Category: Talent Management

Introduction

The modern business environment is facing enormous changes and constant challenges that result from human resource errors and production failures. Given the increasing demand for exemplary services by consumers, managers are continuously looking for new talents in the labour market to replace incompetent workforce and fill vacant positions (Kehinde, 2012).

While the increasing need for human resources is obviously pervasive, poor realisation of the impact of retaining talented workforce has placed organisations on high wage bills and low performances. Wing (2004) postulates that the technique of talent management has become one of the most incredible strategic plans of human resource management that has provided companies with the means of retaining talented workforce.

Talent management has recently proven to be effective means of empowering workforce, creating workplace motivation, and retaining workers (Kehinde, 2012). To expound on the talent management concept, this essay explores the talent management strategies and measures implemented by the International Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI).

Overview of Talent Management and INTOSAI

Traditionally, organisations mostly believed in constant retrenchments and replacements as a way of managing inefficient workforce and eliminating the incompetent workers in workplaces (Gubman, 2004). Due to the increasing complexities in the labour market with workers frequently seeking for more paying professions, the need for capacity building to maintain talented workforce has heightened (Wing, 2004).

Opposed to the traditional disorderly retrenchment programs, modern talent management has received an advanced technical approach and a new meaning altogether. Lewis and Heckman, define talent management as a systematic human resource practice of managing the supply, the demand, and the stream of talented workforce through the human capital parameters (2006).

The practice of talent management comprises of a set of practices initiated through the human capital management processes, to manage efficient human resource in organisations. According to Lewis and Heckman (2006), talent management ensures that the workforce aligns with business goals and is capable of driving corporate goals to a meaningful success.

Human Capital Management (HCM), as a human resource strategic plan ranges from a few motivational supports to a series of corporate strategies tailored towards ensuring effective capacity building and talent management (Romans & Lardner, 2005).

Being a succession planning technique where new and motivated workforce replaces retirees to retrenched workers, organisations have embraced the concept of talent management and have designed varied techniques of managing talent (Wing, 2004).

The International Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions is among the modern organisations that have acknowledged the growing impetus of human resource management and talent retention. The company launched a capacity building committee predominantly to ensure that Supreme Audit Institutions (SAI) make the most out of the talents available in their workforces (INTOSAI, 2013).

INTOSAI community as the custodian of the SAI advocates for capacity building as part of talent management techniques (INTOSAI, 2013). The organisation uses varied talent management strategies and measures to achieve capacity building through a mutual work plan.

Talent Management Strategies and Measures of INTOSAI

Companies have initiated various talent management strategies to nurture talents of workers and make them more useful to the corporate and individual development (Cappelli, 2008). The main objective of the INTOSAI organisation as a custodian of SAIs is to offer developmental support and advice on human capacity building through different measures of enhancing talent management in their human resource sectors.

INTOSAI has a Capacity Building Committee (CBC) that has placed a range of practices and measures for talent management to ensure that SAI workers and their institutions benefit from the capacity building initiatives (INTOSAI, 2013).

The CBC has four main committees, namely, the INTOSAI Development Initiative (IDI), the Professional Standards Committee (PSC), the Model International Organization (MIO), and the Knowledge Sharing Committee.

INTOSAI committees engage in talent management techniques, which include holding mutual workshops towards innovative strategies, employee training and development, employee certification, working on the knowledge sharing initiatives, and development of professional working standards.

The INTOSAI Development Initiative (IDI)

Nurturing human talents through capacity building and talent management techniques requires a series of approaches to exhaust the abilities of individuals in a workplace (Lewis & Heckman, 2006). INTOSAI has a development initiative that works closely with the capacity building committee towards talent management of employees of the SAI communities across the world.

“The INTOSAI Development Initiative is an INTOSAI agency, which supports Supreme Audit Institutions in developing countries, in their efforts to sustainably enhance performance, independence and professionalism” (INTOSAI, 2013, par. 2). The development initiative has a series of activities and processes aimed towards harmonizing and facilitating efficient SAI capacity development agendas.

The agenda of the development initiative is to disseminate global public goods, empower regional bodies, develop supportive communities and networks, and assist in formulating effective support to the SAI groups (INTOSAI, 2013). Such initiatives intend to enhance talent management and capacity development among the workers of Supreme Audit Institutions and related agencies in developing countries.

As a human resource strategic plan that helps people improve their competencies, talent management and capacity development involve efforts towards enhancing the individual performance of workers (Wing, 2004).

INTOSAI enhances the performance of SAI through the IDI platform, with numerous talent management initiatives and professional development agendas. In practical professional development, the IDI is responsible for training, couching, and improving the skills of SAI professionals in issues related to the use of information technology in auditing (INTOSAI, 2013).

The IDI prepares the IDI Global Programme with a purpose of enhancing professionalism of workers through making them competent in the e-courses related to auditing.

The IDI Global Programme conducts training on the e-courses, undertakes online course support, and assesses the growth of SAI workers in e-courses through examinations and certification (INTOSAI, 2013). To enhance work proficiency, SAI workers undertake e-courses, engage in IT programmes supported by the IDI Global Programme, and receive results and certificates when successful in the courses offered.

The IDI platform acts as an employment network for assisting qualified employees to seek working opportunities within the Supreme Auditing Institutions. Since several accountants across developing countries are seeking opportunities to enhance their professional experience in established accounting firms, IDI platform acts as a professional breakthrough for aspiring workers (INTOSAI, 2013).

The IDI has an open website for the SAI workers who have interest in understanding networks and communities of professional accounting. The website supports SAI employees to have access to capacity development programmes that are essential in the development of employee careers in the accounting and auditing fields.

Proper governance is an important aspect in INTOSAI, as leadership is important in management of SAIs (INTOSAI, 2013).

The IDI enhances governance in SAIs through providing professional training to SAI managers strategically to improve accountability and transparency. Public accounting requires professional and effective leadership, and through enhancing corporate governance, IDI makes SAI managers competent to lead public accounting firms.

The Professional Standards Committee (PSC)

The modern workplace environment requires proper understanding of the regulations and the practice standards that govern a professional field (Cappelli, 2008). The INTOSAI organisation understands that SAI workers in developing counties need professional standards that guide their practices in the field of financial auditing.

As part of their capacity building initiative, INTOSAI has an effective professional standards committee that oversees the practices of SAI agencies to ensure that professional auditing standards are efficient (INTOSAI, 2013).

The main objective of the Professional Standards Committee is to initiate and maintain international auditing standards that Supreme Audit institutions should utilize. Professional standards in auditing are essential, since they improve the credibility and competence of employees working in public accounting firms (INTOSAI, 2013).

Additionally, the PSC assists members of the INTOSAI community to ensure that their audit teams develop effective communication strategies and policies. The PSC also advices and promotes efficient leadership behaviours through providing support on formulating policies towards good governance.

In enhancing standards of public sector auditing, the professional standards formulated by the PSC normally assist INTOSAI members to create policies and regulations of ensuring standard performance in the audit activities and report making.

INTOSAI (2013) believes that such approaches act as basis for establishing professional auditing skills to workers, which subsequently help in enhancing individual proficiency in public auditing. PSC further assists INTOSAI members to understand the need for undertaking public auditing in accordance with the ethical principles of auditing (INTOSAI, 2013).

The professional competence of finance auditors lies in their ability to practice auditing while observing the required business ethics governing the auditing practice.

Through ensuring that SAIs work in accordance with the professional auditing standards, the PSC helps workers and managers to become efficient, competent, and independent in their public auditing practices (INTOSAI, 2013). Therefore, INTOSAI achieves talent management aims through ensuring that auditing standards support SAI workers to work professionally in the sector auditing.

Talent management through capacity development in INTOSAI also entails formulation of various committees and groups to support SAI members to perform duties in accordance with the established auditing standards. The PSC has a financial audit subcommittee, a performance audit subcommittee, a compliance audit subcommittee, and an accounting and reporting subcommittee (INTOSAI, 2013).

The financial audit subcommittee is very essential to the performance of SAI workers in the public sector auditing. According to INTOSAI (2013), the subcommittee helps SAI workers to develop standard financial statements that are essential in the public sector auditing and documentation of public audit concerns.

The financial audit subcommittee formulates high-quality guidelines that ensure that the SAI members undertake the above audit mandates in the globally accepted audit standards (INTOSAI, 2013).

As a capacity-building strategy, the performance audit subcommittee is responsible for formulating guidelines for effective performance auditing, public sector audit reforms and developments, and the relevant evaluation or auditing methods.

In helping SAI workers to comply with the international auditing standards, PSC has a compliance audit subcommittee that elaborates and clarifies the terms of compliance audit (INTOSAI, 2013).

The compliance audit subcommittee helps SAI audit members to understand the different mandates governing compliance audit and provides them with a practical guidance on planning, execution, and reporting of compliance audit (INTOSAI, 2013). Such efforts have been crucial in supporting SAI members to perform their public auditing duties in a standardised and professional manner.

The work of auditors is never complete if the financial assessment does not end with an audit report. The accounting and reporting subcommittee is an efficient agency of PSC that helps workers to unveil audit reports in a standardised and professional manner (INTOSAI, 2013).

The subcommittee helps SAI workers to prepare auditing periodic reports in the desired accounting and reporting standards. All these practices help SAI workers to grow professionally in their auditing practices.

The Knowledge Sharing Committee

Modern talent management involves a number of strategies that entail empowering individuals professionally through knowledge acquisition and sharing on basic issues surrounding the professional practice of a certain field of work.

Likierman (2007) argues that having a high knowledge base is one of the critical aspects that contemporary human resources should have to cope with the changing dynamics of workplaces. INTOSAI organisation has understood the need to embrace knowledge sharing, cooperation, and mutual workplace growth.

The capacity building initiative of INTOSAI tailored towards knowledge sharing has several practices and activities that help SAI workers to share knowledge with great openness and cooperation (INTOSAI, 2013). The strategies of knowledge sharing agenda include establishment of new working groups and maintenance of existing-working teams.

Knowledge sharing also enables SAI workers to share ideas on best auditing practices, workplace diversity, and global communication strategies and policies. Such practices enable workers to share experiences and challenges in the field of public accounting.

With the increased innovation and growth in technology, workers possess different levels of abilities, knowledge, ideas, proficiency, and exposure in certain professional fields (Likierman, 2007). The contemporary knowledge base on professional practices and auditing is broad and dispersed among workers in organisations.

As a strategy towards capacity development among workers, the knowledge-sharing programme of INTOSAI promotes employee partnerships in undertaking academic activities and research on auditing practices (INTOSAI, 2013).

The partnerships allow SAI members to share ideas and opinions on the auditing research, and the requirements necessary in compiling INTOSAI audit reports to enhance consistency in accounting research. The knowledge accumulated and shared among workers of SAI is very essential in improving the service provision in the public sector audit (INTOSAI, 2013).

The knowledge-sharing initiative allows managers and workers to participate in holding mutual workshops towards innovative strategies. INTOSAI Workshops are centres of professional development and training, where audit consultants provide consultations on auditing issues.

Professional consultations help SAI workers to increase knowledge base on the present and emerging accounting issues. “A consulting perspective, often influential in the design and operation of capacity-building programs, tends to focus on the practical use of information to improve current and future performance” (Wing, 2004, p.154).

The knowledge-sharing initiative falls into various divisions, namely the public debt group, the IT audit group, the financial modernisation and reform group, the anti-corruption and money laundering group, and the task force that regulates and discusses issues of audit on procurement contracts (INTOSAI, 2013).

These knowledge-sharing groups have different mandates and objectives tailored towards assisting members of the SAI community to undertake auditing in a professional manner.

Workers engage in competency-building discussions, engage in research and discussions on IT audit practices, anti-corruption audit, the public debt audit, and in financial modernisation and reforms audit (INTOSAI, 2013). These practices are essential platforms of capacity development as they enhance employee competency in auditing.

Model International Organization (MIO)

Talent management is effective, when leadership, efficiency in practice, and decision-making are core values in a professional field (Romans & Lardner, 2005). Talent management strategies are also successful when firms consider supporting the development programmes with appropriate finance and resources.

A significant capacity-building component of the INTOSAI community is the Model International Organisation (MIO), which ensures effective governance and coordination of SAI public auditing activities (INTOSAI, 2013).

The MIO initiative promotes efficient, valuable, and economical working practices of SAI in the field of the public audit sector. Such efforts are appropriate as they enable SAI workers to engage resourcefully in the INTOSAI audit training and capacity development.

Talent management is part of empowering workforce, and financial stability in talent management programs is essential to encourage workers to participate in the initiatives (Frank & Taylor, 2004). The MIO initiative has a Finance and Administration Committee (FAC) that supports SAI members financially, to relieve them from the training and development expenses.

The most imperative contribution of the MIO initiative is its duty in enhancing effective decision-making on issues regarding empowerment, motivation, employee development, training, and other capacity-building agendas (INTOSAI, 2013).

The MIO board of leaders supports individual SAI agencies in making decisions that are essential in supporting the activities of capacity development of INTOSAI. Such approaches strengthen the bond between regional SAI agencies and the international INTOSAI system towards capacity development and talent management (INTOSAI, 2013).

The MIO system promotes effective auditing practices and ensures that decisions and activities of regional SAI agencies reflect actions that are essential for capacity development.

As part of knowledge empowerment, the MIO system carries out assessment on professional growth of individual workers in the public audit sector and provides certification to auditors on relevant public audit management courses offered through the global INTOSAI (INTOSAI, 2013). Such initiatives make auditors competent in the public auditing field and create professional confidence to SAI workers.

