Topics

1651

Employee Engagement / Hewitt Employee Engagement Measure

« on: April 25, 2012, 04:15:31 PM »

Headquartered in Lincolnshire, Illinois in United States, Hewitt Associates was a global management consulting and HR outsourcing firm. Established in 1940, the firm delivered a wide range of HR and management services to the companies across the world to in managing their Human resource operations, policies and procedures, enhancing the level of employee engagement and involvement and improving their overall management.

The firm later on in 2010 was purchased by Aon Corporation and since then the new subsidiary of Aon Group is known as Aon Hewitt.

Hewitt conducted a research on employee engagement in year 2007 and published a report mentioning that the best employers have earned their ranks and reputation because of high level of employee engagement. The study revealed that more than 77 percent of the employees were actively engaged in highly productive organizations as compared with 50 percent at other organizations.

Hewitt included almost 10,000 employees working in Canada in more than 120 organizations in the survey and revealed some specific traits of the best employers. These traits included the lower turnover rates, better financial platform and ease of attracting new talent. The consulting firm revealed the fact that employee engagement is not only about creating loyal or satisfied employees but it extends to the state of intellectual and emotional involvement and a strong sense of commitment of the workforce.

Specific Traits of the Best Employers

    Ease of Attracting New Employees

    The best employers have an easy access to the best industry talent. Because of their reputation, they can attract more than 100 applications for each job posted whereas an average company doesn’t receive more than 30 applications for a particular job.

    This is the ratio when a job is advertised externally. When it comes to employee references, they have ample choices and therefore, have a strict internal employee reference policy; whereas, this is hardly the case with average employers. They may have choices but the number of references is very low.

    Low Employee Turnover Rates

    It was found out that the rate of voluntary employee turnover rate for full time employees was approximately 9 percent with the best employers. When it comes to part-time or home-based jobs, the employee turnover rate was around22 percent.

    An average organization faces approximately 13 percent voluntary employee turnover annually for full time staff whereas for home-based or part-time staff the percentages goes up to 34 percent.

    Better Financial Platform

    Higher employee engagement levels in best companies benefit their financial status ultimately. When employees are completely engaged in their jobs, they are more productive. They are able to fulfill all customer requirements plus handle all their queries and issues with complete enthusiasm. This in turn increases the customer loyalty towards the organization.

    The study revealed that the annual growth rate in service and sales experienced by the best employers was 13 percent approximately whereas average employers experienced an increase of only 5 percent in their net sales.

Although the study was conducted in year 2007, but it still holds its effectiveness in the current scenario also. It has been a challenge in front of the managers to increase the employee engagement levels and take their organization to the next level.

1652

Employee Engagement / Hygiene and Motivation Factors for Employee Engagement

« on: April 25, 2012, 04:11:58 PM »

Employee engagement has been linked with almost every aspect of management in some or other form. Although there are not enough evidences to support a direct relationship between them but several factors show that they are indirectly connected with each other. In the same way, the hygiene and motivation factors have also been associated with employee management. In fact, they have proven to be dependable and unswerving predictors of the level of involvement and engagement of employees towards their jobs.

Motivation factors are intrinsic conditions that influence the level of employee engagement. They have the ability to satisfy one’s own psychological needs including sense of achievement, personal and professional growth, proficiency and status in the organization. The psychological fulfillment at any stage of an individual’s career plays a vital role in determining his or her involvements and commitment towards their work as well as the organization.

Hygienic factors, on the other hand, are considered the extrinsic conditions that motivate employees to perform their best and feel committed towards their work. The factors such as working conditions, organizational culture, remuneration, perks and benefits, job security and relationship with colleagues and subordinates and immediate supervisors play an important role and make them stay within the organization and grow with it.

Motivation Factors

    Recognition: It is the prime responsibility of an organization to recognize the efforts made by employees. Along with its HR department and a reputed management firm, it should establish a well-defined reward and recognition program.

    Employee Empowerment: Employees should be given an autonomy to make their work related decisions. This helps them perform the task in the best possible manner. Moreover, this gives them a platform to be creative and perform an assigned task in a unique manner.

    Career Progression: The talent is attracted to work with only those organizations that can help them build up a career. Organizations must have clear and well defined policies regarding the career progression of its employees.

