Definition of Talent Management, its Importance in the Workplace - Research Paper Example

Strategic Talent Management Student’s Name: Institution’s Name: Course Code: Date: 1.0Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………3 Problem Statement………………………………………………………………………………...3 2.0Purpose and Aim of the Study………………………………………………………………...4 3.0 Literature Review…………………………………………………………………………......5 3.1Definition of talent management………………………………………………………………5 3.2A theoretical model of strategic talent management…………………………………………..6 3.2.1 Identifying pivotal talent positions…………………………………………………………6 3.2. 3Developing a talent pool……………………………………………………………………7 3.2.3Creating a differentiated HR architecture…………………………………………………...8 4.0 Research Methodology……………………………………………………………………..8 5.0 Outcomes…………………………………………………………………………………….9 6.0Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………...10 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………………….11 1.0 Introduction Currently the issue of talent management has been a common practice in the World. It has been determined that it has a number of importances in the business organization in building sustainable competitive advantage. Talent is defined as natural potential or aptitude that makes the individual person to achieve great success (Boston Consulting Group, 2007). People have different meaning of talent depending on the concept of discussion but in human resource management it has some basic features such as skills, cognitive capabilities and ability to influence growth in the workplace. It is therefore very important to develop and maintain talent in contemporary environment. It has been seen as a very important tool for improving employee’s performance and its management in the organization has great impact on the overall performance of the workforce (Paauwe, 2004). The purpose of this report is to provide an overview of talent management by focusing on the definition of talent management, its importance in the workplace and theoretical models of strategic talent management. Problem Statement There has been poor management of talents in different business organizations. This has led to loss of potential employees by moving to other business organizations. This has greatly affected the performance of different organization. Since the World has become very competitive there is need to have strategic talent management in the organization which ensures that there the employees have adequate skills, ability and proficiencies to meet the company objectives (Boston Consulting Group, 2007). This has been a problem in the past since there has been a poor strategic talent management in most organization and this has contributed to the poor performance of both employees and the organization in general. 2. 0Purpose and Objectives of the Study This was conducted to determine the importance of strategic talent management so that the problems which have been there in the past decades can be solved to meet the demand of current competitive age. Aims and Objectives The aim of this study is to gain an understanding between different talent management strategies to assess how important they can be to employers. It is also to develop a profile of single talent management strategies applied by various employers. To determine the strengths and weakness of every talent management strategy 3.0 Literature Reviews In this chapter there is a discussion on the definition of strategic talent management and theoretical model of strategic talent management. 3.1 Talent Management This is the process which ensure that the potential, ability and skills of employees are determined, natured, developed, retained in the organization. The talent management has a role in preparing the organization for the future performance by developing human capital to fill the future skills shortages that the company has (Aston & Morton, 2005). Talent management is directed towards both the employees and the business organization needs, it is done for the purpose of identifying the ability of each and every employees to maintain them in the competitive labor market (Axelrod et al, 2002). It shows that everybody has the potential and therefore the business organization should try to use any approach to get value from it. There is a different view of talent management which states that talent is inbuilt only in a few people and therefore the organization must have a strong focus on them to maximize their potential. 3.2 A theoretical model of strategic talent management 3.2.1 Identifying pivotal talent positions In strategic talent management, it is important to first identify pivotal talent positions (Smilansky, 2006). This involves the determination of employees who have high performance level to ensure that they are maintained and developed in the organization to prevent them from switching to other organization that offer good payment packages (Aston & Morton, 2005). It is also vital for the organization to determine the key position that has the ability to provide distinctive effect on sustainable competitive advantage (Boston Consulting Group, 2007). The focus on these is able to help the organization to develop effective strategic talent management. There has been a suggestion by some strategic human resource management scholars that employees can participate in strategic objective building through the use of their value and uniqueness (Axelrod et al, 2002). This is when a bottom up focus is used but when a top down focus is used. In the contrary top down focus show that employees can only contribute to the organization strategic objective only when they have strategic value but it is not a must that all the processes depend on human capital (Smilansky, 2006). However, the locus of differentiation in relation to fit must be considered as the job not the employees. It is also very important to note that jobs were differentiated in relation to inputs like skills, efforts and potentials and work environment (Aston & Morton, 2005). This is in traditional approach whose job evaluation is based on output or the functions which contributes to the achievement of the organization goals. The degree of variation in performance between different strategic functions also has a positive contribution (Paauwe, 2004). Because there are some functions which are relatively important, it is vital to standardize some functions since there is a more standardized training, regulations and professional performance. 3.2.2 Developing talent pool The term talent pool is used to describe the existing workforce that has high performance ability where the organization can use to identify employees to occupy the pivot talent positions. It is also defined by some scholars that it is main functions in the company which provide variation in performance (Paauwe, 2004). It is therefore important to develop and create a talent pool which can be used to occupy pivotal positions in the organization. This ensures that there is a shift from vacancy recruitment to recruitment ahead of the curve (Aston & Morton, 2005). This strategy ensures that the company only provides employment first to employees who have high performance. The position is then being identified for them so that their talents and ability can be developed further. The employees who have the lack to be part of the talent pool must be high achievers and there is a chance that they can be disillusioned when their appointment is faced with limited scope for the use of their proficiencies (Axelrod et al, 2002). It is revealed by other researchers that the employees have high motivation when the employment is more complex since they are likely to have high job satisfaction. 