An efficient means of ensuring that capacity building is triumphant is through proper planning and designing of programmes that support the initiatives of capacity development (Gubman, 2004). The MIO system provides INTOSAI agency with means of enhancing their approaches through providing guidelines in strategic planning and coordination of activities and duties of the capacity building initiatives (INTOSAI, 2013).

The MIO system has a strategic FAC taskforce responsible for strategic planning on the effective development, monitoring, and implementation of the designed capacity building plans (INTOSAI, 2013). The team ensures that all activities, arrangements, methods, and targets of the capacity development initiatives are running in an orderly arrangement.

The INTOSAI governing body, the committee members, the director of INTOSAI strategic planning, and the regional working groups, merge together to formulate policies and strategies that ensure that preparation and implementation of the plans reflect the desired goals of capacity development (INTOSAI, 2013). Such efforts ensure that members achieve talent management efficiently.

Conclusion

Talent management is undoubtedly the most effective approach of attracting and retaining workforce in modern organisations where innovation seems to change in accordance with the rising business challenges. Companies have developed different strategies and measures of undertaking talent management in their organisations.

INTOSAI is a global auditing organisation that oversees professional growth and monitors the adherence of SAIs to the global professional auditing standards. Categorised in four main groups of capacity building, the four committees and task forces on different areas of organisation initiatives are generally responsible for capacity development.

The four task forces assist INTOSAI in developing professional standards of auditing that SAI workers use as guidelines in the public sector auditing. The committees also formulate policies, regulations, strategic plans, and norms that govern capacity development within the INTOSAI initiatives.

The INTOSAI agency also ensures professional training and growth of the SAI workers through relevant professional assessment and appropriate audit certification.

References

Cappelli, P. (2008). Talent management for the twenty-first century. Harvard Business Review, 86(3), 74-81.

Frank, F., & Taylor, C. (2004). Talent management: Trends that will shape the future. Human Resource Planning, 27(1), 33−41.

Gubman, E. (2004). HR strategy and planning: From birth to business results. Human Resource Planning, 27(1), 113−123.

INTOSAI (2013). The International Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI). Web.

Kehinde, J. (2012). Talent Management: Effect on Organizational Performance. Journal of Management Research, 4(2), 178-186.

Lewis, R., & Heckman, R. (2006). Talent management: A critical review. Human Resource Management Review, 16(1), 139-154.

Likierman, A. (2007). How to measure the success of talent management. People Management, 13(4), 46-47.

Romans, J., & Lardner, L. (2005). Integrated talent management at BD Japan. Strategic HR Review, 4(5), 16-19.

Wing, K. (2004). Assessing the Effectiveness of Capacity-Building Initiatives: Seven Issues for the Field. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 33(1), 153-160.

TriStar Logistics distinguishes the need to make appropriate plans in advance its staff and the collective expertise that is involved. The commitment of the company focuses on developing the full potential of individual employees so that they may attain their own career aspirations, while maximizing on the value that TriStar Logistics offers to its clientele.

Objectives of the ‘Talent Management Strategy’

We will see to it that only the very best personnel is employed and retained at Tri-Star Logistics. This will be of great benefit to the company. We also intend to have the guarantee that TriStar Logistics’ clients will receive the greatest benefit out of being served by the top quality skills and talent that can be found in the market.

We intend to enhance the commitment of our employees by availing to them numerous opportunities in order that their own career goals and aspirations can be fulfilled (Armstrong, 2008).

The significant positions and roles in the organization shall be staffed with the necessary staff, and TriStar Logistics shall continuously seek to achieve positive transformation by strictly adhering to the set out employment equity goals. The strategy shall target to offer a channel through which internal skills and talents can be developed such that the future human resource can be achieved by way of internal promotions.

The Key Components of the Talent Management

Tri-Star seeks to achieve a strategic recognition as an “Employer of Choice”. The company will achieve this status by undertaking effective branding, remunerating its employees competitively, and achieving leadership in its operations. The company will physically demonstrate this commitment by targeting to list itself among the leading 15 Best Employer Companies competition.

Roles and positions at TriStar Logistics will strictly be filled in a fair and transparent manner, while adhering to the equitable processes of employment set out by the company. A clear success criterion will define the entire mission’s critical positions at the company, on the basis of which decisions on appointment will be made.

Assessing the suitability of people to determine their potential to work in specific roles and positions will rely on much information in order to highlight on our objective measures (Ensley et al, 2010).

People having unique and important skills will follow through a career path where technical specialty will be involved. However, decisions on this will be arrived at based on individual employer’s skills and intended aspirations.

Personal learning plans will be established for all the key staff, with the main objective being to facilitate their current performance and increase their ability to handle future obligations (Armstrong, 2008). A formal monitoring mechanism will be established as a way of ensuring full implementation of the decisions.

Key employees who possess critical leadership potential will be offered the opportunity to serve in different roles in order that they may build a broader experience. Consistency will be achieved in potential evaluation by establishing panels that will act as the formal structure (Silzer & Dowell, 2010). The panel will oversee the succession process and ensure that employees enhance their performance and productivity by issuing them with feedback concerning their individual options on career development.

Formal career discussions will be held for every key staff at least once in every year. The main objective of such discussions will be to align the aspirations of employees with the organizational opportunities. All the key staffs will have unlimited access to a coaching network as a sure means of facilitating the ongoing development. Members will need to be part of a Professional Registration in order to fast track their mentoring process (Silzer & Dowell, 2010).

It will be upon the employees to take substantial responsibility as regards their individual career growth and development. Learning will be designed in a special way that prepares people for significant transformations, including change from Auditor to Audit Manager, where new skills will be required to match the new roles.

The Talent Management Process as a Strategy for Competitive Advantage

Talent Panels

Every business unit at TriStar Logistics will have a talent panel on its own. The composition of the talent panels will include the business units’ executive, whose main responsibilities will involve career development as well as succession planning (Robinson, 2009).

The existence of the talent panels will benefit TriStar Logistics in numerous aspects, including evaluating the key staff and determining their individual potentials. Talent panels will also identify risks that afflict the skills as identified by the succession plan, and will authenticate the exact success criterion in determining mission critical positions.

The panel will come up with a succession plan that will target to align individual career objectives with the company’s own organizational goals. It will equally confirm the learning plans of the members of staff, particularly those with unique and critical skills as a sure way of ensuring implementation (Robinson, 2009).

These elaborate plans on skill development and enhancement will ensure that TriStar Logistics achieves its intention of attracting the best talent in the market, while also working towards retaining the same. The service performance and delivery will be of great benefit to the clientele, thus ensuring that the company also attracts more business compared with its competitors.

Assessments

The decision to ascertain the suitably to perform certain roles on the part of the employees will be done through assessment processes. The process will be varied and shall be conducted at different stages in order to produce a highly reliable result. Firstly, a formal psychometric assessment will be undertaken to derive information concerning personality profiles (Leavitt, 2004).

Managers will also carry their own assessment (Leavitt, 2004), where their main objective will be to evaluate the employee against the success criterion that has been established for specific roles and positions.

Results on performance management will also be ascertained, with the need of evaluating how the employee is fairing on in the current position he is holding. From the assessment, the company will make specific decisions about training and development, considering the level of experience that the employee holds.

The entire assessment process will provide the company with adequate data and information about every employee at the firm, and their exact statuses in as far as experience is concerned. This will enable TriStar manage its resources properly, especially where it comes to training and developing its workforce.

Only the necessary training needs will be pursued for each employee, and this will greatly enhance their productivity (Leavitt, 2004). While they will be satisfied with their career growth, the company will also be maximizing on its business targets and operations.

Succession

Succession management will mainly focus on creating a greater capability of the company in terms of its future human resource needs. This will, in turn, ensure that staffs with critical skills and talent have endless opportunities for their career growth (Leavitt, 2004).

The system will be flexible enough in its structure, allowing members with succession capabilities the opportunities to actualize their short, medium, as well as long-term objectives.

TriStar Logistics will have competitive advantage by having such elaborate succession programs because gaps will be identified well in advance and corrective strategies adopted in order to eliminate possible risks. Appropriate learning plans will be put into practices as per the laid down schedule. This will make TriStar Logistics’ workers be positioned for taking up future roles.

Future Growth: How the Talent Management Strategy should Change

The strategy will have career discussions that will focus on each individual employee to ascertain how they can achieve career growth. The career discussion will consider both the organizational objectives and the individual employee aspirations in order to link up the two together.

However, with the changing business environment and other external features, these constant career discussions will be able to appropriately align personal aspirations with the organizational targets and objectives (Silzer & Dowell, 2010). This will occur at an opportune time because the discussions are held annually, thus allowing the company ample opportunity to accurately ally its internal resource with the external expectations and conditions.

The personal learning plans will also ensure a gradual change of talent management with anticipated future growth objectives. The plan will provide an opportunity for the critical skills and talent to pursue their own individual learning plan.

The learning interventions shall not remain restricted to a strict training schedule, but rather they would give the employees freedom to experience other areas and experiences. This will transform the workers to all-rounded personnel whose vast experience and talent will be able to tackle the challenges that the future will hold for the company (Armstrong, 2008).

References

Armstrong, M. (2008). Strategic human resource management: a guide to action (4th edition). London, UK: Kogan Page

Ensley, M. D., et al. (2010). The theoretical basis and dimensionality of the talent management system. Academy of Strategic Management Journal, 9(2), 9-42.

Leavitt, P. (2004). Succession management: a guide for your journey to best-practice processes. Houston, TX: APQC Publications.

Robinson, E. (2009). Is your talent latent? Staying ahead with talent management. Strategic HR Review, 8(4), 34-35.

Silzer, R. & Dowell, B. E. (2010). Strategy-driven talent management: a leadership imperative. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass

Talent management is the established practice of applying interconnected human resources and the established processes, to deliver a simple essential benefit for institutions. Talent and a proper management of the human and other resources, is the main driver of business success and performance realization. This can be attributed to the fact that, from a knowledgeable point of consideration, the teams with the best individual members can perform excellently (Berge & Berge 2004).

Talent management is also based on the understanding that, in an attempt to deliver excellent growth and success, even the best team players need to be engaged, rewarded and fully developed. Additionally, from the leadership strategies of leading organizations, it has been demonstrated that business success is guided by superior capacities, which are managed with consistent procedures. In the area of talent management, the approach is based on the premise that the individual team members make the difference.

This is evident from the records of businesses, ranging from the Fortune’s 100, to the small medium business class investing in talent management. From such studies, it is depicted that these enterprises know that accomplishment is power-driven, by the total talent superiority of the available workforce (Adams 1965; Armstrong 2005; Bonney 2005).

To understand the value propositions of talent management when applied in the administration and running of organizations, it is important that the organizations in question, comprehensively learn and understand talent management. From the learning and the understanding of talent management, the impacts that are likely to result will be expected by the end users (Hartmann 1998; Solomon 1993).

In a contemporary workplace, managers are stretched by the varied range of duties, as they are often required to deliver at different levels of performance, as well as meet the performance targets set for their varied working units. The benefits that the managerial staffs are likely to realize, include the automation and the access to the required critical data in a consistent manner (Matthewman & Matignon 2005).

Additionally, incorporated talent management systems deliver to managers, immediate access to the data collections that are of importance to them, during the formulations of decisions. These decisions include those in the areas of employee development, compensation, organizational performance, and succession management within these organizations.

In the case that these principal decisions are made in a systematic way, and in alignment with the objectives of the organization, the benefits thereof will be realized at an optimal level (Philpott 2006).

The key areas that talent management will address at the managerial level include goal management, the area under which employee activity alignment with regard to the goals of the business is done; career development, under which leadership and coaching development is arranged; and employee productivity, under which the maximal productivity of the employees is sought (Ulrich 1998; Reece & Rhonda 1993).

For a business leader, the opportunity for talent development is presented by the human capital modeling approach, thus a source of competitive advantage. However, in this area, attention should be given to the fact that management programs should be employed from the top levels of the system, so as to ensure a lasting success of the programs. From using this management approach, leaders will have the chance to identify the major fundamentals of any tactical human capital scheme.

From the definition of the objectives of business at high levels and effecting the changes down, through the different organizational levels, as a move towards identifying competencies and critical responsibilities, the end result will be creating an effective definition of the very nature of the talent culture, to which the leadership plays a basic role (Rayman-bacchus, 2003).

However, the business leader will need the technologies and the operational processes required, so as to transform the business vision of the organization into reality. Towards the realization of the success expected from the usage of this approach, an integrated talent management podium is one of the essential pieces of the puzzle, as it helps in the delivery of a unified view into talent data, processes, and talent statistics (Forteza & Prieto 1994; Gubman 1996).

The key talent management areas where leaders can be traced and employed include goal management, under which high-level business objectives are communicated to other levels of execution, with an understanding of the competencies of the organization; significant roles, an area that seeks to establish the roles that lead to the creation of competitive advantage; and development and learning, where organizational learning is made an efficient tool for the redirection of identified performance flawed areas (Rayman-bacchus 2003).

For the employee, talent management is a field that encompasses goal management, under which a succinct understanding of the map to the business and personal goals are redefined, with reference to the organization; development planning, under which a collaboration for working with the managerial staff towards the development of concrete plans for the future is carried out; and career preferences, under which the location preferences and specific career options are given consideration (Rayman-bacchus 2003).

