereby increasing overall efficiency. After conducting a performance evaluation, a manager may decide to organize workers in groups to complement each other; such moves can help increase employee efficiency. In addition, performance evaluation motivates workers by proving that an organization sees and values their efforts.
Identification of Strengths and Weaknesses
Companies would love to see workers flourish in their respective roles and departments. However, that may not be possible for all employees, as some may underperform for various reasons. Therefore, performance evaluation is important in identifying the positive areas where workers are doing well and areas where employees are struggling by studying the work patterns and progress (Molnar et al., 2022). As a result, a manager will be able to fix the problems attributed to the poor performance of some employees.
High Employee Satisfaction
Employees are satisfied in the workplace when management sees their struggles and successes. Whether progressing or underperforming, workers will feel satisfied if the management recognizes their effort. For example, well-performing employees require recognition and appreciation (Molnar et al., 2022). On the other hand, workers performing dismally in their roles require help to improve their work. Performance evaluation will give management insight into making decisions accordingly.
Better Communication
Due to factors such as organizational structure and workload, some companies may not provide room for communication. However, employee evaluation can provide a platform for conversation with workers. For instance, poor performance can encourage communication by conversing with employees about the challenges in the workplace and how to improve them. Without performance evaluation, a company may assume everything is good in the workplace and overlook the problems of the personnel (Piao & Managi, 2022).
However, tracking the progress will give an actual picture of the employees’ experiences. Similarly, tracking the workers’ progress may help management communicate their expectations for employees. In addition, performance evaluation allows personnel to communicate their feelings to the management. For example, workers may talk about allowances and other incentives.
Factors for Evaluating Employee Performance
Quality of Work
The first factor to consider while evaluating performance is work quality. Whether past or present, the work result portrays an employee’s performance. The poor result confirms underperformance, while success at work portrays good performance. The result can be seen from customer feedback, financial performance, or product volume, depending on the nature of work or activity (Gao & Zhang, 2022). For instance, a salesperson’s performance is evaluated by customers’ feedback. Similarly, a financial manager will be assessed by the performance of the monetary aspects of the company.
Execution
Execution comprises planning, time management, creativity, and organization. How an employee plans their work, completes tasks, organizes work, and the level of innovation in the result can be used to evaluate the worker’s performance (Kurniasih et al., 2022). Personnel with poor planning, incomplete tasks, disorganized work, and ordinary products indicate underperformance. On the other hand, a worker with well-organized tasks who completes them on time can be said to perform well. In a nutshell, an employee can be evaluated through their work execution.
Problem-Solving and Decision-Making
Problem-solving and decision-making are important attributes in the workplace as they demonstrate high understanding and competence. A worker who can identify a problem and devise a plan to counter it is a good performer (Kurniasih et al., 2022). Similarly, an employee who can make quick decisions when faced with a challenge and execute the plan can be said to be a successful worker. On the other hand, staff who fail in one or both areas are poor performers.
Job Knowledge
The ability to demonstrate awareness and understanding of a particular concept shows job knowledge. Job knowledge may take different forms, including technical, administrative, leadership, or specialized understanding of a particular concept. Regardless of its nature, a good performer can demonstrate an acceptable understanding of their role or task (Piao & Managi, 2022). For instance, a good ICT officer will demonstrate a high knowledge of information technology. On the other hand, a poor ICT performer will fail to showcase an understanding of the topic.
Planning and Organization
Generally, good performance is characterized by proper planning and neatness. When evaluating employee performance, it is important to look at the preparedness and neatness of the worker. A performing staff can identify and plan their activities well by separating short-term and long-term responsibilities and knowing when to do each set to meet the deadline (Piao & Managi, 2022). On the other hand, underperforming employees are always confused, demonstrating poor planning and failing to meet deadlines most of the time.
Initiative
All employees have both personal and organizational goals set by the company. However, achieving the goals depends on the individual’s potential and performance. Competent employees have the strategies to achieve both personal and organizational targets (Piao & Managi, 2022). However, underperforming staff will experience difficulty in meeting both personal and company goals as they lack the desire and means to execute and achieve the targets.
