There has been a paradigm shift in the business environment across the world which has led to a growing demand of more efficient and phenomenal results from the scheduled operations and routine activities. This applies primarily to the field of human resource management which stands accountable for the acquisition, development, utilization and retention of the human capital. The present, as is evident, is immensely competitive, be it in terms of sourcing activities, investor relations, technological advancement or simply the workforce. The human resource managers are now faced with the double-edged sword of identifying, selecting and nurturing potential talent and also to formulate and implement pertinent strategies that can effectively contribute towards the achievement of organizational objectives. Hence, the biggest challenge that comes across the human resource panels is to get a hold of limited and thinning pool of skilled accessible candidates to replace important employees when they leave, hugely emphasizing the difficulty to attract, develop, motivate and retain the best employees in an organization.
Authors, academicians and business experts alike maintain different views and opinions regarding the meaning of "talent". Talent can be anything that predisposes an individual to success in a position or organization (Jason Lauritsen, 2010). The author further supports this view by stressing that talent is situational. A person can be advantageous because of his natural ability in one scenario but not necessarily in others. This means that in order to be successful that person has to be placed in a right role within an organization so that his abilities and capacities can manifest as talent to drive the success of the business.
Another view maintains that talent can allegedly be a potential trait, a symptom of inherent ability, a foreshadowing of future greatness, or a way of describing an individual's early achievements or performance merits (Downey Greg, 2009). Whilst at the same time paradoxically, talent can be understood as the reason why some experts are more capable than others; unlike a concept like jeito, (a Brazilian term for knack), talent is more often than not generally very much task specific or specialized, even while a talented person is believed to be often quite versatile. Talent is specifically opposed to hard work or determination, implying that skill is primarily a mix of natural talent and hard work, in various proportions and quantum. Likely, talent is very much an idea or a skill that some people learn faster, more effortlessly, and with greater effect. In certain ways, talent can be thought of as a multiplier, enabling a person to achieve more out of formative experiences and activities.
Keeping such ideas in mind, in the business purview, "talent management" is the process of matching capabilities with commitments (Donald H Taylor, 2007). This describes the aim of the entire talent management process. It underscores that talent management rather than being aimed at an individual focuses on the entire organization so as to ensure that the firm is able to achieve its set targets for both, the present and the future. The encompassed assumption here is that capability is based on an organization's sole source of value and competitive advantage in a developed economy: its human capital.
"Talent management" comprises identifying a person's innate skills, traits, individuality and fitting him into the right work profile; every individual possesses unique talent that matches an exacting job profile and any other position will lead to discomfort (Salma Aliakabar, 2004). It therefore falls under the Management, specifically the HR Division, to situate candidates with discretion and prudence simply because a wrong fit can result in additional hiring, re-training and all such wasteful activities.
"Talent management" is a complex assortment of associated HR processes that delivers an easy elementary benefit for any business (SHRM, 2009). Talent Management can be easily considered to be advantageous and important to both the organization and the workforce. The organization gains from:
improved productivity and potential;
an enhanced association between a person's efforts and business goals;
commitment of esteemed workforce;
reduced employee turnover rate;
Better bench strength and an improved fit between individual's work and skills.
Employees gain from:
Enhanced motivation and dedication;
career growth;
increased awareness about and involvement in company's goals;
Continued inspiration and job satisfaction.
Analyst research has established that companies employing talent management strategies and solutions display superior performance than their direct competitors and the market in broad (SHRM Survey, 2009). About 83% of the large enterprises view integrated talent management as mission critical and upto 73% of HR professionals believe that talent management impacts the financial performance positively (Softscape Global HR Survey, 2009). As per the Talent Pulse Survey, (2005) about 1,400 HR professionals worldwide believed the attraction and retention of high-caliber employees as the most critical issue. These issues were further underscored by the fact that 54% of the respondents agree that talent issues have an influence on overall productivity and that there is a clear linkage between talent management and industry performance. HRVote, Human Resources magazine's online voting forum reported that 44% of the respondents implied talent management and succession planning was a considerable challenge. According to an IDC study U.S. HR BPO 2005 Vendor Analysis: The Evolving Landscape, 37% of U.S. HR outsourcing expenses in 2004 was on HR and talent management services.
Several taxing workforce problems confront HR, counting:
Increased competition for skilled personnel.
Imminent retirement of the "baby boomer" generation workers.
Reduced levels of employee commitment.
Realization of the high cost of the employee turnover.
Onerous demands of managing global human capital.
Necessity of succession planning.
Outsourcing and off shoring practices.
This necessitates novel thinking and a new charge to achieve success in an industry. These elements, coupled with the requirement to align workers directly with business goals, compel HR to progress from policy formation, cost diminution, process competence and risk management to lashing a fresh talent frame of mind in the organization. Therefore, talent management is an ongoing process that provides the optimal personnel for a particular business. Under this role, HR performs as the strategic enabler and a catalyst of talent management processes that empower the managers and workforce whilst developing business value.
Taleo's graphical representation stresses upon the mandate of talent management to be responsive to the organizational goals and accordingly be the driving force behind the business performance. Herein, talent management is denoted as a circular and not a linear, module of activities.
In the present scenario, workforce expenditure is the prevalent category of pay out for most organizations. Automation and analysis of the recruitment and hiring processes of a firm delivers the abrupt labor force visibility and insights that are needed to notably perk up the bottom line. Performance management contributes towards the ongoing processes and activities to sustain a vast workforce. The future prospect of talent management is encompassed in the solutions planned from the scratch to provide for the business-centric operations on an integrated talent management platform. Decisions about talent management figure the competencies that companies have and their eventual achievement and from the perception of people, such decisions establish the path and pace of careers.
In India currently, it may be difficult to visualize the crisis of possessing too much talent, but the first slump in the financial system, or even in a fragment of the economy will make things stand apart. Such mismatches are most definitely included in the primary problems that organizations and many large employers face. Over the precedent generation, companies specifically, seem to have jumped from surpluses of talent to shortfalls to surpluses and back to such a cycle. The challenge evident in front of the employers is to follow much more strongly the requirements for talent to evade both the shortfalls and oversupplies.
Talent management is not an end in itself. It is not about fostering the growth of employees or charting succession plans. Neither is it about gaining definite benchmarks like a four percent employee turnover rate, having the most qualified and skilled personnel, or any such strategic outcome. The objective of talent management is the quite more general but valuable task of serving the business achieve its general objectives. And in the business world, that objective is to be profitable; be it in the short run or the long. What we need to attend to going onward is to ensure how to craft investments in growth affordable and fraction of that challenge embodies employee retention, making it probable to at least retain workers long enough to recover the training investments made in them.