The challenges to be expected when an organization is implementing a talent management system, include attracting and recruiting talent, which is a challenge, as the competitive local and international labor markets, high performers, professionals, leadership and technically potent employees, are hard to attract. This is due to the high demand for such performance, thus the numberless opportunities of getting hired.

The differences in sector characteristics is also a challenge, as better paying, stronger status and better image of the private sector, may compete the available potential staffs. Rewarding the talented recruits is also another challenge, as the highly potent candidates will require the offer of innovative development and reward packages, tailored to meet the current attitudes and value trends, which may be very expensive.

Organizing the different talents from the pools and banks is another challenge, as the identification of the proper placement towards the realization of the expected potential, is very important. In the case where such placement requirements are no met, the talent management practice may yield nothing, or even result to losses for the organization.

Training and developing the talent is another challenge, as a strong commitment is required from the developing community or department, a process that will often, call for extensive resource inputs. Unlocking the potential of the recruited team is another challenge, similar to maintaining their engagement in the areas of emotional intelligence, technical skills, and the ability to deliver beyond cultural comfort zones (Berger & Berger 2004; Matthewman & Matignon 2005).

To realize the most from talent management, organizations need to nurture their preparedness for change, through developing change management. Organizational change management can be effected through the initiation of the senior leaders, the facilitation of the middle level managers, and the employee’s help.

To develop the change methodology, an organization needs to initiate discovery, which is evaluating change preparedness; aligning and involving managers in the change; involving and aligning all the individual parties, so as to earn their devoted support; evaluation and review of the change climate, where the analysis and the measurement of the results is done (Rossiter 1996).

Other aspects which prove to be of key importance in mitigating the implementation challenges, include the organizational definition of talent and talent management; identifying where the recruited specialists fit best; and understanding the impacts of the external environment on the organization’s talent management process.

Other areas of central importance in addressing the challenges include identifying the possible threats or challenges, benchmarking with other organizations, and carrying out systematic evaluation. Systematic evaluation covers the area of calculating financial and the other benefits drawn from the talent management exercise (Matthewman & Matignon 2005).

Models of talent management are the tools used in ensuring that the productivity of employees is improved, towards meeting or even exceeding organizational objectives. Free time and remote work flexibility is one such tool, which pursues the delivery of free time to employees, as this helps them to think and innovate, in their areas of productivity. Bad manager identification is another one. Here, the managers undermining the return on investment are eliminated and replaced with effective ones (Johnston 1999; Burstiner 1988).

The other major difference between talent management and human capital management is that the strategic reporting in the area of capability, which is practiced under human capital management, is not featured in talent management. From a more critical perspective, it may be argued that human capital management identifies both the tangible and the intangible aspects of productivity, an area which is not featured in talent management.

This is mainly because, talent management does not account for the capability enhancing expenses, as compared to the value indices created (Matthewman & Matignon 2005). Further, the concept of human capital management, characteristically includes aspects of the overall worth of the human assets within an institution.

Human capital management also characteristically includes an analysis of the problem areas, and the hot spots within the existing development and the deployment of the personnel aspects, which are not reflected in the core conception of talent management (Schizas 1999; Adler 1991; Green 1999).

Talent management and strategic human resource management are two essentially similar disciplines, but which are very different in the area of conception and center of concentration.

Though these two fields may seem synonymous, there is a highly significant difference in the area of the perspective underlying the different descriptions. Talent management as a concept emphasizes on the recognition that the different members of staff have different talents and abilities, and that the great talent is what may be capitalized upon, so as to deliver great results.

Strategic human resource management on the other hand is a reflection of the earlier origin, where human resources were considered as an aspect of the company’s held assets. In this context, human resources were considered as an asset, along with the other fixed assets held by the enterprise (Berger & Berger 2004). More accurately, strategic human resource management identifies the strategic placement of human resources at different levels, so as to realize best functionality, which is not the case with talent management.

It also focuses on immediate business conditions, as opposed to talent management, which often focuses on future expectations. It also offers significant importance to the design of the HR system as an iterate unit, as opposed to the view of talent management. This perception, probably originated from the need to declare human resource management, an equally important resource in the focus of the success of an enterprise (Aron & Aron 1999; Roberts et al 1998).

Strategic staffing is the process of recognizing and addressing the staffing repercussions of business strategies. It may also be explained as the procedure of identifying and tackling the staffing implication of change within the organization. The essence of this perspective is simply that there are impacts felt by the staffing, in the event where changes on the business plan or strategies are considered, whether short-term or long-term.

This field is also called the strategic workforce planning, and the areas of focus under this approach include the definition of the number and the capabilities required from the staff at a given time in the future, if the future implementations are to be realized; and documenting the staffing resources that are available at the time of planning (Philpott 2006).

Also defined under this approach include projecting the supply of abilities, which are likely to be available to the organization, for the execution of the set implementations; pointing out the difference between the forecasted supply and the anticipated demand; and instituting staff actions, which are aimed at closing the gaps and eliminating the surpluses within the system.

As compared to strategic staffing, talent management, which is the practice of employing the interrelated human resource procedures to deliver a simple fundamental benefit, depicts that the perspective of strategic staffing is wider (Kawakami & Dovidio 2001; Hewstone & Brown 1986).

References

Adams, J 1965, “Inequity in social exchange,” In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 2, 267-299), Academic Press, New York.

Adler, N 1991, International dimensions of organizational behavior, PWS-Kent Publishing Company, Boston.

Armstrong, M 2005, A Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice, Kogan Page Limited, London.

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Berger, L & Berger, D 2004, The talent management handbook, McGraw-Hill Publishers, New York.

Bonney, N 2005, “Overworked Britons? Part-time work and work–life balance,” Work, Employment and Society, 19 (2), pp. 391–401.

Burstiner, I 1988, The Small Business Handbook, Prentice Hall, New Jersey.

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Green, P 1999, Building Robust Competencies: Linking Human Resource Systems to Organizational Strategies, Jossey-Bass, New York.

Gubman, E 1996, “The Gauntlet is Down,” Journal of Business Strategy, November-December.

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Kawakami, K & Dovidio, J 2001, “The reliability of implicit stereotyping,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27(2), pp. 212-225.

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Philpott, J 2006, “Work audit: after Turner how to manage the Methuselah generation,” Impact, 14, pp. 20–23.

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Reece, B & Rhonda, B 1993, Effective Human Relations in Organizations, Houghton Mifflin, Boston.

Roberts, G, Gary, S & Carlotta, R 1998, Human Resources Management, Small Business Administration, Washington, D.C.

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Ulrich, D 1998, Delivering Results: A New Mandate for HR Professionals, Harvard Business School Press, Harvard.

Sustainability efforts form some of the significant strategies for enhancing the financial, environmental, and social performance of an organisation. Organisations cannot build sustainable brand portfolios without the aid of innovative and talented workforce (Huselid & Becker, 2011, p.422). McDonnell, Lamare, Gunnigle, and Lavelle (2010) support this argument by further asserting, “Talent management is arguably the single most important HR activity in a sustainable organisation” (p.150).

This paper follows the strategy for talent management described in assignment 3 to analyse the key concepts related to talent pools and talent review processes followed by the development of appropriate talent management objectives to measure functional expertise. It then progresses to measure the vital aspects of international talent management as they stand out at TriStar Logistics before recommending a process that optimises a sustainable talent management process.

Performance Management Process employed to measure Employees’ Talent

Assignment 3 established the need to facilitate internal promotions as part of succession plans driven by the existing talent potential within TriStar Logistics. Diverse sections of the organisation need diverse talents.

Since the goal of TriStar Logistics is to become one of the leading employing organisations, it implies that people selected and recruited internally within the organisation must possess outstanding credentials that ensure optimal performance at the positions they are appointed or promoted to serve. Hence, some performance management processes for measuring talents of employees are important.

An effective performance process for measuring the talent of employees at TriStar Logistics starts with planning. Planning is necessary in helping to determine various strategies together with goals for different work units especially when measuring talent potential for employees (Levenson, 2011, p.35).

Once goals and strategies are established, search is conducted to determine the employees who fit in these units to enhance the realisation of the goals of various units. This goal is accomplished through alignment of unit goals with employees’ capabilities (McCauley & Wakefield, 2006, p.40). Performance levels in various unit tasks are then conducted to determine the fits between employees and work unit performance expectations.

After successful completion of the planning phase, the next step for implementation of a performance management process for measuring employees’ talents is assessment. Assessment requires performance dialogue accompanied by continuous garnering of feedback from employees to determine the degree of achievement of work unit anticipations.

Opposed to the traditional approaches of measuring the performance of employees, which are claimed as ineffective by Lewis and Heckman (2006) and Levenson (2011), performance dialogue at TriStar Logistics can yield success since employees are provided with adequate information on what they are expected to do within some time limits.

The feedback, which is used to make decisions on the appropriateness of a given employee to fit in a position, is based on the ability of the employee to achieve these work unit requirements. This capacity reflects the talent potential of employees.

This approach of measuring the talent of employees is based on the realisation of specific preset expectations of the demands a given job without any specified criteria for accomplishing them. This means that it is upon the employees to look for innovative ways of executing their duties to achieve the expected results within minimal time and/or with optimal resource utilisation.

Key Concepts related to Talent Pools and the Talent Review Process

At TriStar Logistics, several concepts have been articulated to the talents pools and talent review processes. The first concept is talent identification. This aspect is done to assess the existing organisational employees’ potential so that their capabilities can be developed to yield organisational competitiveness. For TriStar Logistics, every manager assesses the capacity of an employee to perform high-level tasks relative to his or her current grades.

This assessment is based on the demonstrated individual knowledge, skills, and creativity in the execution of leadership roles. In case the results of these assessments show that those employees are capable of performing tasks that are done by people in two or more higher grades, they are considered highly talented.

Readiness assessment is an important aspect for talent assessment. Persons identified as highly talented must be prepared to succeed in various incumbents (Lewis, & Heckman, 2006, p.151). This assessment is important for various high-ranking managers while preparing their annual talent review plans that reflect leadership gaps and other managerial metrics.

The second concept is feeder role identification. At TriStar Logistics, building sustainable and a robust leadership pipeline requires the existence of various positions to be filled by persons who are identified as talented for similar positions.

It is the obligation of talent development managers to identify the various positions existing below the highest leadership teams and/or label them as feeder roles. These roles need to have broad opportunities to facilitate growth of experiences and talents showcased by employees as they progress from fundamental to senior positions. A follow-up of feeder roles is crucial for performance assessment reason and capacity re-examination.

Talent Management Objectives to measure Functional Expertise

Talent management in TriStar Logistics is done to ensure that the expertise of employees improves over time as they gain experience while working in the organisation. This outcome is achieved by developing accurate staffing models followed by the identification of vital skills while acknowledging the role of proper harnessing of the competences of employees in enhancing organisational success.

This strategy helps to improve the functional expertise of the organisation by aiding it to arrive at decisions, which are informed by the existing talent potentials (McCauley & Wakefield, 2006, p.41). TriStar Logistics is also able to react more effectively to situations emerging from changing the operational environment that requires the improvement of an organisation in terms of innovation and creativity.

Successful organisations object to improve the functional areas of their expertise through identification of areas of their strength with the help of competences, which are required to execute specific tasks. This outcome is measured through employees’ assessments together with performance ratings (Lewis, & Heckman, 2006, p.152).

Hence, within TriStar Logistics, leaders in talent management need to deploy talent management objectives in measuring functional expertise areas that are driven by objective data. This helps to engage employees in talent development conversations that are tied within the facets of attaining the anticipated functional outcomes of an organisation.

Such conservation strategies are pivotal in ensuring that organisations are capable of identifying accurately the required talents that should be obtained from departments or business functional units. Conversation also aids in the identification of skills, which are required to support future strategies of TriStar Logistics.

Vital Aspects of Global Talent Management at TriStar Logistics

TriStar Logistics Company has several talent management approaches, which are consistent with the global approaches to talent management. In TriStar Logistics, capturing the top talent is not the only concern. The organisation focuses on the development of talents that are already in existence especially in the events of hard economic times.

This strategy is consistent with the global approaches to talent management, which focus on making organisations people-centric (McDonnell, Lamare, Gunnigle & Lavelle, 2010, p.153). This means that people feel they are part of the organisational growth when they are given an opportunity to grow their talent potentials.

TriStar Logistics creates internal talent development programs that are aligned to the interests of employees. By creating a job position filled internally, it implies that on global platforms the organisation has the capacity to retain the top talent, which is critical in enhancing competitive advantage (McCauley & Wakefield, 2006, p.39).

The value of employees who are given an opportunity to identify their own specific competency development areas is then merged with the career paths existing internally within TriStar Logistics. This value is also given a major priority.

Recommendation for a Process that optimises a Sustainable Talent Management Process

Sustainability in the talent management process of an organisation is an important aspect of the organisation that plans to base its long-term success on people it employs. TriStar Logistics is one of such organisations. It is recommended for TriStar Logistics to increase its strategic efforts on self-engagement of employees and/or add emphasis on the development of people together with increasing their performance in their business unit tasks.

For optimisation of a sustainable talent management process, it is important for talent to be measured, with its assessment criteria remaining fair, transparent, and involving all staff members. It should be flexible and efficient in terms of talent identification and development.

Such a process also needs to proactively support all on-going initiatives for succession management, enumerate various organisational goals, and/or measure employees’ performance in the context of realisation of such goals. The process also needs to provide ample room for supervisors of talent development to give concise and reliable feedback on the extent of employees’ talent development.