    Personal and Professional Growth: This is something that motivates employees to work harder and perform their best. If they see their personal and professional growth with the organization, they will stay and develop a feeling of belongingness towards the organization.

    Interesting and Challenging Work: Different tasks must be assigned to employees at different times. Managers should try to assign them interesting and challenging tasks that motivates them to do something different from their routine job and feel a sense of achievement.

    Sense of Achievement: Last, but not the least, the sense of achievement gives psychological fulfillment to any individual at the end of the day. Organizations can help their employees achieving this feeling by recognizing and rewarding their efforts.

Hygiene Factors

    Remuneration and Benefits: The wages and additional benefits are the first requirement to attract a pool of talent and actively engage them in their jobs.

    Job Security: Individuals want to associate themselves with only those organizations where they can have job security. Highly productive and most reputed private firms are far more popular than government sector companies just because they offer good compensation, job security and excellent working conditions.

    Relationships with Peers, Subordinates and Seniors: It is the basic need of an individual to belong and to be belonged. Cordial relationship with other employees at the workplace creates a positive work environment. Employees do not hesitate in offering or seeking help from others to execute an assigned task in the best possible manner.

    HR Policies and Procedures: HR policies and procedures of a company reveal a lot about its working. Companies with well defined HR policies attract a bigger pool of talent as well as is successful in keeping their employees actively engaged.

1653

Employee Engagement / How Employee Engagement helps in Change Management ?

« on: April 25, 2012, 04:09:30 PM »

Various independent and organisation based studies have revealed that employee engagement is the heart and soul of the change management process. Multiple researches at highly productive and reputed organisations seeking new competitive advantages in this ever changing business environment have exposed that the higher level of engagement, involvement and dedication of employees is the primary requirement to successfully implement a change initiative taken by the management.

Most of the employees are reluctant to change and there can be various reasons behind it. But if an organisation is not considering implementing and bringing change just for the sake of it, it needs to take the reluctance of employees in to account and take essential steps to help them understand its necessity and benefits in a manner that brings positive results. The dedicated employees who always look forward to take challenges may not be as much reluctant as ‘not engaged’ and disengaged employees. Translating employee reluctance in their keenness is so important to bring the required change and establish it until the next is required.

While there is no single clear link between employee engagement and change management but various themes and interpretations can be extracted depending upon the studies and researches conducted by the organisations and change management experts. It is believed that the greater the employees are engaged, the more likely they would go an extra mile to deliver the best performance and adopt various changes implemented in the organisation. Their fondness towards the organisation, their dedication towards their work, their keenness to achieve more and their job satisfaction support all business processes that are related to bring a change. If employees are actively engaged in their job, they will readily support the change management initiative taken by the management.

Employee engagement has been listed as a primary requirement to the success of a change management process. Of course, a proper communication channel and vigilant project management are the backbone of any business function. But where employee engagement, involvement, dedication, ownership and accountability are built, things become relatively easier. However, it doesn’t mean that organisation can take it easy and assume that engaged employees will always welcome a change initiative. The moment they feel that it is not bringing a positive change in their way of working, organisational culture, work environment or their overall personality development, they will be reluctant to take it further and be a part of it.

The organisation needs to carefully communicate it so that employees interpret in the similar manner as it has been communicated. Until both top management and employees are on the same side and think alike about a specific change initiative, it is almost impossible to take it to the next level and implement it. The organisations can’t dictate their terms; rather they will have to welcome suggestions and ideas from the employees and strike a right balance in order to implement it. No matter how small or big the change is, it requires careful action planning and follow-up at each step of the process.

1654

Talent Management / Talent Management - Meaning and Important Concepts

« on: April 25, 2012, 04:07:29 PM »

What if you could attract your competitor’s best employee for few extra bucks? Sounds easier than done! Attracting high-worth individuals from the competitors is not everyone’s cup of tea. Targeting them and finally hiring them is the test of your competencies experience, personal traits and brain application. This is where the strategic approach plays an important role. A full-fledged department, precisely Talent Management (a part of HRD), especially dedicated to the purpose is required to recognize, source and poach them. However the process doesn’t finish here. It is a never-ending course of action that requires continuous effort. Let’s read further to explore and understand the concept.

Talent Management, as the name itself suggests is managing the ability, competency and power of employees within an organization. The concept is not restricted to recruiting the right candidate at the right time but it extends to exploring the hidden and unusual qualities of your employees and developing and nurturing them to get the desired results. Hiring the best talent from the industry may be a big concern for the organizations today but retaining them and most importantly, transitioning them according to the culture of the organization and getting the best out of them is a much bigger concern.