3.2.3 Creating a differentiated HR architecture There are two main key streams of work within SHRM (Frank & Taylor, 2004). These include best practice approach which has a belief that there is universal HR practices configuration that is able to increase the overall company profitability. It can be use even without the consent of the organization. The second approach is best fit or contingent school requires that the business organization should align its strategies with those of the strategies of the firm (Arthur & Wilderom, 2005). The research shows that the performance, value and uniqueness of employees are supported by different HR architecture. These are differentiated between four differentiators namely knowledge based employment where the employees are selected based on the knowledge they have therefore can contribute towards the achievement of the strategic objectives (Paauwe, 2004). The second is job based employment where the employees available have strategic value but lack uniqueness (Aston & Morton, 2005). They usually get employment accidentally and it is also very difficult to know if their contribution can help the organization is relative. The third is contract work and fourth in terms of partnership or through alliances. 4.0 Methodology The company used focus group in 2012 to identify the methods which can be used to identify employees with talents as one of the strategies that can be used to manage talents. It also helped to identify if some employees could have been treated unfairly during talent management process. The interested employers to participate in the talent management exercise were asked if they could accept to do semi structured interview which was only expected to take only 15 minutes (Frank & Taylor, 2004). Telephone interview was used because it was the most convenient to employers and it could allow the collection of detailed qualitative data. Most of the results of the interview were recorded and then findings used to write the case studies that show the practical application of talent management strategies and their effectiveness in the organization. Methods used to identify talented staff The methods which were used to identify the talented employees include 360 feedbacks where the feedback about the performance of the organization was collected from employees, managers, shareholders and others (Paauwe, 2004). Attitude and behavior assessment was also used in order to know if the employee has the correct attitude and conduct to support the achievement of employee’s strategies. The employee’s appraisal was also used to determine the performance of individual employee. 5.0 Analysis and Findings From the above report, it is clear that the major objective of venturing into strategic talent management poses a positive result on the critical organizational levels (Frank & Taylor, 2004). The range of outcomes that are determined shows the main differences between organizational financial and HR-outcomes. This approach takes into consideration the key roles of employee in the strategic talent management. The framework also considers the significance of all factors bridging the relation among talent management and organization fairing. Pinpointing the factors that shows the connectivity between the inputs and outputs in our model creates a number of significance as seen below. Makes it possible to get the link between inputs and the outputs as through organizational determination, we are able to skim the impact of talent management on the organizational overall fairing (Paauwe, 2004). Our model gives a chance for complete representation of the available techniques to moderate the talent management. According to the behavioral view point, it is clear that talent management can be practiced among the members of the organization to help achieve the strategic goals of the organization (Axelrod et al, 2002). The performance of an organization is directly linked to an individual performance hence it takes the responsibility of an individual to ensure that they are good at performance and the organization performance will automatically improve. The performance can be measured to be a function of capacity, willingness and the opportunity to perform. Our framework poses that performance can be expressed as P = f (A,M,O). We base our argument on the fact that the three variables have influence on the performance of employees (Frank & Taylor, 2004). Ability to perform well by an employee is assumed to be related to their high performing capability. This is also very much facilitated by motivation, as a highly motivated fellow performs so well. In an organization, the employees’ interests are taken care of by the HR system; the strategic management system should pose greater performance as the employees’ interests are keenly monitored. Hence motivation plays a key role in the strategic talent management and the entire firm performance. Already identified talents should be retained in the firm rather than losing them to other firms (Frank & Taylor, 2004). This is due to the fact that the organizational commitment is significant to its performance, as more experience that one gets while working in a given firm poses a greater influence on the organizational commitment hence better performance. Finally, our framework looks at extra-role as a key factor of performance especially when related to talents of an individual as this would result into higher organizational commitment and better performance. This is because it intensifies the relationship between the good talent molding and the entire organization performance. Extra-role as a personal characteristic poses a very positive influence on the effectiveness of an organization as well as the relationship among employees (Cappelli, 2008). This is because it leads to tolerance among employees and assist in the mentoring of colleagues in the firm. Its therefore clear that employee motivation, organizational commitment and extra-role as an inbuilt character among employees plays significant role in linking the talent management system and the overall performance of a given organization. Conclusion Many organizations worldwide have resorted to paying keen and close attention to talent management as a way of curbing the problem of shortage of good skills in the employment sector. This gives talent management a positive outlook awing to the fact that it can enable an organization develops well skilled employees from the little skilled ones they already have. This in turn would ensure better organization performance. In order for a business to compete fairly presently and in the future, then talent management is factor that need not be overlooked as the needed skills can only be acquired through this means .Besides the several approaches to talent management, an inclusive method proves to be among the best methods as it supports high potential employees and is more flexible while taking into account the needs of the firm. Bibliography Arthur, M. B., Khapova, S. N., & Wilderom, C. P. M. (2005). “Career success in a boundaryless world. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 26, 177–202. Aston, C., & Morton, L. (2005). Managing talent for competitive advantage. Strategic HR Review, 4(5), 28–31. Axelrod, B., Handfield-Jones, H., & Michaels, E. (2002). A new game plan for C players. Harvard Business Review, January (pp. 81–88). Boston Consulting Group (2007). The future of HR: Key challenges through 2015. Dusseldorf: Boston Consulting Group. Boudreau, J. W., & Ramstad, P. M. (2005). Talentship, talent segmentation, and sustainability: A new HR decision science paradigm for a new strategy definition. Human Resource Management, 42, 129–136. Boudreau, J. W., & Ramstad, P. M. (2007). Beyond HR: The new science of human capital. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Cappelli, P. (2008). Talent on demand. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Frank, F. D., Finnegan, R. P., & Taylor, C. R. (2004). The race for talent: Retaining and engaging workers in the 21st century. Human Resource Planning, 27(3), 12–25. Paauwe, J. (2004). Human resource management and performance. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Smilansky, J. (2006). Developing executive talent: Best practices from global leaders. Chichester: John Wiley. Read More