For TriStar Logistics, the process also needs to take into consideration past performance of employees while also paying attention to the anticipated opportunities for talent growth in relation to work units, individual, and TriStar Logistics’ goals and objectives.

Reference List

Huselid, M., & Becker, E. (2011). Bridging Micro and Macro Domains: Workforce Differentiation and Strategic Human Resource Management. Journal of Management, 37(2), 421-428.

Levenson, A. (2011). Using Targeted Analytics to Improve Talent Decisions. People & Strategy, 34(2), 34-43.

Lewis, R., & Heckman, J. (2006). Talent management: A critical review. Human Resource Management Review, 16(2), 139-151.

McCauley, C., & Wakefield, M. (2006). Talent Management in the 21st Century: Help Your Company Find, Develop, and Keep its Strongest Workers. The Journal for Quality and Participation, 29(4), 39-47.

McDonnell, A., Lamare, R., Gunnigle, P., & Lavelle, J. (2010). Developing tomorrow’s leaders—Evidence of global talent management in multinational enterprises. Journal of World Business, 45(2), 150-160.

Executive Summary

In current competitive service industry, companies are facing a challenge developing, managing, and retaining quality effective managers. The competitiveness that has been enjoyed by SUNNY in Chinese market can be attributed by its effective human resources management as well as favorable working condition; however, the industry in general is facing an increased job-hopping by effective managers.

To solve the challenge, SUNNY Optical need to enact effective talent management strategies that will enable the company nurture, develop, tap, and utilize their human resources talents and intellectual property. For an effective strategy, there is need for collaboration between the top management, line managers, and junior staffs.

Case background

Business management scholars have agreed that there is always a room for improvement in an organization despite how well its operations seem to be: there are different approaches leading an organization to improve performance, most of the approaches depend on the skills and knowledge of human capital in an organization. SUNNY as an international optical retailing company is doing well in the global scenes; it has high value for its employees and spends substantial amounts of its income to motivate, develop, and retain its human resources.

However, in current competitive business environment, the company is facing a challenge retaining its effective and quality managers as they are job-hopping in search for better employers with wages as the main motivator for the job-hopping. The new life employment policy has also added some pain to the company as it’s a challenge to develop, maintain, poach, and retain quality managers.

Despite the challenges SUNNY leaders have some strategic management approaches that it can adopt to ensure that the company remains competitive amidst the challenges it is facing as well as reduce the rate of influence of the challenges (Farrell and Grant, 2005). This paper analyses the problem facing SUNNY Optical in China and give recommendations on strategies that John Wu, the company’s president, would pioneer for a competitive business.

Problem analysis

The problem facing SUNNY Optical is not unique to the company however, it is experienced across the service industry; the main cause of the problem is deficiency in quality service managers and poaching as well as job-hopping among the existing quality managers. The development of new life employment policy has impacted the industry as it has the likelihood of reducing motivation and individual efforts among employees of a certain employer.

The main issue that John Wu is wondering about is how the company will be able to have new strategies that will guarantee that in the future, the company will have quality manager and leaders; he is wondering this despite there being a number of qualified graduates with some working experience however it can be noted that they lack some polishing to offer quality service and leadership skills.

SUNNY has had human resources policies that can be applauded, however as stated earlier, there is no optimal level, but every situation offers a room to improvement. The management has ensured that employees are well mentored; coached, developed and motivational strategies have been put in place.

The management has been successful in developing an effective communication strategy that ensures that all employees and the management mingle and interact with each other with ease and can share ideas freely; with such an environment, certainly the company has a favorable working condition yet managers are finding a reason to move to other companies.

The management fears the total loss of quality leaders that it has been able to develop over time. The issues facing the company can be solved with some minimal intervention by the management of the company’s policies on talents and psychological contracts fulfillment (Farrell and Grant, 2005).

Solution to the problem

To ensure that the problem does not recur in the future, the management need to have a lasting solution that will enable the company develop and retain managers; every human being has a talent that needs to be seen, developed, managed, tapped, and utilized for the good of the employer. As far as leadership is concerned, there are some people who have been born as charisma leaders, however if the power and the talent they hold is not well tapped, then they might not benefit their company with the talents (Lester and Kickul, 2001).

John Wu has the challenge of developing an effective talent management system in the company; with the strategy, he will be able to make quality managers and leaders from the pool of graduates with some working experience but whom cannot be relied upon on their leadership traits.

Effective talent management strategies take some steps and form; talent management is defined as a complex human resources management process where the human resources team develop measures and policies that facilitated in tapping human beings intellectual property.

According to Burbach & Royle, 2010, “Talent management as a corporate area of focus has been building steadily” (Burbach and Royle, 2010), the approach to managing and maintaining talents within an organization is one of the newest management approaches that is yielding satisfactory results in companies that it has been implemented. An effective talent management strategy that the company should implement will start from recruitments adopted by the company all the way to how the employees will be retained, the strategy is as follows:

Evaluation of current talent management within an organization

SUNNY human resources department has the role of creating an environment that can create an orchestrate team; they have the role of ensuring that the company human resources needs are well catered for; although it can be applauded for such successful efforts, it has to enact talent management policies.

The policies implemented are expected to facilitate the use of intellectual properties of their staffs (talents) although the objective may not be as explicit as other human resources roles. The initial step then to develop a deliberate talent management strategy in an organization is to understand the current position of the firm as long as tapping intellectual property is concerned (Renckly and Renckly, 2003).

The parameters to use include:

• Analysing the succession plans adopted at SUNNY
• Take a review of major and minor innovations that the company has had in the past and try to look at the source of the innovation
• Involve department and sector managers in the process and get their inputs on the calibre of employees already in the organisation.

The information derived will be crucial in determining the state that a company is as long as talent management is concerned (See diagram below on how talent is involved in business objectives).

Diagram 1

Talent Entry and Retention

John Wu should understand that SUNNY needs to have a recruitment method that considers talent development and management in the company: when applications are received, they are sorted, and short listed candidate are contacted, when short-listing the experiences given by the employees should be reviewed to ensure that those applicants with the sort talents have been established.

To enable employees perform their duties effectively and have a chance to improve some systems though their talents, creativity and innovativeness; then continuous system and employee’s appraisal is important. When this is done, it helps human management to interact and share with employees on their experiences and relax the air to the employee that he can recommend areas that needs improvement and probably offer recommendations on the way forward.

Relaxing an environment and involving an employee in its improvement is a psychological approach that assists employees to own up a certain function, the ownership triggers innovativeness and use of their talents. On the other hand, offering employees challenging environment is important to trigger their use of talents.

In cases where the weak point is because of employees ignorant, then programs are set up to address this. Training is another way that talent can be natured and developed; some organizations have employees training as a continuous process with the aim of ensuring that the employees are up-to-date with the changes in the industry (Anthony, Kalmar and Perrewé, 2002).

Development and Passing out

With a favorable environment developed, the next step is to expect results from the human capital in the organization; the employee is given some more challenging roles that are in line with his line of strength that has been established.

When operating in the roles, the company should make the employee as centre for the project; for example, an employee may be made the head of a certain project that the management believes he has the potential of developing better processes and products through his talents. When developing an employee for talent management, then the following are the areas that development should look into:

• Knowledge that the employee has acquired
• The special skills that an employee have
• The attitude that an employee have towards development of new methods of doing things
• The behaviour of the employee (Schweyer, 2010).

A well-planned development assists the company to nurture, develop and retain employees with talents in the company. To facilitate talent development, knowledge development cannot be ignored; knowledge and talents are intangible assets, which are unique to different business and can be improved with experience and information interpolation (Lester & Kickul, 2001).

The following diagram summarizes the process of talent management:

Diagram 2

Conclusion

The global optical retailing industry has become competitive; SUNNY needs to have effective human resources talent management policies if it will remain competitive in Chinese market.

Personnel’s have different talents and capabilities; however tapping this asset requires strategic management; they need to be natured, developed and managed before they are exploited. Other than utilizing the knowledge and experience that the employees have, there is the need to use available information to grow and develop knowledge and expertise in employees.

To effectively manage talents, SUNNY should start by understanding the current strategies and processes and how they support talent management, with the understanding, they will be able to tap talents from entry level, nature, develop and retain them to the benefit of the organization. When a talent has been developed, there should be effective passing out mechanism so as the benefits of the talents can benefit an entire organization.

References

Anthony, W. P., Kalmar, K. M., &Perrewé, P. L. (2002). Human Resource Management, A Strategic Approach, (4th ed). South-Western, Thomson Learning.

Berger, A. & Berger, D. (2003).The talent management handbook: creating organizational excellence by identifying, developing, and promoting your best people. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Farrell, D. and Grant, A. (2005). China’s Looming Talent Shortage. McKinsey Quarterly, 1(1), pp.1-4.

Lester, W. and Kickul, J.(2001). Psychological contracts in the 21st century: What employees’ value most and how well organizations are responding to these expectations. Human Resource Planning, 24(1): 10

Renckly, B. R & Renckly, G. R. (2003). Human Resources. New York: Barron’s Educational Series.

Schweyer, A. (2010).Talent Management Systems: Best Practices in Technology Solutions for Recruitment, Retention and Workforce Planning. New York: John Wiley and Sons.

Executive Summary

The increasing levels of diversity and market dynamism have brought stiff competition among organisations, thus forcing them to engage in training of the available workforce, as well as hire competent employees in order to give them competitive edge in the crowded market. Technological developments have also brought business services into a single platform where customers in any part of the world can access products and services of an organisation from the internet (Salkey 2005).

With these drastic changes in business operations, organisations are struggling to be at advantaged positions by attracting, developing, motivating, and retaining productive employees. This move helps organisations to report high performance with the competent employees. In engaging a competent and diverse workforce organisations become sustainable in their operations, as they can successfully meet their strategic goals and objectives.

Introduction

HR departments in all organisations have to ensure that they bring out the best from the existing employees. This process does not only touches on hiring and retaining the right people, but also touches on making apt decisions that benefit both employees and the organisation (Salkey 2005). Talent management engages and motivates critical talents within a firm, and directs them towards achieving the strategic goals of the firm.

With the inclusion of hiring, motivating, training, and retaining of employees under this subject, talent management is a broad process that encompasses compensation, management, learning and development, global human resources, talent acquisition, performance management, goal management, and succession management. Employees who prove worthwhile to the organisation are retained for continuous growth of the business (Srinivasan 2011).

The process helps CEOs and company managers to link employees with the business strategy, thus empowering them to make a sustainable impact on the organisation’s success (McGee 2006). Most companies are working to recruit competent employees, but do little in terms of training and retaining in order to develop their talents. In expanding its presence in the global platform, Unilever hired new employees, and aligned its objectives with the global approach on employee services in order to register high performance levels (McLeane 2012).

From a cultural perspective, talent management becomes part of an organisational culture and strategy, such that it develops the skills and increases responsibility of employees. The aspect becomes a way of operation within firms, in which it optimises the performance of each employee in respect to the expected goals. With the economic recession of 2009, companies rely on lean staffs that are well conversant with their roles.

According to Uren (2007), the move helps in cutting expenses in order to maximise the return on investment. As a commercial factor, talent management helps firms to meet and even surpass the needs of their clients, thus gaining competitive advantage over their competitors.

The concept requires strategic positioning in the competitive market in order to attract ready-to-learn employees who can increase the profitability of an organisation. In my opinion, talent management is a human resource practice of maintaining relevance in the current global and competitive market by hiring ready-to-learn workforce to increase the growth of an organisation.

Hofstede Model and Link with Cultural Barriers to Global Talent

Multinational corporations struggle to manage global talents given that they attract employees from diverse cultural backgrounds. Cultural diversity in terms of race, ethnic group, language, and nationality cause incompatibility of perceptions of organisational performance. According to Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory, culture instils values in its members, which in-turn influences behaviour (McLeane 2012).

From this presumption, countries having different cultures will have employees of different behaviours in terms of language, political systems, geographical proximity, and religious beliefs, as organisational leaders have to forge a diverse approach in handling such a multicultural workforce. Hofstede’s model analyses cultural values using power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism-collectivism, and femininity-masculinity.

In 1988, long/short-term orientation was added to the four dimensions. Therefore, handling employees from different nations that appraise employee performance differently will result in challenges in development of talents.

In line with power distance, which is the separation degree between subordinates and the management, different firms have practices that define the gap between employees and the top management. In a country like Argentina, where high power distance culture is practised, employees merely take orders from the top management, while in Ireland, employees interact closely with the top management.

Evidently, employees from the two countries will behave differently at the workplace. Societal behaviours are also seen from the individualism versus collectivism aspect. South American nations practice collectivism where they value group roles and value personal relationship more than the task, while in Canada, people operates on individual basis.

Therefore, in influencing behaviour of employees from these two nations requires different approaches. Integrating employees who believes in individualism in the management process of a firm requires. Uncertainty and avoidance, on the other hand, touches on the willingness to share and act on certain information (McLeane 2012).

Differences in religious beliefs and practices, language, and race act as barriers to global talent management. A close check on the dimensions of Hofstede’s model reveals the different barriers that exist in managing global talents, where employees come from countries with different practices and ideologies (Jenkins 2008).

Cultural Barriers to Managing Global Talent

Depending on the values of an organisation, employee retention becomes a challenging aspect since most employees leave for other companies, especially to local organisations (Cseres & Kelly 2006). Effective management of individuals of different races or nationalities requires a culturally diversified HR department in order to incorporate the practices of all employees in the strategic objectives of the organisation, especially during the design of training and motivation programmes.