Talent Management in organizations is not just limited to attracting the best people from the industry but it is a continuous process that involves sourcing, hiring, developing, retaining and promoting them while meeting the organization’s requirements simultaneously. For instance, if an organization wants the best talent of its competitor to work with it, it needs to attract that person and offer him something that is far beyond his imagination to come and join and then stick to the organization. Only hiring him does not solve the purpose but getting the things done from him is the main task. Therefore, it can be said that talent management is a full-fledged process that not only controls the entry of an employee but also his or her exit.

We all know that it’s people who take the organization to the next level. To achieve success in business, the most important thing is to recognize the talent that can accompany you in achieving your goal. Attracting them to work for you and strategically fitting them at a right place in your organization is the next step. It is to be remembered that placing a candidate at a wrong place can multiply your problems regardless of the qualifications, skills, abilities and competency of that person. How brilliant he or she may be, but placing them at a wrong place defeats your sole purpose. The process of talent management is incomplete if you’re unable to fit the best talent of the industry at the place where he or she should be.

Some organizations may find the whole process very unethical especially who are at the giving end (who loses their high-worth employee). But in this cut-throat competition where survival is a big question mark, the whole concept sounds fair. Every organization requires the best talent to survive and remain ahead in competition. Talent is the most important factor that drives an organization and takes it to a higher level, and therefore, can not be compromised at all. It won’t be exaggerating saying talent management as a never-ending war for talent!

1655

Talent Management / Benefits of Talent Management

« on: April 25, 2012, 04:06:17 PM »

Talent management can be a discipline as big as the HR function itself or a small bunch of initiatives aimed at people and organization development. Different organizations utilize talent management for their benefits. This is as per the size of the organization and their belief in the practice.

It could just include a simple interview of all employees conducted yearly, discussing their strengths and developmental needs. This could be utilized for mapping people against the future initiatives of the company and for succession planning. There are more benefits that are wide ranged than the ones discussed above. The benefits are:

    Right Person in the right Job: Through a proper ascertainment of people skills and strengths, people decisions gain a strategic agenda. The skill or competency mapping allows you to take stock of skill inventories lying with the organization. This is especially important both from the perspective of the organization as well as the employee because the right person is deployed in the right position and employee productivity is increased. Also since there is a better alignment between an individual’s interests and his job profile the job satisfaction is increased.

    Retaining the top talent: Despite changes in the global economy, attrition remains a major concern of organizations. Retaining top talent is important to leadership and growth in the marketplace. Organisations that fail to retain their top talent are at the risk of losing out to competitors. The focus is now on charting employee retention programs and strategies to recruit, develop, retain and engage quality people. Employee growth in a career has to be taken care of, while succession planning is being performed those who are on the radar need to be kept in loop so that they know their performance is being rewarded.

    Better Hiring: The quality of an organization is the quality of workforce it possesses. The best way to have talent at the top is have talent at the bottom. No wonder then talent management programs and trainings, hiring assessments have become an integral aspect of HR processes nowadays.

    Understanding Employees Better: Employee assessments give deep insights to the management about their employees. Their development needs, career aspirations, strengths and weaknesses, abilities, likes and dislikes. It is easier therefore to determine what motivates whom and this helps a lot Job enrichment process.

    Better professional development decisions: When an organization gets to know who its high potential is, it becomes easier to invest in their professional development. Since development calls for investment decisions towards learning, training and development of the individual either for growth, succession planning, performance management etc, an organization remains bothered where to make this investment and talent management just make this easier for them.

Apart from this having a strong talent management culture also determines how organization rate their organizations as work places. In addition if employees are positive about the talent management practices of the organization, they are more likely to have confidence in the future of their organization. The resultant is a workforce that is more committed and engaged determined to outperform their competitors and ensure a leadership position in the market for their organization.

1656

Talent Management / Financial Benefits of Talent Management

« on: April 25, 2012, 04:05:13 PM »

There are pros and cons of every management philosophy and the associated processes. Talent management is no exception to it. While many organizations simply decline to have it under their umbrella because it costs the exchequer, still others approve of it equally strongly as an effective people management process.