How to Track and Manage Employee Performance
Updating Job Descriptions
To track and manage employee performance, it is critical to update job descriptions so that workers’ abilities can be assessed. This will make it easier to analyze the present employee’s performance (Guerra et al., 2023). In addition, updated job descriptions provide an accurate and actual picture of a worker’s ability instead of general performance, which the communal contribution might influence, thus giving a false result.
Updating Performance Expectations
Various organizations have different expectations for employees, including for group tasks and individual roles. A company should constantly revise and keep its expectations up-to-date to track and manage performance. This will help give the individual staff an actual performance level (Kurniasih et al., 2022). Since various jobs have different outcomes, tracking and rating the performance individually is important instead of a general evaluation.
360-Degree
This technique involves all the players in the line of a particular employee’s work. Normally, every worker is surrounded by various players who observe and follow their performance. The players can be colleagues, supervisors, subordinates, and clients. The players watch the behaviors and general productivity that constitute performance.
For example, supervisors can evaluate performance through discipline, understanding, adaptability, and efficiency (Gao & Zhang, 2022). Similarly, colleagues can assess performance through principles such as cooperation and teamwork, while clients may evaluate productivity through customer service and satisfaction. Poor records in the areas may translate to underperformance, while positive feedback from the players confirms good performance.
How to Create and Build a Robust Talent Pipeline
Planning
Planning is critical in identifying and building a formidable talent pool. A company intending to gather and organize a talent pipeline must have an elaborate blueprint with a clear plan of the types of candidates required and how to attract and assess them. First, a business must predict its future needs as far as manpower is concerned to build a sufficient talent pool (Jooss et al., 2022). Secondly, the business must analyze its culture and objectives to understand the type and quality of the individuals needed.
Third, the plan must carry out the strategy that will be applied to attract the candidates. Even though there may be numerous talents, it will take strategic brand marketing to attract them. Most candidates, especially fresh talent, need a lot of convincing to attract and absorb; thus, businesses must have a clear plan for how to entice such individuals.
Sourcing
Businesses need to be well-positioned to access and attract talent. In the era of digital technology, a company must find its way through various digital platforms to access candidates (Kafetzopoulos et al., 2022). For example, an organization may use social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram, among others, to reach and identify the needed talents. In addition, a company must know where and how to find different types of candidates.
Engage
Accessing candidates is not a big challenge considering the wide range of talents available; however, enticing and convincing the individuals to join the company is the big problem. A company must know how to package its brand to entice the candidates (Molnar et al., 2022). Most individuals want to associate with popular brands, such as Nike, that have promising growth. An organization must therefore learn how to package its brand and make it attractive to new talent.
Asses Often
The talent pipeline does not end with identifying and forming a talent pool. However, an organization must constantly assess its pipeline and remain dynamic to match the changing trends. Work needs changes, especially in cases where technology is involved. Constant assessment of the talent pool helps keep the talents updated with the work trends and encourages them to improve their skills (Donald, 2023). Similarly, reassessing the pipeline helps in cultivating the culture and building strong relationships with the candidates.
Conclusion
Organizations depend on the right talent for growth and continuity. Talent management is attracting, recruiting, training, and maintaining the right candidates in a company. A talent pipeline is a group of candidates with the potential to fill an organizational talent gap. Creating a talent pipeline is important because it saves time and cost, elevates quality hires, and minimizes disruptions. To build a robust talent pipeline, a company lays down a proper plan, conducts strategic scouting, and engages the potential candidates.
Performance evaluation reviews an employee’s competence regarding assigned tasks over a specific period. Performance evaluation has several benefits, including increased efficiency, identifying strengths and weaknesses, and creating room for communication. Several factors can be used to evaluate performance, such as quality of work, execution, job knowledge, problem-solving, and decision-making. Finally, tracking employee performance may take several forms, including 360-degree feedback, updated job descriptions, and revised performance expectations, all of which help organizations gain a holistic view of employee contributions and areas for growth.
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