China is an example of a nation that has set up talent management that focuses on specific jobs. With the globalisation aspect, organisations are competing for the same pool of talent and are trying to standardise the process of recruiting and developing new and existing talents. The move on standardisation makes it easy for other companies to imitate given the availability of data from large organisations.

However, the move to imitate talent management by other corporations complicates the issue of competitive advantage, as strategic HRM assumes that competitive advantage only exist when other firms cannot copy or imitate an idea that gives a specific firm the competitive edge (Ingham 2006).

Huawei Technologies Company built a global culture of shared values in order to create a talent base that targets specific markets (McLeane 2012). The $28 billion Chinese networking and telecommunications equipment supplier devised a culture and human resources that is capable of supporting its operations in all regions where it exists.

Reward Programme

Talent development is key to the success of businesses in the present world; therefore, successful implementation of the talent programme is also vital for the same. A reward scheme helps in ensuring that the process becomes successful. For instance, using annual salary increments and variable commissions or allowances can improve the implementation process (Gratton 2012).

• An annual salary of $15,000 and bonuses depending on the output per worker will be effective for the programme. Further, there ought to be an assessment approach that is structured to monitor the application of the learnt ideas in line with the goals and objectives of the firm. Compensation and recognition of employees and key management staff should also be in place to monitor the implementation of talent programmes in organisations that intend to remain competitive in the market.
• Rewarding employees after positioning the organisation in the upper quartile of the market with a pay of $1500 for all employees will be recommendable.
• In addition, a base pay of $600 will be useful to motivate employees to work towards meeting the organisational targets in the talent management.
• In monitoring this programme both men and women possessing same skills will be entitled to same allowances of $800.
• The implementation of the talent programme will guide employees’ movements up the pay scale. This will occur after completing the entire global talent plan. The pay will increase the recruitment, retention, motivation, and productivity of the firm from the aspect of variability, which removes predictability of occurrence (Gratton 2012). Employees get motivated from pay, but variable pays motivate them more than the fixed ones.

Factors that will Assist or Hinder a Successful Programme

In restructuring new and existing talents within organisations, there are issues that hinder or assist the success of the programme. Investment in human capital remains the driver of organisational success. Even though the global talent management has numerous benefits to the overall performance of both employees and the organisation, the process of implementing the concept attracts many challenges.

Lack of HR leadership is one factor that can hinder the successful implementation of a global talent programme. Most HR executives give less time to talent development and training, but pay keen attention on tactical activities that do not add value to the growth of an organisation in the current shaky economy (Powell & Lubitsh 2007). The uncertainty in the economy has made key organisations to avoid investing in talents.

Such leadership believes in pushing employees to meet the expected targets forgetting the essence of organisational learning and development in nurturing talents of employees. The HR leadership should work closely with employees and the senior management in facilitating their employees’ talents through an integrated and proactive strategic approach (Chris & Morton 2005).

Lack of support from business leaders and unwillingness from the senior management to buy into the global talent management idea also hinder the success of the programme. Such moves create a workplace environment that does not support development of talents, thus making retention difficult. Lack of organisations’ commitment towards inculcating talent management in their management process creates negative impacts to adoption of new ideas.

However, a healthy, rewarding, and enjoyable working environment positively affects performance of organisations since employees feel motivated to learn new ideas, and apply them in their line of operations within the organisation (Swailes 2007). An organisation with a well-structured reward system for employees can enhance the success of implementing a global talent programme. Rewards coupled with an employee-talented organisation create a culture that enhances the talent of employees and the senior management.

Recommendation for Assessing a Successful Programme

The shifting demographics in terms of age, gender, and race, the HR department must device an inclusive approach to attract and retain skilful employees who are ready to remain updated with the current information and trends in the marketplace. Organizations can assess the success of its global talent programme by analysing its historical aspects on hiring, retention, productivity, and competitiveness in the market.

In a situation of hiring new employees, an organisation can analyse the level at which applicants increase their interest to be part of the company (Gratton 2012). Since the talent management programmes develops employees’ knowledge bases, more employees will prefer to work for organisations that enhances their personal development. If a programme is successful, an organisation will receive more applicants for a vacant position than in the periods before the implementation of the programme.

On the other hand, if the programme is not successful a few applicants will seek to occupy such positions. A successfully implemented programme can make organisations to register high retention of employees compared to the times before the implementation of the programme. An organisation will not find difficulty to find and retain employees if its talent programme is successful.

A study by Ernest and Young on refilling of vacant positions found out that 60% of employers worldwide experienced shortage of competent leadership in 2012, as well as an increase in the number of employers in India who experienced difficulties in filling vacancies in 2011 (Matthews n.d.).

In assessing the success of a talent programme, there should be less difficulty in retaining employees. In some firms, employees will voluntarily apply for extension of contracts before the expiry of their terms. The programme increases satisfaction among employees, thus making retention an easy activity.

However, the reverse will occur if the programme was not successful. Since global talent management intends to make an organisation gain competitive advantage over its competitors in the marketplace, productivity forms the core aspect of growth and sustainability of a firm.

For assessment on the success of the programme, a company should report high output from streamlined employees after the implementing the programme (Baker, Kubal & O’Rourke 2006). In case of low productivity, then, the programme was not successful. A well-implemented global talent programme ensures that there is a clear job analysis from the job design in order to match the roles employees with their specific goals, as well as those of the organisation.

Conclusion

Notably, organisations that do not inculcate talent management in their HR functions are only planning to lose their competitive advantage in the dynamic market. Managers who are knowledgeable in this field find it easy to identify outstanding candidates and facilitate more strategic recruitments, as well as designing training strategies basing the content on organisational goals and objectives (Uren 2007).

In addition, such managers are to design reward or compensation programmes for top performers to encourage development of talents. There is assurance of effective management and maintenance of core aspects of a global workforce in line with attributes of a country, thus aligning organisational goals and objectives with those of employees. Proper understanding of learning and development helps in designing plans that incorporates the needs of employees and the management.

Performance management helps in assessing performance of employees and developing and retaining top organisational talents. Motivation in talent management fuels the enthusiasm of employees and builds their commitment to work towards meeting the goals and objectives of the organisation throughout the period of change.

Organisations have to make training of employees a culture so that new recruits learn to adapt to the system. The broad nature of talent management requires a collective approach of all departments in an organisation for proper implementation. Line managers in organisations should help in developing the skills of employees under them. The concept of talent management has remained a significant aspect in the operations of current organisations given the fast changing needs of consumers and a combination of different workforce.

List of References

Baker, M., Kubal, D., & O’Rourke, T 2006, ‘How to use innovative approaches to retain key talent’, Emerald Journals, vol. 5, no. 6, pp. 87-105.

Chris, A., & Morton, L 2005, ‘Managing talent for competitive advantage: Taking a systemic approach to talent management’, Strategic HR Review, Vol. 4, no. 5, pp. 28-31.

Cseres, P., & Kelly, N 2006, ‘Restructuring talent sourcing at DuPont: Standardizing and simplifying talent-search and management processes’, Emerald Journals, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 33-45.

Gratton, L 2012, ‘The Talent Factory of the Future’, Business Strategy Review, vol. 23, no. 3, pp. 20-23.

Ingham, J 2006, ‘Closing the talent management gap: Harnessing your employees’ talent to deliver optimum business performance’, Emerald Journals, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 72-95.

Jenkins, J 2008, ‘Strategies for Managing Talent in a Multigenerational Workforce’, Employment Relations Today, vol. 34, no. 4, pp. 19-26.

Matthews, P n.d., Paradigm shift: Building a new talent management model to boost growth, Ernest and Young. Web.

McGee, L 2006, ‘CEO’s influence on talent management’, Emerald Journals, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 22-39.

McLeane, V 2012, ‘The future of talent’, New Zealand Management, vol. 59, no. 10, pp. 36-40.

Powell, M., & Lubitsh, G 2007, ‘Courage in the face of extraordinary talent: Why talent management has become a leadership issue’, Emerald Journals, vol. 6, no. 5, pp. 18-27.

Salkey, J 2005, ‘Talent Management for the 21st Century’, Emerald Journals, vol. 4, no. 5, pp. 243-270.

Srinivasan, M. S 2011, ‘An Integral Approach to Talent Management’, Vilakshan: The XIMB Journal of Management, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 81-90.

Swailes, S 2007, ‘The Ethics of Talent Management’, Business Ethics: A European Review, vol. 22, no. 1, PP. 32-46.

Uren, L 2007, ‘From talent compliance to talent commitment: Moving beyond the hype of talent management to realizing the benefits’, Emerald Journals, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 237-241.

Introduction

Hype Center is a marketing firm that undertakes marketing of domestic items such as perfumes, lotions, and medicated soap. Since the center is a small marketing firm that started its operations on July 2013, then it still requires more employees. Recently, the firm embarked on a search for qualified employees. The firm then put the candidate under a three-month probation period.

During the probation, the intern would work with three other employees of the center as a team. The firm hired the intern because the marketing project aimed at increasing sales. Therefore, the center examined qualities of the intern.

The psychometric indicators employed include expertise, professional qualifications, abilities, and attitudes. As a human resource officer, the firm tasked me to review staff performance and compile a report. Therefore, the report examines the skills and competencies of the intern in the field of marketing.

Literature Review

Human resource managers usually examine a number of qualities and attributes that potential employees have before recruiting them. Among other attributes, human resource managers expect an employee to have the ability of working with others in a productive and harmonious manner. Furthermore, the human resource department expects individuals to demonstrate good self-monitoring abilities.

The abilities enable employees to regulate their behaviors and effectively accommodate different social challenges that individuals comes across in the workplace (Bikhchandani, 2002). Thus, the individual can adapt and work harmoniously and productively with other team members who have different personalities.

Talents are essential in the marketing aspect of the company. According to Terracino (2005), employees should also have the social intelligence as it enables them to respect the opinions of other employees.

In addition, Marchioni (2009) states that a candidate must be goal oriented, very thoughtful of others, have good self-control on impulses, be organized, and mindful on the marketing details as demonstrated in conscientiousness personality trait.

The conscientiousness personality trait is one of the big five personality traits also known as the big five locators. This makes it easy for individuals to influence other team members, as well as target consumers assertively. Competent marketing skills enable marketers to convince customers on the validity of the products, and increase sales.

Additionally, the human resource department expects an employee to have intrinsic style of interaction, which is one of the four styles of interactions styles. Berens (2008) notes that the interaction style enables individuals to understand and work with teams and perform well. The individual value contributions enable employees make consultations before deciding on a course of action (Snyder, 2000).

Moreover, team members amass information and other points of view so that they can use them to make informed decisions. In this style of interaction, the individuals are calm, patient, and quiet, and thus can produce, sustain, define, and clarify issues objectively.

Consequently, these indidviduals believe that for a project to succeed, it should take a reasonable period of time. Therefore, the interaction style enables an individual communicate ideas, opinions, and suggestions using clear and appropriate way inline with the relevant audience or authority.

Data

Self-monitoring Results

Your score is 50, on a scale of 0 (low self-monitor) to 100 (high self-monitor). You are neither a high nor low self-monitor.

Big Five Locator Results

Interaction Styles

Based on the results of the ISAT, you are an energizer!

Full of persuasive energy, energizers are natural people. You know how to strike up a conversation and keep it going.

Jung Type Results

You are a natural leader. You are a confident and original thinker, and believe strongly in yourself. You are a strong individualist who seeks new angles or novel ways of looking at life. In general, you are an extremely capable and intelligent individual who strives to do their best and continue to move in a positive direction.

Findings

On the results of the self-monitoring test, the intern neither scored 50%, which means that the intern is neither low nor high self-monitor.

Since the intern possessed such self-monitoring skills and social intelligence, then the intern was able to respect the opinions of other team members and react in a suitable manner to different workplace challenges. The individual was also able to employ self-control, organization, and marketing skills on the team members, as well as target consumers.

Regarding the big five locator, the results show that the intern scored 68, 83, 60, 45, 45, and 18 in extraversion, conscientiousness, neuroticism, agreeableness, and openness respectively. The high level of extraversion and conscientiousness implies that the intern is outgoing and conscious of what is happening in the workplace.

Furthemore, the intern demostrated high levels of understanding on matters concerning production, sustainability, difinition, and clarification of marketing issues. The intern also valued consultation, this was evident from the intern’s nature of asking for the opinions from other team members before making a decision.

While working with the team of four members i noticed that the intern synthesised opinions and suggestion from the team members before using the information to make a wise decision.

Consequently, the intern was determined that in the firm would achieve the required targets in terms of growth and sales. The intern also demonstrated good communication and interpersonal skills evident from the manner in which the individual presented opinions, ideas, and issues to team members and superiors.

In the interaction style results, the intern demonstrated energizer style of interaction of the persuasive energy. The persuasive was evident from the cheerful and welcoming nature of the intern.

Additionally, the intern was outgoing and valued teamwork in the acheivement of positive results. In other words, the intern was goal oriented and objective. Moreover, the individual possesed patience and was calm at all times irrespective of the team and workplace challenges.

The intern appeared as having natural abilities of leadership as demonstrated by the Jung type indicator. Moreover, the Jung type indicator showed that the intern is a great thinker with intelligent abilities to move in the positive direction.

The intern can easily adapt to the workplace, and thus able to work well with other team members who have different personalities in a creative and pleasant way. Furthermore, the individual had social intelligence and good self-monitoring abilities.