Before we discuss the financial benefits of talent management the following may be of our interest and worth a thought:

    Most of the organizations are short sighted, when it comes to people management.

    People management may not go well with pure capitalists.

    Organizations and industries are growing at a fast pace, faster than the rate at which talent is produced.

    There is dearth of talented and skilled professionals both at the top as well as bottom.

    Due to cut throat competition and a consequent lack of talented professionals the attrition rates have increased across all industries, especially so in services industry.

    Poaching has become common place; employee retention has become the Achilles heel of corporations.

All the above mentioned statements clearly indicate that the talent is unable to keep pace with the growing industry and also that the industry has failed to breed the pool of talented individuals as per its requirements. A fast industry growth meant that there would be a need for talented professionals for upcoming avenues and unfortunately corporate seemed to miss out on this. Business houses nowadays have diversified interests in different industries, employment opportunities are fast coming up but unfortunately the talent is pool is shrinking. This tells upon the finances of an organization in a big way.

Let’s see how.

Less attrition means lesser expenditure on hiring: BPO’s and start ups, for example where the attrition rate is the highest remain occupied in searching for people every now and then. Now this incurs financial losses to the organization. An organization not only pays an employee for his/her work but also spends a considerable amount on their training and development. There is transfer of skill and expertise and when the same employee leaves after a brief stint with the organization, it costs the latter.

The problem gets even worse when such a scenario occurs at the top level. An unoccupied executive position can cost an organization dearly. The solution - a proper talent management in place can solve this problem. The following facts become worth consideration here:

    New employees cost the company 30-60 % more than the existing employee in terms of compensation only.

    There is an additional cost incurred on training and developing the new individual.

    The process of recruitments itself costs an organization in a big way, right from advertising a post, to attracting talent and finally short listing and hiring someone for the job. Often there is a compromise in hiring when the need is urgent.


Organizations clearly need to look inside for solutions and design and develop better employee retention, rewards and recognition strategy. Performance management needs to be taken care of.

1657

Talent Management / Principles of Talent Management

« on: April 25, 2012, 04:03:43 PM »

There are no hard and fast rules for succeeding in execution of management practices, if you ask me. What may work wonders for one organization may ruin another one! For convenience sake however there are certain principles of Talent Management that one should follow or keep in mind.

Principle 1 - Avoid Mismatch Costs

In planning for future manpower requirements, most of the HR professionals prepare a deep bench of candidates or manpower inventory. Many of the people who remain in this bracket start searching for other options and move when they are not raised to a certain position and profile. In such a scenario it is better to keep the bench strength low and hire from outside from time to time to fill gaps. This in no way means only to hire from outside, which leads to a skill deficit and affects the organizational culture.

Such decisions can be taken by thinking about the ‘Make or Buy’ decision. Perhaps questions like - How accurate is the demand forecast? How long is the talent required? Can we afford to develop? Answers to these questions can better help the talent management to decide on whether to develop or buy talent.

Principle 2 - Reduce the Risk of Being Wrong

In manpower anticipations for future an organization can ill afford to be wrong. It’s hard to forecast talent demands for future business needs because of the uncertainty involved. It is therefore very important to attune the career plans with the business plans. A 5 year career plan looks ridiculous along with a 2 year business plan.

Further, long term development and succession plans may end up as a futile exercise if the organization lacks a firm retention strategy.

Principle 3 - Recoup Talent Investments

Developing talent internally pays in the longer run. The best way to recover investments made in talent management is to reduce upfront costs by finding alternative and cheaper talent delivery options. Organizations also require a rethink on their talent retention strategy to improve employee retention.

Another way that has emerged of late in many organizations is sharing development costs with the employees. Many of TATA companies for example sponsor their employees’ children education. Similarly lots of organizations use ‘promote then develop’ programs for their employees where the cost of training and development is shared between the two. One important way to recoup talent investments is spotting the talent early, this reduces the risk. More importantly this identified lot of people needs to be given opportunities before they get it elsewhere.

Principle 4 - Balancing Employee Interests

How much authority should the employees’ haves over their own development? There are different models that have been adopted by various corporations globally. There is ‘the chess master model’, but the flipside in this is that talented employees search for options. Organizations can also make use of the internal mobility programs which are a regular feature of almost all the top organizations.

These principles are just broader guidelines; their application varies across industries and organizational cultures.

