It's a research paper on Talent Management and its impact which was presented and published on INCON Viii (international conference on ongoing research in management & IT )

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Talent Management
Nitesh Jaiswal
Student PGDM
MIT-school of business
Pune.
Abstract
Despite of being of significance importance till today organizations are not approachable to
Talent Management, they are still not applying Talent Management in a broader way or
Talent Management has not significant place in the organizational structure. Talent
Management being an important concept especially in today’s era when it is very important
to find a talent and it very much important for an organization to develop a pool of talented
people to compete and sustain in the market in the same place Talent Management act as a
very important concept which not only ensures developing such pool but also to retain that
pool for the organization. With the increasing technology and innovation today organizations
have reached into an era where pool of talented people could keep them unique and retain
The specific contribution of current paper is in developing and understanding Talent
Management as concept and its importance and significance in today’s era. It also
emphasizes on making Talent Management a part of an organizational structure.
Keywords- Talent Management, retain, Talent Management a part of an organizational
structure.
Introduction
Choosing the right person for the right job is no longer the main concern of companies.
Choosing the best person and retaining that person is the more difficult task for any HR
manager of any company. Even though if an employee is an average performer he/she can be
trained and made efficient or star performer by providing proper training but more important
is to retain that employee one’s been made a performer. Along with the understanding of the
need to hire, develop, and retain talented employees, organizations must manage talent as a
critical resource to achieve the best possible results. Talent Management activities occupy a
significant amount of organizational resources. Talent Management is all about engaging,
developing, and inspiring organization’s most important asset — its people — to deliver on
business strategy. With the increasing competition and globalization organizations know that
they must have the best talent in order to succeed in the highly competitive and complex
global economy.
The idea or concept of Talent Management is neither new nor old. It has been existing in the
corporate culture since four to five decades ago, name and process has changed with the
change in scenario and phase. Strategy to deal with human resource has changed and when
“strategy changes, everything changes”. Four to five decades ago high salaries, incentive
were sufficient to retain them in the organization but with the change in time their desire or
their objective has changed, they know that they could easily get high par & perks in the
market but what they now want is change & challenge in their profile, they want a profile of
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challenge, opportunities and new mile stones of success. Along with the high salaries,
additional incentives they also want better development opportunities, a well maintained life
style. So needs or the mobility to deal with present generation managers have changed
compared to old generations managers & so the name of the strategy in dealing with them,
now it is widely known as “Talent Management”.
Talent Management refers to the anticipation of required human capital the organization
needs at the time then setting a plan to meet those needs. The term Talent Management
gained more popularity in 1998 after a group of consultants of McKinsey consulting
published a report with title “War for Talent”. Four or five decades ago Talent Management
was viewed as a responsibility best related to the personnel department but with the change in
time it was replaced by Talent Management and became an organizational function and is
now taken more seriously. Now HR department has entered into the board rooms and are
involved in decision making and taking process. Many big organizations have understood the
role and importance of Talent Management and as a result HR managers are been now
recruited as the CEO of the company which itself states the importance of Talent
Management.
There is a saying in business “Make sure that you take in full value in every single rupee that
goes out”. An organization like investing in various departments, invest huge amount for
human resource department as well, it involves huge cost in selecting, recruiting and
providing training to the employee and it is very important for any organization to take in full
value from that employee and that could be done by taking the service from that employee
which is only possible if that employee last in that organization for maximum possible time
and that’s what is done in the process of Talent Management, which ensures the retention of
employee in the organization. Employees are often termed as assets of the company and there
is always an investment in acquiring assets also it is important to get good return on that
investment.
Organizations like Infosys and Sahara group have even started mentioning its employee as
assets in the balance sheet with their valuation. So as it is important to take care of the assets
and make the full utilization of them to take in the full value, it is also important to take care
of employees and take in full value from them by retaining them for long time in the
organization.
Understanding “Talent Management”
Best way to understand any term is to learn the definition, there is no scarcity of definitions
for the term Talent Management but it is more important to understand the term Talent
Management as a concept, as an idea rather than defining it. There are different views and
approaches of different managers, leaders and eminent scholars with the same objective of
managing and retaining the talent. Talent Management refers to ensuring that best people are
identified or recruited, developed, and retained in such a way that their contribution can be
fully achieved.
To understand the term it can be defined as “A complex set of HR process designed to
manage (recruiting & retaining) a company’s greatest asset: people.”