Conclusion

Hiring the right person is vital for any organization. However, many organizations are not effective in hiring employees, and thus, they end up hiring wrong employees. Hiring of wrong employeers lowers the perfomance of the firm. According to this context Hype Center should employ good and qualified individuals who have the relevant competencies.

When the right person is hired for the job, the firm will have little time and resources spent on the indidividual in the aspect of training. Therefore, it is fundamental for the firm to put the right policies and practises in place. The policies help the firm employ the right individuals who are productive and useful.

It is important that the firm gets individuals who have good interpersonal skills and good working skills. Give that the firm is a marketing firm, potential employees should have the right skills required in persuading and influencing target clients so that the firm can grow and increase its sales.

Reccommendations

Policies should be instituted by the center because it enables the firm get the right people for the right job. If the center employ incompetent individuals, it will incur huge losses due to poor performance. The instituted policies should ensure that only employees who have essential knwoldge and skills serve the center.

Among other skills, good interpersonal skills are fundamental as they enable individuals to work well with employees and clients. Moreover, they enable individuals to understand and appreciate various personalities of other employees.

Additionally, the firm should use the policies in the recuitment of employees who understand the significance of self monitoring and social intelligence. Self-intelligence makes the employees have good communication and interpersonal skills. Thus, self-intelligence is key in acheivng growth of the firm as it makes employees respect other employees and target consumers, as well as overcome workplace challenges.

Furthemore, the firm should hire individuals who can persuade and convince customers to buy products, and thus increase the volume of sales. Employees who have the right qualifications and personalities quickly adapt new challenges of the workplace. Therefore, it is important for the firm to have the right employees who can work collectively with other employees and achieve the objectives and goals of the firm.

The right individuals are beneficitial to the center because the human resource department will just regulate and accommodate different temperaments. In addition, it is important for the firm to hire right idividuals who have self-control, organization skills, and good marketing skills.

Moreover, the firm should hire individuals who can consult before making decisions,and those who have relevant styles of interaction. Since good interaction styles enables individuals to produce, sustain, define, and clarify issues, it is essential for the center to hire employees with these skills.

References

Berens, V. (2008). Understanding Yourself and Others. New York:Telos Publishers.

Bikhchandani, S. (2002). A Theory of Fashion,Custom ,and Cultural Change as Informational Cascades. Journal of Political Economy, 100(5), 992-1026.

Marchioni, M. (2009). The Self Monitoring Scale.London: Macmillan Publishers.

Snyder, M. (2000). Self Monitoring Appraisal and Reappraisal. Pyschological Bulletin, 126(4), 530-555.

Terracino, A. (2005). Universal Features of PersonalityTraits from the Observer Perspective. Journal of Personality and Social Pyschology, 88(6), 547-561.

In most organizations talents are highly appreciated because they are what drive such organizations to be ahead of the game. Everyone is an expert in something but some people can not identify their talents. Competition in business world is very stiff and this has led to the increase in demand for talent. In an organization setting, there are people who are blessed with unique abilities such as marketing or leadership skills. The talented individuals are ordinary employees who work under close supervision of their managers. This paper reviews some of the things that organizations have to do to source and retain their talented employees.

A talent is a unique skill that is in-born such that the individual who possesses it does not require training because the skills are natural. When a talented employee realizes that his/her talent is being wasted he/she looks for an organization that is most likely to utilize that talent. Talents are supposed to be discovered by managers because they are the ones that are with the employees more than any one else (Davis, 2007). There are managers who discourage talented employees to utilize their talents because they see them as a threat to their position or are just jealous about their abilities. Such managers sabotage the chances of their talented juniors from being brought into the limelight.

The demand for talent has forced some organizations to seek for talent in learning institutions such as universities and colleges. This is because talented individuals that were brought on board a few decades are retiring at a faster rate than the rate at which new talents are discovered.

Talented individuals require motivation and guidance on how their skills can be beneficial to both themselves and the organization. Some talents require refinement for them to be useful. This means that the talented individual has to be enrolled in a talent management class which comes with additional expenses. Organizations refine talents by offering scholarships to the individuals with high expectations that the inputs that are spent on such talents will pay back when the talents are incorporated into the organization (The Economist, 2006).

This being a risky investment, it requires a lot of patient and commitment. This implies that the organization has to pay close attention to the upcoming talent because they might be lured by other potential employers. According to Schieman (2009), hiring talented individuals enhances productivity because the talented employees are able to endure challenges. Finding talented employees and retaining them is another thing. This is because before their talents are discovered they use their current positions as a stepping stone as they await better positions.

Organizations cannot afford to loose talents hence when they realize that they have a talent in their workforce they seduce such employees by offering them fat salaries and attractive benefits. For such talents to remain useful those who own them must be upgraded regularly otherwise their talents will cease to be useful. Talents are obtained from within or from fresh recruitments.

All talents must be appreciated regardless of the level of education the employee is in, as long as they are of good sound mind. When talents are from different departments they must be organized in a manageable manner because this eases their refinement programs. Administrators should be ready to handle puzzling questions from the talented individuals because they see things differently.

Vaiman and Vance (2008) argue that some employees know their special abilities but have to be pushed around for them to cooperate and this is where talent management comes in. In organizations, there are relationships that exist between talented employees and the organization and they are based on mutual understanding. The organization benefits from the skills provided by the individuals while in return the individuals use the organization as the platform to advance their skills.

Organizations are so worried about losing their talented employees hence they pamper them with benefits such as allowances and promotions. However, there are employees who still turn down such offers and exit the company. In some instances an organization may sue such an employee because they can’t imagine loosing such skills to their competitors. Today talent search has been integrated with the internet because there are so many organizations that post their positions on the World Wide Web.

The major challenge in identifying talents is the basis in which recruitments are conducted. Merits are hardly followed and this is why appointments are carried out in a rush and thus those who are talented are left out to favor the ones who bribed their way into the organization. It is only later that such organizations realize that they hired the wrong person because they are incompetent (The Economist, 2006).

Talents have to be monitored because the individuals who own them can misuse them at the expense of the organization as it happened in Enron. This organization had the most educated personnel and yet the very same professionals led to its collapse because they were squandering money meant for the organization. This implies that organizations must establish an ethics code of conduct concerning the use of talents.

Governments are also in need of talents to enhance their performance in serving their subjects and overcoming their enemies. According to Goldsmith and Carter (2010), rich nations have been luring talented individuals from poor nations to work for them. Among the benefits that are offered include citizenship which is meant to make them remain in the wealthy country.

Developing countries have been against this move because the talented people in their countries should be utilized to help their motherland grow. On the other hand, talented individuals are moving out of their countries because they are not appreciated by their governments. For instance, France’s national team has so many Africans such that one would think that it’s based in Africa.

It’s not mandatory for talents to be from external sources because even with the current employees there are those that have special abilities but because they have never been given a chance to demonstrate their skills and ideas they continue to sit on their talent hoping that a day will come when someone will appreciate their abilities. Organizations must open their eyes because talents are not limited to any given level (Schieman, 2009).

This implies that that a talented individual could be doing odd jobs because there are few jobs compared to the number of students that graduate from colleges and universities. For a talent to be realized organizations must not focus so much on academic certificates because those are just papers that suggest that someone possesses some relevant training but does not mean they are able to apply the concepts that were taught in class in real life situations.

Some organizations send their representatives to international and local conferences in order to pick out the best talent from the people who attend such conferences. Cross (2007), argues that job security has become a major concern among most job seekers because majority of employers are offering employment on temporary basis hence employees are not certain about their jobs because the organization can terminate their contract at any time. To solve this problem, organizations are employing talented employees on permanent basis so that they can focus on long term goals.

Organizations are pumping lots of cash on amenities that are perceived to discourage employees from looking for jobs else where. This includes the inclusion of facilities such as salon, gym, and barbershops. Moreover, there are organizations that establish day care units in order to take care of their employees’ children while they are at work. Others pay the full amount of health insurance premiums for their employees. In some companies employees are allowed to come with their pets such as dogs to their work places. All these tricks are meant to confine employees into the organization because they don’t have to move an inch to get what they are looking for. In fact organizations are now competing to satisfy their employees’ needs.

In essence, organizations are looking for fresh talents in developing nations such as India because the talents that exist in advanced nations are very costly in terms of attracting and retaining them. In poor countries there are so many people who have talents in various fields but don’t have jobs. Big organizations rush to such nations because they know the talented individuals don’t care much about the amount of money they earn because they want a job for survival purposes. Organizations have been setting up training centers because they have realized that talents have to be cultivated for them to remain useful over a long period of time. Therefore, the scarcity of talent has moved the influence from the organization to the employees because they are the ones who are responsible for the success of organizations.

References

Cross, A. (2007).Talent Management Pocketbook. Alresford: Pocketbooks.

Davis, T. (2007).Talent Assessment: A New Strategy for Talent Management, Burlington, VT: Gower Publishing.

Goldsmith, M. & Carter, L. (2010).Best Practices in Talent Management: How the World’s Leading Corporations Manage, Develop and Retain Top Talent. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons.

Schiemann, A.W. (2009). Reinventing Talent management: How to Maximize Performance in the New Market Place. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.

The Economist. (2006). A Survey on Talent. London: The Economist.

Vaiman, V. & Vance, C. (2008).Smart Talent Management: Building Knowledge Assets for Competitive Advantage. Eds. Massachusetts: Edward Elqar Publishing,

Introduction

There is no doubt that the success of any company and the degree to which its products and services satisfy target customers are inextricably connected with the way that staff members’ work is organized. In addition, defining the outcomes of the collaboration with any company for its customers, it is important to consider such factors as the level of employee happiness and the number of long-standing employees.

As for the role of long-standing employees, their vast experience and knowledge of their companies’ history allow them to teach new colleagues and avoid repeating mistakes that have caused problems with customers in the past. Unfortunately, as is clear from the reports presented by HR specialists working in our company, we are experiencing issues related to the resourcing of staff in managerial and reception roles.

According to various opinions, the resourcing problems influencing our position in the market of hotel services occur due to the necessity of specialists filling these positions to work unsociable hours paired with the extensive responsibility peculiar to these roles in our company. Due to the shortage of staff that may deal a heavy blow to our established working practices, many employees have to work extra shifts. Obviously, many employees find it extremely difficult to work in such conditions, and this is why many staff members (especially those having family problems and certain medical conditions) have to leave our company in spite of financial and employee benefits that they receive for the extra work.

Importantly, due to unsolved discrimination cases, many female employees are leaving these positions, and we are experiencing the lack of female specialists. The current report focuses on the current labor market and new employee selection and retention practices aimed at decreasing staff turnover and improving employee happiness in the company.

Current Employment Market: Trends and Changes

Obviously, the ability of our company to find and employ the most suitable candidates is highly influenced by current trends that are related to the national and international employee market. The rhythm of life and the key values of the population may change in the course of time, and it has a direct influence on people’s choice of their future professions. Apart from that, the company’s ability to find enough staff members depends on its own social image and reputation in the country where it is based and abroad.

Being based in the United Kingdom, our budget hotel chain pays close attention to providing basic services to clients who do not have large incomes and, therefore, have a very limited choice of places to stay. Despite the average income level of our target customers, we never try to cut corners on the quality of our services, and this is why we appreciate the work of our long-standing employees who know the internal structure of our company very well.

As for the current condition of the employee market in the United Kingdom, it needs to be said that the latter is gradually changing in connection with the global economic situation. The United Kingdom is believed to be one of the most popular employment performers, attracting a lot of specialists from other countries due to appropriate working conditions and relatively high wage levels in various sectors. Despite the attractiveness of the country’s labor market, our company has a lack of specialists, which is mainly attributed to the use of ineffective practices aimed at the retention of employees.

Continuing on the topic of the employment market, official statistical reports describing the current employment market in the United Kingdom claim that average labor costs and wage costs per hour have increased by more than one percent in the first half of the current year (Index of UK labor costs per hour, experimental: April to June 2017 2017). More than that, as is clear from the dynamics of labor costs in the United Kingdom, the situation is much more stable for the private sector.

The attention is to be paid to changes in labor costs associated with the particular industry – according to the discussed source, average labor costs related to accommodation services provided in the United Kingdom have increased by more than two percent during the present year. As for other tendencies peculiar to the labor market in the United Kingdom, the most recent statistical data approved by the government indicates that the number of people who are employed has increased since the beginning of the year, whereas the number of economically inactive citizens (those who do not want to work or cannot work) has reduced (UK labor market: September 2017 2017).

Another important tendency related to the national employment market lies in the fact that the employment rate has exceeded seventy-five percent of the able-bodied population of the United Kingdom. As the report indicates, the number of unemployed people seeking jobs does not grow anymore. Instead, it is gradually decreasing, and this fact demonstrates that more companies in the country have become able to provide appropriate working conditions and create enough jobs.

Speaking about the current employment rates in the country in connection with sex, it is important to note that the share of employed men is nine percent greater than that of employed women of working age. The document also indicates that these tendencies (increasing share of employed women) can stem from the retirement age for women that has been changed. The number of women working part-time is great if compared to the situation with men, which is due to additional household duties that are fulfilled by wives in the majority of cases.

Another topic that needs to be covered in order to solve the most urgent problems of our company is presented by trends in the international labor market. Speaking about the latter, it is important to note that the tendencies related to the international market are definitely heterogeneous due to specific situations with the workforce in other countries. Thus, the level of competition continues to grow, and there is a steady flow of English-speaking specialists from countries with lower quality of life coming to the United Kingdom in order to apply their skills.