1658

Talent Management / Talent Management Process

« on: April 25, 2012, 04:02:33 PM »

People are, undoubtedly the best resources of an organization. Sourcing the best people from the industry has become the top most priority of the organizations today. In such a competitive scenario, talent management has become the key strategy to identify and filling the skill gap in a company by recruiting the high-worth individuals from the industry. It is a never-ending process that starts from targeting people. The process regulates the entry and exit of talented people in an organization. To sustain and stay ahead in business, talent management can not be ignored. In order to understand the concept better, let us discuss the stages included in talent management process:

    Understanding the Requirement: It is the preparatory stage and plays a crucial role in success of the whole process. The main objective is to determine the requirement of talent. The main activities of this stage are developing job description and job specifications.

    Sourcing the Talent: This is the second stage of talent management process that involves targeting the best talent of the industry. Searching for people according to the requirement is the main activity.

    Attracting the Talent: it is important to attract the talented people to work with you as the whole process revolves around this only. After all the main aim of talent management process is to hire the best people from the industry.

    Recruiting the Talent: The actual process of hiring starts from here. This is the stage when people are invited to join the organization.

    Selecting the Talent: This involves meeting with different people having same or different qualifications and skill sets as mentioned in job description. Candidates who qualify this round are invited to join the organization.

    Training and Development: After recruiting the best people, they are trained and developed to get the desired output.

    Retention: Certainly, it is the sole purpose of talent management process. Hiring them does not serve the purpose completely. Retention depends on various factors such as pay package, job specification, challenges involved in a job, designation, personal development of an employee, recognition, culture and the fit between job and talent.

    Promotion: No one can work in an organization at the same designation with same job responsibilities. Job enrichment plays an important role.

    Competency Mapping: Assessing employees’ skills, development, ability and competency is the next step. If required, also focus on behaviour, attitude, knowledge and future possibilities of improvement. It gives you a brief idea if the person is fir for promoting further.

    Performance Appraisal: Measuring the actual performance of an employee is necessary to identify his or her true potential. It is to check whether the person can be loaded with extra responsibilities or not.

    Career Planning: If the individual can handle the work pressure and extra responsibilities well, the management needs to plan his or her career so that he or she feels rewarded. It is good to recognize their efforts to retain them for a longer period of time.

    Succession Planning: Succession planning is all about who will replace whom in near future. The employee who has given his best to the organization and has been serving it for a very long time definitely deserves to hold the top position. Management needs to plan about when and how succession will take place.

    Exit: The process ends when an individual gets retired or is no more a part of the organization.

Talent Management process is very complex and is therefore, very difficult to handle. The sole purpose of the whole process is to place the right person at the right place at the right time. The main issue of concern is to establish a right fit between the job and the individual.

1659

Talent Management / Talent Management Consulting/Outsourcing

« on: April 25, 2012, 03:59:25 PM »

Talent management, beyond an iota of confusion, is critical to organizational success. It’s equally important for innovation, customer satisfaction, profitability and new product development of the organization. All go hand in hand. People are at the center of any organization. They are outside it as well as inside the same.

Unfortunately for talent management, not many organizations have realized the importance of it till date. They still consider it as an overhead, much of which may be attributed to the fact that it does not directly reflect in the balance sheet of the company. When we dwell into the reasons we find that somewhere those are the helm of affairs in HR fail to implement talent management in their organizations effectively. In addition many HR personnel either are themselves not convinced with the practice or lack the relevant skills to implement the same.

In such a scenario outsourcing is one way to look at solving the problem. The idea is that those who are best in the business will take care of the same. Talent management consulting organizations have people who are specialists in the department. After all it is very important to have a talent management strategy in place that is consistent, systematic and strategically focused. But there are pros and cons to outsourcing talent management. Let us analyze each of them.

Positive Aspects of Talent Management Consulting

Primarily organizations outsource their talent management because of underlying assumptions like - the management will be effective, efficient and result oriented, HR people will be spared of unnecessary engagement, employees can be focused in their respective domains and the like.

The following are some of the benefits or positive aspects of talent management

    Talent management consulting firms employ proven talent selection, career planning and development, people orientation and retention tools after strategizing with the top management. This is contrary to the common in-hose organizational practice which is very unsystematic and does not make use of any tools.

    They are focused unlike in-house talent management team that has other things to take care of.