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The objective of Talent Management is to ensure that organizations have the quantity and
quality of people to meet their current and future priorities and goal. Talent management as a
concept covers all the aspects of to ensure the same: selection, development, performance
management, competency management, succession management, career development,
compensation and retaining. Talent Management is a transformed strategy evaluated from
personnel management requires both systems and an organizational commitment to attract,
acquire, manage, and measure the talent needed to achieve a company’s business objective. It
is important to align business and talent management systems and process to optimize
companies’ benefits and minimize its risk of not attaining the goal. To understand the term
Talent Management more clearly understanding the term Talent alone will be more accurate.
Talent: Individuals who can make a positive impact on organizational performance either
through their immediate contribution or, in the longer-term, by demonstrating the highest
levels of potential.
Talent Management: systematic attraction, identification, development, engagement,
retention and deployment of those individuals who are of particular value to an organization,
either in view of their ‘high potential’ for the future or because they are fulfilling
business/operation-critical roles.
Talent Management further could be understood by subdividing it into five parts:
→ Identifying
→ Tracking
→ Developing
→ Positioning
→ Retaining
So with regards to above definitions it could be said that Talent Management includes:
> A clear understanding of the organization’s current and future business strategies.
> Identification of the key gaps between the talent in place and the talent required to drive
business success.
> A sound talent management plan designed to close the talent gaps. It should also be
integrated with strategic and business plans.
> Accurate hiring and promotion decisions.
> Connection of individual and team goals to corporate goals, and providing clear
expectations and feedback to manage performance.
> Development of talent to enhance performance in current positions as well as
Readiness of transition to the next level.
> A focus not just on the talent strategy itself, but the elements required for successful
execution.
> Business impact and workforce effectiveness measurement during and after
Implementation.
Evolution of Talent Management
To understand Talent Management completely as a concept it is important to understand the
evolution of Talent Management from personnel management.
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Personnel department: It started in 1970’s with an objective of hiring required workforce,
paying them and make sure that they work efficiently and have necessary benefits.
HR department: With the change in market conditions and environment with globalization
and liberalization in 1980’s and 1990’s, providing proper training helping the business design
job roles and organization structures (organization design) emerged as an important function
and need to expand personnel department was felt and HR department or strategic department
was formed. The "Head of Personnel" became the "VP of HR" and had a much more
important role in business strategy and execution.
Talent Management: With the growing competition and scarce of human resource need of
retaining these resources was felt and not only to retain but to train them according to the
changing market requirement and to ensure that they long last in these changing market
condition Talent management was evolved. Many organizations now have a new job profile
as VP of Talent Management.
Why Talent Management is now taken seriously?
“Business of any Business is to remain in Business”, and it’s the people & their continuous
effort and dedication which help a business to remain and sustain. Basic reason Talent
Management is taken seriously is because of globalization, development of knowledge
economies, neck to neck competition are the factors leading to emerging of Talent
Management as an important factor. With the increase in number of corporate houses,
multinational companies, expansion’s the numbers of excellent managers and leaders have
not increased while the number of companies seeking them has. And these gives War of
Talent a start as demand exceeds the supply. This gives rise to the competition among various
organizations’ to recruit and retain the best. Also today’s generation managers are believed to
be more mobile, more advance and need a great degree of freedom in their work, there
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working pattern is totally different than that of previous generations manager, now hiring
them and paying them well is not enough to retain them, today’s generation managers need
freedom in taking decision, they prefer practical approach rather than sticking on to old
approach or methods.
And to fulfil their wish and desire personnel management has travelled various phases before
reaching to Talent management. Very few organizations have an adequate supply of talent, a
gap exist in the entire organization regardless the type of organization it is. Gap exists right
from the top management to the first-to middle level and at the front lines. It is not wrong to
say in today’s context that Talent is an increasingly scarce resources, so it must be managed
to fullest effect. Talent Management is a powerful and important trend across HR. It changes
the way you are organized, how you use technology, how your resources are allocated, and
how you measure what you do.
“World’s leading car maker Henry Ford ones stated that take away my capital, my resources,
my company and leave me with my people & I will be back within 3 years”. This statement
itself tells the importance of employees and retaining them. It is a process that involves first
to develop employee make them talented & efficient and then ensure their retention. Talent
Management is processes where more you manage more you get return. In a report published
by Hay group inc. it was found that there was 2.68% more per share 5 year annualized return
of top 20 Talent Management practicing company as compare to other companies of the same
industry. It has been proven connection between great employees and superior organizational
performance for decades than what is the importance of Talent Management now? As
Written above there is a scarcity of talent in the market, so it is important to manage the talent
and retain them in the organization. There are many IT companies in India and some are
older than Infosys but still Infosys is ahead of them is because it has started Talent
Management practice. Now most of the companies have started taking Talent Management
seriously and started treating it as one of the crucial function of management.