Discussing our hotel chain and staff-related problems that may be detrimental to its business performance, it is important to note that additional measures aimed at attracting foreign specialists can improve the situation. In fact, the United Kingdom belongs to the number of the most popular destinations for people planning journeys and business trips. Therefore, the presence of foreign specialists speaking different languages such as Chinese, Spanish, or Arabic would help to improve the quality of service for foreign customers and increase employee diversity.

In general, employee markets in a large number of countries do not provide qualified specialists with an opportunity to get well-paid jobs as travel industries in their countries are not developed enough. People living and working in the United Kingdom have more opportunities to find other jobs in the travel industry, and, due to growing industry rivalry, there are many companies that can lure away those specialists who have worked for our organization, providing a more appropriate schedule of work.

Therefore, our company has to focus on current trends peculiar to the international employment market (a substantial number of people from less developed countries who would like to work in the UK and earn more) and the national market (decreased unemployment, a significant gender gap in employment rates) in order to develop new recruitment and retention strategies.

Recruitment, Selection, and Induction of Candidates

Unfortunately, there is a high staff turnover in both managerial and reception roles in our company that significantly reduces the competitive advantage of our hotel chain. In general, there are two important factors that may cause increased staff turnover and a shortage of employees: weaknesses related to recruitment strategies utilized by human resource managers in our organization and the need to improve approaches to employee retention.

The process of talent acquisition connected with managerial positions in our company should become more focused on the use of multiple search directions. Even though our hotel chain is known in the United Kingdom and other countries, it is important to think about the additional channels helping to disseminate information concerning vacancies for managers. Among the channels that our company can use to attract a range of suitable job applicants, there are websites for job seekers, recommended recruitment agencies, and social networks.

Importantly, our HR managers can introduce a new practice allowing us to motivate long-standing employees and search for new applicants for managerial positions. Thus, it is possible to use the so-called “member gets member” practice (Trost 2014).

In reference to the proposed practice, it encourages employees to disseminate information about available job positions among people they know to attract more qualified specialists. Suppose applicants turn out to be the perfect candidates, employees who have invited them to get bonuses for their contribution. In fact, the practice can be called effective as it makes interpersonal ties of employees contribute to the success of the entire company. At the same time, HR managers should not rely only on this practice as increased attention to MGM may cause competition between employees and reduce collaboration.

Recruitment, selection, and induction practices appropriate for managerial positions should be chosen in accordance with the primary value that our hotel chain supports: high-quality services. Therefore, among the requirements that appropriate candidates for managerial positions must meet, there are an increased responsibility, well-developed communication skills, a degree in business administration, and professional experience in the field.

More than that, considering that these positions are inextricably connected with changing circumstances and unexpected situations, suitable candidates should be encouraged to demonstrate their creativity during job interviews. When it comes to recruitment practices that will help HR managers from our company to make all the necessary preparations, they have to conduct a job analysis in order to correct and improve job descriptions that are available to applicants.

Importantly, considering the great degree of responsibility related to managerial positions in our company, job descriptions should contain a list of spheres/aspects of the working process that new employees will have to control.

Considering that our company is not experiencing its best times, our specialists have to prepare job descriptions that would be attractive and discuss all work-related details that may cause problems after successful job interviews. In other words, it would be inappropriate to be reticent about the real position of our company as it would definitely increase staff turnover even more and have a negative impact on our social image.

Preparing accurate job descriptions, employers, and specialists who help them are supposed to provide all essential elements such as the list of responsibilities and the list of required skills and competencies for the job. As for the latter, it would be a great mistake to provide inflated requirements and, therefore, be unable to find such specialists. Instead, all the identified requirements should be divided into two groups. The first group would include qualities and competencies that any suitable candidate should have to be able to perform the discussed duties; for instance, the degree in management and at least two years of experience are the key requirements.

At the same time, the employer is able to set a range of additional requirements that can raise applicants’ chances to be chosen. These requirements can be different based on the additional tasks that managers will have to fulfill. Some employers prefer to choose managers speaking foreign languages, whereas others lean toward specialists who know a lot about human psychology and, therefore, can manipulate other people and establish effective relationships. In the given case, all managerial positions are to be analyzed in a thorough manner in order to single out additional qualities and skills that will make specialists more effective.

Having defined the key requirements and fair wages for managerial positions, our company should pay more attention to advertising (using the channels and practices that have been listed). In reference to both managers and receptionists, it is necessary to utilize a combination of channels that are commonly used (for instance, social networks or websites for job seekers) and measures aimed at motivating employees to provide HR managers with good recommendations (the so-called “member gets member” practice). In order to improve the social image of our company and attract those candidates who really want to obtain sustainable employment and contribute to the common goal, it can be important to design a new system of bonuses for employees.

Employee selection practices for the two positions in question will be basically the same, but HR managers will have to utilize different tests when conducting job interviews and making final decisions. Having chosen those applicants who possess all the necessary qualifications, it is necessary to conduct preliminary interviews to understand whether the chosen people can be invited to interviews with their potential employers.

During the next stage, applicants may be asked to fulfill certain tasks to demonstrate their skills. For instance, in the case with potential managers, such applicants can be asked to share their opinions on the further development of our hotel chain or solve a few hypothetical management problems. When it comes to receptionists, as it was previously stated, it would be a good idea to attract more specialists speaking other languages apart from English.

In fact, this will help to ensure diversity and improve the experience of our foreign guests who have difficulties when speaking English. Such applicants can be supposed to pass English tests and demonstrate the knowledge of other languages. In reference to other tests that can be used to encourage applicants for both positions to demonstrate their skills, it is possible to use creativity tests involving drawing and tests defining applicants’ implicit associations (Hilgard et al. 2014). The latter can be a great tool allowing HR managers to make conclusions concerning applicants’ key values. Final decisions related to the most suitable applicants are to be made based on the results of all tests and interviews.

Employee induction is the process that requires the concerted efforts of numerous specialists working with new employees. To ensure the successful integration of new specialists, it is necessary to design a new training program that would be focused on the following aspects: key values of the company, its structure, rules of professional conduct, communication with clients, and key problems that may occur during the work. To deliver the information on these aspects, it is necessary to use the appropriate format. Information can be illustrative if it is presented with the help of presentations, tables, graphs, or outlines. Apart from that, successful integration requires the help of coaches teaching new employees to solve specific problems.

Employee Retention

Taking into account that there is high staff turnover in our company, the employee retention strategy that we utilize must be improved. In order to improve employee retention, our specialists are supposed to introduce a few important practices whose effectiveness is confirmed in many studies. The elements chosen for the strategy are claimed to be a part of an effective employee retention model used in educational institutions in Pakistan (Bai & Bhutto 2016). Among these elements, there is the use of a new system of employee bonuses, measures aimed at improving the social-psychological climate in the company, introduction of new training practices, and enabling employees to participate in important discussions.

To begin with, the development of an appropriate employee retention strategy remains one of the most important tasks for any company as its ineffectiveness may increase staff turnover and cause financial losses. The introduction of new performance bonuses encouraging employees to do their best can become a good decision as it decreases employee turnover (Terera & Ngirande 2014). In addition, the most effective specialists should be allowed to take additional days off work when employee shortage will be estranged.

Importantly, staff turnover tends to increase when employees feel that their opinions on problems and their possible solutions are not considered. To improve the situation, it is possible to organize weekly meetings for employees and their managers where the former will be able to voice their opinions on urgent problems related to their essential tasks.

The next measure to be implemented within the frame of the proposed employee retention strategy is the use of new training practices. In particular, considering an increased risk of occupational burnout due to unsociable hours, employees will have an opportunity to meet with specialists teaching them to mitigate work-related stress.

Staff turnout can also be attributed to the inappropriate social-psychological climate in the company. Therefore, it will be necessary to create special recreation rooms for employees where they will be able to relax and communicate. It often happens that people do not want to leave their companies because of their colleagues and the atmosphere of unity and collaboration. To encourage it, our managers can utilize various teambuilding techniques.

Diversity management is another important initiative that must be taken into consideration. Knowing that female managers are leaving our company, we have to prevent cases of gender discrimination. To do that, HR managers can conduct an anonymous survey to find out whether female managers are satisfied with their working conditions. In particular, it is necessary to pay attention to the possible use of gender stereotypes during task distribution and the presence of fair wages for specialists of both sexes. Some specialists can leave our company as they feel that their cultural identities are not respected.

Therefore, another measure aimed at reducing employee turnover is the use of diversity education programs for specialists in different units of our company. Considering one of the current problems of our hotel chain, the shortage of receptionists, there is a need for flexible working initiatives for employees. Thus, the number of part-time employees may need to be increased. This measure is especially important when it comes to employees who have small children or other relatives who need care.

Conclusion

In the end, as is clear from the specific problems peculiar to our hotel chain, our management should pay more attention to measures aimed at improving sourcing and retention strategies. As for the practices related to recruitment, selection, and induction of specialists who are ready to work as managers and receptionists, the proposed strategy involves the improvement of job descriptions and the use of multi-stage recruitment procedures.

More than that, among the tools that are proposed to be used to evaluate applicants and make final decisions, there are psychological tests, hypothetical management problems to be solved, and tests measuring the language competence of foreign specialists. When it comes to advertising, it is necessary to involve employees in the process of information dissemination; thus, the “member gets member” practice can be used. In terms of retention, the proposed strategy includes four important elements: employee training, employee value, psycho-social climate, and improved bonus system.

Reference List

Bai, S & Bhutto, M 2016, ‘HRM practices in improving employee retention in Pakistan, where employee value as a focal point,’ Journal of Economics, Business and Management, vol. 4, no. 12, p. 677-682.

Hilgard, J, Bartholow, BD, Dickter, CL & Blanton, H 2014, ‘Characterizing switching and congruency effects in the Implicit Association Test as reactive and proactive cognitive control,’ Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, vol. 10, no. 3, pp. 381-388.

Index of UK labor costs per hour, experimental: April to June 2017 . 2017. Web.

Terra, SR & Ngirande, H 2014, ‘The impact of rewards on job satisfaction and employee retention,’ Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, vol. 5, no. 1, p. 481.

Trost, 2014, Talent relationship management: competitive recruiting strategies in times of talent shortage, Springer Science & Business, New York.

UK labour market: September 2017. 2017. Web.

Introduction: Overview and Identification of the Crucial Issues

Talent Management: “Giving the ‘Old Wine in New Bottles’ a New Taste”

Building a team of successful employees who are confident, both about their opportunities in the company, and the chances for professional and personal growth is an essential part of the talent management (TM) process. Therefore, although training programs that offer employees a rapid increase in the quantity and the quality of competencies possessed by the staff members are essential, it is also imperative to offer the people working for the company options for career growth.

Although Nordkalk, a company operating on Finnish cultural premises and the corresponding concepts of professional development, does offer its staff members extensive options for improving their competencies and acquiring new skills, it blocks young professionals’ access to career promotion, which discourages staff members and, therefore, may serve as a factor in a drastic drop in the firm’s performance.

Therefore, there is an urgent need for the redesign of the current HR approach toward TM-related issues. More importantly, the entire concept of TM, as well as the company’s corporate philosophy, will have to be revisited and changed slightly to allow the framework to incorporate an opportunity for the employees to be heard. Unless the needs of the staff members, an essential segment of the company’s stakeholders, are heard, motivation rates are going to plummet, leading to the untimely and unavoidable demise of the organization. A more detailed focus on the staff’s needs, along with a thorough analysis of the feedback retrieved from them, will serve as the foundation for building a more compelling framework.

Differences between the Program and Human Resource Management

On the one hand, the program designed by the Nordkalk HR managers can be deemed as moderately sensible. Aimed at locating the gaps in people’s knowledge and abilities, this program empowers employees to acquire the requisite competencies within a relatively short amount of time, serving as a reminder of their ability to excel in their domain.

The human resource management (HRM) approach used by Nordkalk as the tool for enhancing employees’ performance, however, leaves much to be desired, as it discourages the employees in the way it points to the impossibility of gaining a promotion, based on the firm’s culture, values, and policies.

As stressed above, the focus of the program is primarily on the opportunities for professional growth that the employees will supposedly experience after they enroll in one of the courses suggested, and participate in the corresponding activities. As the program ends, however, the participants find themselves engaged in a competition so fierce that there is scarcely any possibility of winning it. As a result, the employees become easily frustrated and thus, lose a considerable part of their enthusiasm, even after acquiring the skills guaranteed by the program.

Considering the reasons for the phenomenon mentioned above to occur, one must address the company’s concept of talent management. According to the definition supported by the leaders of the organization, as well as forming the foundation for the TM programs, talent is an intrinsic ability that cannot be fostered in the employees and, instead, can only be supported. While attempting to be nondiscriminatory, the term “competence management,” which the entrepreneurship leaders use instead of TM, limits the chances for staff members to excel in their competencies as well as develop talents.

As a result, the current programs, split into three types in accordance with the positions that an employee may take at Nordkalk, though aimed at increasing competency, in fact, instead have the actual effect of discouraging the people who enroll in them.

Talent Management as a Practice with a Long-Term Development Focus

Increasing Organizational Performance and Human Capital Advantage

It would be wrong to claim, though, that the programs suggested to the staff members by Nordkalk are entirely pointless. On the contrary, they serve as perfect tools for promoting the idea of consistent personal and professional progress among the employees, thereby triggering an immediate rise in the value of the company’s human capital. In addition, the programs may serve to cause a rapid rise in the employees’ loyalty levels. Indeed, when prompted to feel that they are valued by the organization and that Nordkalk is ready to invest in their growth, the employees are likely to improve their performance within the organization. As a result, the company’s human capital may become the key competitive advantage of the entrepreneurship.