Negative Aspects of Talent Management Consulting

The negative views are based on the fact that since it’s the employee data and the employees themselves that the talent management consulting deals with, there is a potential risk of the information getting leaked. However the negative aspects of talent management consulting are summarized as follows:

    Talent management consulting/outsourcing demands access to your critical organizational/people data. There is a potential risk of any consulting firm gaining insights into organizational functioning.

    Since organizations do not have a great belief upon the effectiveness of the practice they do not want to spend much on the same. There is a big cost attached to the outsourcing thing.

Organizations world over have begun to realize the importance of talent management especially after the economic downturn. Outsourced or otherwise, it is crucial for any organization that wants not only to survive but also excel in their respective sphere. The decision is theirs!

1660

Talent Management / Talent Management - Opportunities and Challenges

« on: April 25, 2012, 03:58:29 PM »

There is no dearth of professionals but there is an acute shortage of talented professionals globally. Every year b-schools globally churn out management professionals in huge numbers but how many of are actually employable remains questionable! This is true for other professions also.

The scenario is worse even in developing economies of south East Asia. Countries like U.S and many European countries have their own set of problems. The problem is of aging populations resulting in talent gaps at the top. The developing countries of south East Asia are a young population but quality of education system as a whole breeds a lot of talent problems. They possess plenty of laborers - skilled and unskilled and a huge man force of educated unemployable professionals. These are the opportunities and challenges that the talent management in organizations has to face today - dealing with demographic talent problems.

Now if we discuss the problem in the global context, it’s the demographics that needs to be taken care of primarily and when we discuss the same in a local context the problem becomes a bit simpler and easier to tackle. Nonetheless global or local at the grass roots level talent management has to address similar concerns more or less. It faces the following opportunities and challenges:

    Recruiting talent
    Training and Developing talent
    Retaining talent
    Developing Leadership talent
    Creating talented ethical culture

    Recruiting Talent

    The recent economic downturn saw job cuts globally. Those who were most important to organizations in their understanding were retained, other were sacked. Similarly huge shuffles happened at the top leadership positions. They were seen as crisis managers unlike those who were deemed responsible for throwing organizations into troubled waters. It is the jurisdiction of talent management to get such people on onboard, who are enterprising but ensure that an organization does not suffer for the same.

    Training and Developing Talent

    The downturn also opened the eyes of organizations to newer models of employment - part time or temporary workers. This is a new challenge to talent management, training and developing people who work on a contractual or project basis. What’s more big a challenge is increasing the stake of these people in their work.

    Retaining Talent

    While organizations focus on reducing employee overheads and sacking those who are unessential in the shorter run, it also spreads a wave of de motivation among those who are retained. An uncertainty about the firing axe looms in their mind. It is essential to maintain a psychological contract with employees those who have been fired as well as those who have been retained. Investing on people development in crisis is the best thing an organization can do to retain its top talent.

    Developing Leadership Talent

    Leadership in action means an ability to take out of crisis situation, extract certainty out of uncertainty, set goals and driving change to ensure that the momentum is not lost. Identifying people from within the organization who should be invested upon is a critical talent management challenge.

    Creating Talented Ethical Culture

    Setting standards for ethical behavior, increasing transparency, reducing complexities and developing a culture of reward and appreciation are still more challenges and opportunities for talent management.

(Since an opportunity is the other face of challenge and vice versa, the words challenge and opportunity have been used interchangeably in the article)

1661

Talent Management / Current Trends in Talent Management

« on: April 25, 2012, 03:57:27 PM »

If you ask me for the guidelines for talent management, my response would be the following:

    Developing employees.

    Redeploying employees.

    Retaining the best talent.

Yes, the prime focus of talent management is enabling and developing people, since the quality of an organization is determined by the people it employs and has onboard. After hiring and deploying we may say that retaining and nurturing talent is quintessential.

Talent management also known as human capital management is evolving as a discipline that encompasses process right from hiring people to retaining and developing the same. So it includes recruitment, selection, learning, training and development, competency management, succession planning etc. These are all critical processes that enable an organization to compete and stand out in the market place when managed well!

Talent management is now looked upon as a critical HR activity; the discipline is evolving every day. Let’s analyze some trends in the same.

    Talent War: Finding and retaining the best talent is the most difficult aspect of HR management. HR survey consultancies are one in their view that organizations globally are facing a dearth of talented employees and it’s often more difficult to retain them. Further research has also shown that there is clear link between talent issues and overall productivity.