In a survey by economic intelligence unit it was found that on average companies now spend
over one-third of their revenues on employees’ wages, benefits & development. It is now
important to trace a link between HRM practice and organizational performance, now is the
time to practice macro HRM (Talent Management) rather than micro HRM. A proper Talent
Management can improve company profitability and help in achieving set goal effectively &
efficiently and it is applicable regardless of the organizational context. Talent Management
has never been more of an immediate concern than it is right now.
Today any company can beat any company regardless what they do which strategy they
follow, if a company invents new product it can be easily copied, if a company lowers its
price competitors will follow, find a new market and someone will be there right after. So
what is that one thing that competitors can’t follow nor can beat on that, which is that one
thing that that will keep a business in the market sustains for long run- its work force, “its
people”? It is next to impossible to have same kind of high- quality, highly engaged
workforce, process of hiring, retaining, deploying and engaging talent at all levels is itself a
task and replicating the same model is more difficult task. Having the team of best talent is
the competitive advantage that cannot be beaten by the competitor.
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Methods to apply Talent Management
Every organization may have separate Talent Management program depending on the type of
business or sector they are engaged in. But some of the common approach specially for the
MNC’s or companies engaged in big operations can go one step ahead and build a very
strong pool of talent for future which will ensure quality & long time sustainability. That
method could be selecting people and providing them knowledge regarding that job profile,
running a well designed course in an institute. For instance an auto sector company can open
ITI institutes and provide them training and knowledge about the functions required in that
particular area or a software company can open an institute where knowledge regarding that
area and later on take their service by providing them job. These will ensure a well
developed, well trained pool of staff. Similarly there could be different approaches or
applications for implementing Talent Management program in an organization.
Caution while planning Talent Management
Main aspect of while planning Talent Management is application of knowledge i.e. it very
difficult to find out what motivates people specially when it comes to talented people, so
while developing Talent Management program one should be conscious that “one method
does not fit for all”.
It is very important aspect to make sure that Talent Management becomes one of the
important parts of organizational structure and it is linked to the management strategy. Also it
can be time consuming process but at last it will be fruitful. It should also be taken care of
that people those who are not consider as talented people or not included in the program
should not be affected by it rather they should be motivated to come under this category. Also
while selecting a pool of talented people personal biasness or other factor should be avoided
so as to choose an efficient pool of people.
In the rush to fill a perceived talent management void, organization must be careful not to
rush into implementing initiatives or programs that are more about taking actions than about
implementing a well-crafted solution. In spite of a well planned Talent Management program
an organization must be ready for unexpected situations might possible that employee might
find their present profile as less competent.
Conclusion
Organizations across the private and public sectors and in local are recognizing that there is
enormous-and often untapped-strategic value in Talent Management. Having understood the
concept of Talent Management it is clear that in spite of the concept Talent Management
been developed in last decade it’s approach in the organization’s have remained relatively
poor but now the area of Talent management is in its full pace and is the time to change the
HR management concept into Talent Management and ensure the competency in the market.
Careful planning, culminating in a sound talent strategy that is tightly connected to the
organizations overall business strategies and business needs, is required for Talent
Management to become ingrained in an organization’s culture and practices. Only when this
happens it is possible for Talent Management to be both effective and sustainable. It is the
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time to apply Talent Management in the organization to ensure better tomorrow with best
people. Applying Talent Management today means developing a pool of talented people for
future which will continue till the business sustain and applying Talent management today
means ensuring long sustaining of business. Organizations which apply strategic management
will achieve improved performance. The contribution of this paper is to develop a clear and
concise definition of Talent Management and understanding the concept of Talent
Management and its application in today’s era along with the benefits and the importance of
applying Talent Management in an organization.
References
1. Growing global executive talent: High priority, limited progress. (2008)
2. Development Dimensions International revised MMIX.
3. Saba J. & Martin, k. (2000)
4. Center for Management Excellence, BRADFORD University
5. CIPD Talent Management: understanding the dimensions, London.
6. Karlsson, Q., Neilson, G., & Webster, J.
7. CEO succession (2010) the performance paradox. Strategy business
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