However, the corporate philosophy, based on the Finnish idea of talent as an innate characteristic and, therefore, leading to a lack of opportunities for promotion, can be considered a significant impediment in enhancing enthusiasm among staff members. Consequently, the human capital advantage of entrepreneurship will increase consistent with the adoption of the identified tool.

Seeing that the emphasis on the significance of the long-term practice of development is primarily important for the staff members, as it leads them to acquire relevant knowledge and information on a regular basis without the assistance of the managers or any other superior figure, it can be considered a crucial tool in designing the increase in the human capital advantage. First and most obvious, the employees become more independent in their work.

As a result, they are capable of making essential decisions based not only on their own needs but also the needs of the company. At this point, the importance of promoting the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) becomes a factor. Indeed, the process of increasing organizational performance can be enhanced by encouraging the program aimed at reinforcing the concept of CSR and lifelong learning (LL) among the staff members.

While the former will serve as a foil for the participants to develop a better understanding of corporate needs and ethics, the latter will become the foundation for the enhancement of independent learning and therefore, increase their competencies on a regular basis. The long-term development focus thus creates the impression of consistency and reinforces the idea of professional and economic security among the staff members.

However, without substantive proof supporting the idea that the staff’s efforts are valued, e.g., the provision of certain benefits such as an increase in salary, as well as a job promotion, the efficacy of the long-term development program is nullified. At this point, the corporate culture that the current framework is built on needs to be brought up. As stressed above, the idea of only certain, choice people having assets that can be developed into talents can be seen not only as discriminatory to the staff members who are viewed as “talentless,” but also harmful to the company, because of the number of chances that the entrepreneurship managers overlook.

Therefore, if viewing the programs as the gradual process of fostering required skills among staff members, based on their unique assets, they are likely to work quite well. However, for the programs to have an effect, they should offer a chance to all stakeholders involved to receive the relevant information, and not only to those who are credited as talented by the company HR managers.

Opaque Competency Development: Where the Company Went Wrong

Essential benefits: what the staff members should not know

By preventing the staff members from learning about their success in the acquisition of competencies, the managers create premises for even greater progress. There is always a threat that, in reaching a relatively high mark, an employee will feel that their current amount of knowledge is enough. By focusing on the gaps in people’s knowledge, as opposed to the appraisal of what they have achieved, the firm creates an environment in which people are always ready to learn more, and where they never consider a certain amount of information or a specific number of skills to be enough.

The identified framework is especially important for participants who are unwilling to accept the concept of lifelong learning and are ready to quit as soon as they feel that they have learned a new skill. Preventing similar situations, the entrepreneurship managers allow the employees to experience the full extent of their abilities and stretch their intellectual muscles so that the members of the company are able to understand the significance of consistent training and the unceasing acquisition of necessary knowledge and relevant skills.

In addition, the lack of focus on the achievements of the people involved also sets the background for a drop in the levels of competition among the staff, thus helping the latter focus on delivering good performance, as opposed to an increasing and potentially harmful rivalry. One must admit that the introduction of a certain modicum of competitiveness into the environment of an average workplace may serve as a booster for the employees to deliver even better performance.

The ethical foundation for the rivalry, however, will be very flawed in the specified case. Consequently, it is expected that the participants may resort to comparatively unethical choices in order to attain a higher score in their performance, which is highly undesirable, given the need to encourage CSR among the staff. Even considering the fact that the chances of corporate fraud are relatively small in the identified setting, the introduction of competition as a part and parcel of the corporate environment does not seem sensible at the given stage of the employees’ ethical and professional development.

Obvious disadvantages: in desperate need of encouragement

One must admit, though, that the strategy used currently in the organization may lead to a drastic drop in staff members’ motivation rates. People need encouragement, as well as information that will point to a further course for personal and professional development, which the current opaque strategy does not provide. As stressed above, the idea of long-term development, which is evidently important for both the staff members and the organization at the identified stage of its development, requires regular encouragement (Chalofsky 2014).

Although the process of learning and development does shape the corporate culture in a very distinct and exact manner, it nevertheless requires a very specific environment to foster the necessary ideas in the staff members. The specifics of the Finnish culture, which do not recognize the idea of talent as a singular phenomenon and, instead, prefer to stratify company members into high- and low-potential categories, in their turn, serve as a major obstacle in people’s way, with respect to their being inspired and acquiring new competencies and skills.

The fact that the traditions of the Finnish culture do not imply the provision of any kind of feedback, let alone praise, aggravates the situation to an even greater degree. The focus on self-development in the context of the current TM program could work unless the company foisted its idea of the absence of feedback and public reward onto the target audience. Though the staff realizes the specific reasons that underlie the current framework of the organization’s HR strategy, this fact does not help, either. On the contrary, understanding that the approach is based on Finnish cultural traditions and therefore, unlikely to be changed in the observable future, causes people to become even more desperate and thus, tackle their work with even less enthusiasm.

Talent Pools and Their Effects on the Employees: Reducing Dissatisfaction Levels

Evaluation of the Current Approach to Employment Relations Management

Even though the situation described above can be thought of as somewhat desperate, the provision of talent pools as a means of proving that Nordkalk cares about its employees can be interpreted as a slight improvement. However, recent interviews with high-potential employees chosen as participants have shown that the outcomes are not viewed as satisfactory by a range of staff members.

A second look at the specifics of the talent pool has made it evident that the opinions of the participants were not taken into consideration, even though the employees selected for the program were regarded as high-potential. In other words, the lack of focus on the actual needs of the staff, and the unwillingness to hear the voice thereof, is the greatest problem of the people managing the program and the leaders of the entrepreneurship.

Indeed, from the tenets of the Harvard Model of HRM (Bratton & Gold 2012), the lack of feedback demonstrated by the managers and the corporate leaders is deplorable. Instead of listening to what the people had to say, the organizers of the event were acting based on what they thought the employees needed. The lack of analysis of the participants’ impressions when the program concluded could also be considered a substantial mistake, since it left the employees with the feeling that the program was meant, not for their benefit, but for the good of the organization.

The employment relationships in the TM initiative, therefore, were managed in a relatively disorganized way. The outcomes of the program could easily have been much better and might have left the participants much more satisfied if more thought had been introduced into the design of the feedback between the participants and the managers. In particular, one possible recommendation would have been a short interview with each of the members after the completion of a new stage of the program had been carried out.

Alternatively, personal feedback submitted in written form and analyzed carefully, with the further provision of a detailed response, could have been a decent solution to the dilemma. Instead, Nordkalk managers assumed that they were aware of their staff’s needs to a greater degree than the participants themselves. The dents in the corporate ethics and philosophy served as the foundation for a rapid increase in staff dissatisfaction levels.

TM Initiatives and the Psychological Contract: Overview and Possible Suggestions

The use of the program mentioned above, though failing to increase motivation levels among the staff, nevertheless served as a foil for developing an understanding of why the staff members felt uncertain and often frustrated about the company’s current policies. As the interview with one of the employees has shown, the people taking part in the program, including the managers, realized the gravity of giving and receiving feedback.

The revelation made by the people participating in the program can be considered a major step forward in improving the relationships between the company managers and the staff members. Particularly, the importance of a psychological contract between the identified stakeholders has been accepted and is likely to be incorporated into the company’s further HR strategy.

Naturally, assuming that personal interviews, carried out frequently, are a possibility would be a stretch. Although interviews with the entirety of 400 people are possible, communicating in this fashion with every member on a regular basis is not. With this in mind, the company may consider a quantitative assessment of surveys distributed among the employees every month as a possible tool for identifying people’s needs and creating the environment in which these needs could be met.

Furthermore, the significance of a psychological contract between the employees and the managers must be enhanced. Although the idea of carrying out surveys does seem comparatively efficient, it is desirable that every staff member should feel a personal connection with the manager. The identified requirement can be implemented in the context of the company by splitting the staff into several groups (e.g., each group containing 15-20 participants) and assigning a manager to coordinate the relationships in each group. As a result, the analysis of the information supplied by the employees, as well as the subsequent provision of feedback, will be carried out in a much more efficient and expeditious manner (Amabile & Kramer 2013).

Managers and Their Understanding of the Gravity of Incompliance with the TM Framework

Encouraging Line Managers to Be More Active: Promotion of New Corporate Values and Ethics

Apart from pointing out the flaws in the company’s HR strategy design, the evaluation has also indicated that the HR managers designing the corresponding programs for the participants and coordinating the relationships in the workplace, in fact, significantly lack people-management skills. Therefore, the emphasis should also be shifted toward promoting the acquisition of people-management skills among the company’s managers.

The identified issues are concerned with not merely summarizing the key specifics of the employees’ performance, but also giving an evaluation of the employees’ actions so that the target audience could determine the areas that they should work on. Despite the promotion of self-directed learning among the members of the company, the importance of an outside assessment is not to be underrated, either.

The changes mentioned above can be carried out with only a slight change in the current design of the company’s ethics and philosophy. First and most obvious, the importance of staff satisfaction must be understood and accepted by every single manager. Next, it will be essential to replace the current promotion system with a new one that will give the employees an opportunity to experience career growth.

Additionally, the employees should be introduced to the idea of CSR at the same time as they are made aware of the options for career advancement. Once knowing that they, in fact, can pursue professional growth in the context of the corporate hierarchy, the employees are likely to accept the new philosophy and start acquiring the corresponding competencies, abilities, and ideas quite eagerly (Williams 2013).

Role of HR in Promoting a Better Understanding of the Effects of Line Managers on the Talent Management Processes

There is no need to stress the fact that the HR representatives are going to have a key role in enhancing the line managers’ understanding of TM processes. To be more accurate, the HR experts will have to focus on designing the philosophical framework and the tools for shaping the strategies adopted by the managers to help them prepare for the change. For instance, the concept of fairness must be included in the operation of processing the feedback retrieved from the staff.

On a larger scale, the entire concept of feedback must be altered so that line managers will be able to appreciate the data that the staff provides to them, and appreciate their readiness to cooperate. Since the idea of feedback as something excessive is incorporated into the very basis of Finnish philosophy and ethics, changing the mind frame of the company’s line managers is going to be a challenge.

Therefore, it will be the task of the HR experts to design a strategy that will compel the line managers to reconsider their current approach toward TM and instead, view feedback and its analysis as an essential step toward improving the performance of the organization. For this purpose, Kotter’s 8-stage change model could be used as the means of gradually introducing line managers to the new philosophy, while helping them accept the fact that communication between the staff and the employer must be consistent (Huchinson & Purcell 2007).

Specifically, the first stage will involve sending a message concerning the urgency of the change, which can be done by altering corporate values toward the recognition of the needs of the staff and the significance of feedback. A change in the set of requirements for the employees, with an emphasis on consistent development, should be viewed as the second part of the process. Forming a strategic vision and inviting people to take part in the change can be deemed as the third and the fourth steps.

Next, cultural prejudices will have to be addressed to remove all barriers, a set of objectives for short-term wins will have to be designed, and the further progress of the staff will have to be supported with incentives and appraisals. Finally, the change will be instituted by giving the expected raise to the participants of the programs and enabling them to engage in self-development (Benson 2014).

Conclusion: When a Company Needs to Get Its Priorities Straight

Creating an environment that will convince staff members to develop new skills and abilities, as well as focus on improving their current performance and delivering results of the best possible quality, will only become an opportunity in entrepreneurship that will recognize its staff’s equality and be ready to hear the employees’ voices. In particular, it is imperative that Nordkalk should deviate from its traditional, Finnish-culture-inspired set of values that dismiss the phenomenon of talent.

By considering talent as something intrinsic, and therefore, singling out specific employees for distinct purposes, the company disregards the opportunity for their personal and professional growth, and therefore, blocks their way to any kind of progress.

More importantly, by failing to hear the opinions of the staff members, the company fails to acquire the necessary feedback to shape current HR approaches so that they serve the needs of the staff members. As a result, dissatisfaction rates are increasing. Unless Nordkalk starts viewing the process of retrieving and analyzing the feedback from its key stakeholders, the staff members being one of the latter, the entrepreneurship will not be able to progress.

In other words, Nordkalk will have to view the needs of the employees as one of the most important issues to address, along with the needs of its customers. Similarly, the training process should trigger tangible outcomes, such as a promotion or the provision of financial incentives. Even more important, the firm should consider designing training courses that will be shaped to meet the professional needs and expectations of the people employed in the company.

Thus, staff satisfaction levels are likely to rise quickly, along with the performance efficacy of the staff. Moreover, the identified approach may serve as a foundation for enhancing the significance of CSR and corporate ethics aimed at customer satisfaction and reduction of waste among the employees. As soon as the needs of the latter are recognized, Nordkalk will be able to enter a new stage of development and become even more efficient.

Reference List

Amabile, T, & Kramer, S 2013, The progress principle: using small wins to ignite joy, engagement, and creativity at work, Harvard Business Press, Harvard, MA.

Benson, V 2014, Cutting-edge technologies and social media use in higher education, IGI Global, New York, NY.

Bratton, J, & Gold, J 2012, Human resource management: theory and practice, Palgrave, New York, NY.

Chalofsky, N F 2014, Handbook of human resource development, John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY.

Huchinson, S, & Purcell, J 2007, Learning and the line: the role of line managers in training, learning and development. Web.

Williams, O F 2013, Corporate social responsibility: The role of business in sustainable development, Routledge, New York, NY.