    Technology and Talent Management: Technology is increasingly getting introduced into people development. Online employee portals have become common place in organizations to offer easy access to employees to various benefits and schemes. In addition employees can also manage their careers through these portals and it also helps organizations understand their employees better.

    Promoting Talent Internally: An individual is hired, when there is a fit between his abilities or skills and the requirements of the organization. The next step is enabling learning and development of the same so that he/she stays with the organization. This is employee retention. An enabled or empowered means an empowered organization.

    It is also of interest to organizations to know their skills inventories and then develop the right individual for succession planning internally.

    Population Worries Globally: World populations are either young or aging. For example, stats have it that by 2050 60% of Europe’s working population will be over 60! On the other hand a country like India can boast of a young population in the coming and present times. Population demographics are thus a disturbing factor for people managers. Still more researches have predicted that demographic changes in United States will lead to shortage of 10 million workers in the near future!

    Talent Management to rescue HR: HR has been compelled to focus on qualitative aspects equally and even more than quantitative aspects like the head count etc. Through talent management more effort is now being laid on designing and maintaining employee scorecards and employee surveys for ensuring that talent is nurtured and grown perpetually.

    Increase in Employer of Choice Initiatives: An organization’s perceived value as an employer as helps improve its brand value in the eyes of its consumer. Most importantly it helps it attract the right talent.

1662

Talent Management / Myths about Talent Management

« on: April 25, 2012, 03:56:01 PM »

Without doubt talent management is a very useful concept for organizations but unfortunately many of them look upon the former as an overhead rather than a value creating process. This can be attributed to some flaws in the implementation and some myths among HR practitioners regarding the same.

In this write up we try to unravel some of those myths and solutions of the same.

    Myth 1 - Paying higher compared to Rival Firms will stop the Employee from Leaving: Offering more compensations than rivals or above industry standard will prevent employees from leaving and will also attract the best talent.

    Reality: Paying higher than rival firms may help to a certain extent in retaining your employees. It may also help you poach certain employees from your rivals but in the long run, money fails to motivate people. Money is a hygiene factor; its absence may be a de-motivating factor but presence surely cannot be motivating for long.

    Solution: It is the day to day work, organizational culture and career progression that motivates people more on a daily basis. Analyze each employee on what motivates whom and try to align their career interests with their growth in the organization.

    Myth 2 - Rewards and Incentives only Motivate People: The first myth that we discuss here is that its rewards and incentives only that motivates people to give their hundred percent and work more productively. Consequently it’s the rewards and incentives that is at the focus of HR people.

    Reality: It is the attributes and the culture of the organization that is most likely to motivate people to work better and be happy with their jobs. Leadership and job empowerment are other factors that contribute to that happiness of employees.

    Solution: Work on making the organization a better place in terms of enriching the culture, improving senior junior relationships and of course laying due emphasis on how the employees are being compensated.

    Myth 3 - Employee Engagement is Useless: In industries where the attrition rate is low there is a common feeling prevalent that employee engagement programs are of no benefit. Further there is also a feeling that employee engagement helps only the employees and not the organization.

    Reality: There is no direct connection between levels of attrition and employee engagement. In fact employees who are engaged well are more productive and take ownership of their work. Since organizations about people, well engagement not only improves employee performance but also organizational or corporate performance. According to one recent research engaged employees perform 22 percent better, have lesser rates of absenteeism, and produce greater customer satisfactions.

    Solution: Customize engagement strategy for each employee and show the connection between employees work commitment and organizational success. Improvise key drivers such as manager’s expertise and future career opportunities and development.

    Myth 4 - Low Growth Periods do not require Employee Engagement: Organizations typically believe that low growth is an industry wise phenomenon and does not demand employee engagement. Employees are naturally left with lesser options to switch jobs.

    Reality: In absence of employee engagement the organizations stands at the risk of losing projects in hand. Continued absence of employee engagement may in fact de-motivate an employee to contribute his best.

    Solution: Employee engagement is critically required to retain and polish talent that is essential for future growth and opportunities.

1663

Talent Management / Talent Management System

« on: April 25, 2012, 03:50:48 PM »

Management systems are of strategic importance to organizations. HRMS and ERP systems are used these days in the administration of basic human resource data such as payroll, compensation, time management etc. Talent management systems are similarly used to offer strategic gains to an organization in the achievement of long term goals vis-à-vis the human capital.

Talent management systems also referred to as applicant tracking system (ATS) can either be a standalone application or embedded as part of the ERP and other HRMS system. Whereas as applicant tracking system or ATS is software typically meant to handle the recruitment needs, a talent management system or TMS may be a suite of various coherent or disparate modules that covers diverse areas rather than just one. Both are an important feature of a large number of organizations these days.

Applicant tracking system is a regular feature of all HRMS software of many large and small organizations globally. The software allows for tracking recruitment needs. This may include the database of CV’s received, shortlisted, reasons for rejection, list of interviewees, and finally those selected. ATS thus acts as a central location and database for an organization’s recruitment needs. They are developed and designed to assist organizations in better resume management. Major recruitment portals like Naukri.com, monster.com etc have tie ups with ATS software providers for support and data migration.
   

The software exists as a standalone module in small organizations where it takes care of their recruitment needs or it may be integrated into other HRMS in large corporations. The software is currently entering into small and medium enterprises by software as a service offerings (SaaS) also called as open source.

In organizations talent management system solutions typically take care of the following:

    Performance Management
    Goal Management
    Talent acquisition
    Learning management
    Succession planning
    Learning management
    Compensation management

The role is thus wide and farfetched compared to the Applicant tracking system (ATS). Both are however used interchangeably. Nowadays however its talent acquisition and performance management that seems to have gained more weight in the talent management market. The focus is now more on developing integrated talent management systems.

The problem with talent management system may be that of integrating talent management systems with other HRMS applications or software. Many vendors have so far promised varying degrees of integration of with other enterprise management software, the credibility of which still remains questionable. Many vendors also nowadays offer certifications for their claims.

Like ATS, talent management systems also became popular through the channel of software as a service (SaaS), earlier however these were typically delivered through the standard applicant service provider (ASP) delivery model.

As Steven Hankin of Mckinsey and co. described it aptly as a war for talent, lots of vendors are entering the domain of talent management to assist and integrate the same with their strategic human resource applications. Though SaaS model is affordable and less costly other channels are equally lucrative and offer more competitive avenues.

1664

Talent Management / How to Build an Integrated Talent Management Strategy

« on: April 25, 2012, 03:48:24 PM »

The human resource professionals are the cornerstone of any organizations. They not only solve business problems today but also participate in strategic aspects of the organization; talent management is one of them.

Formulation of a talent management strategy is the responsibility of the HR function. This is often done in consultation with the business function. Be it talent mapping and planning or performance, recruitment and retention the human resource professionals of the day are seeking out ways to streamline and integrate their functions with the broader business functions.

In Aditya Birla group, for example there is huge dearth of leadership positions at the top. The company is expanding globally and at a rate faster than it can grow its human capital. This has lead to talent deficit and this is common in many organizations. The problem requires a comprehensive set of solutions.

Again in the same organization as mentioned above, people are empowered very early in their careers to give them more responsibilities and build more competencies in employees. This enables to develop high potential personnel. The organization runs an internal programme IDventure where they promote entrepreneurship. You have an idea; you come forward, share and develop a comprehensive business plan. The best plan receives a support from the organization!

Needless to mention now, organizations require an integrated approach to talent management. There is a need to strategize in HR functions to enable and support the business functions. Some strategies in this direction could be:

    Aligning Business strategies with the HR strategies: Business HR is one function that is developing fast as part of the human resource department. The person is responsible for ensuring a smooth relationship between business and HR functions. They work with business heads to develop people strategies to support both short term and long term business objectives.

    Performance Planning and Evaluation: An integrated HR approach means that are uniform and standard procedures for employee performance evaluation and compensation, up and down the organization. Performance is linked to growth and the process adds value for employees to evaluate their work on their own. Indian digital disk giant Moser Baer employs such process.

    Strategic Manpower Planning: HR and Business function are interrelated. None can exist without the other. HR functions need to work in collaboration to assess current and future manpower requirements are plan for the same. They need to strategize on the approximate manpower requirements, the relevant skills and educational qualification, compensation and the like. This has to happen well in advance. Recruitment itself means a host of other activities like training and development, compensation, induction and orientation etc.

    Mapping your Talent: An ever increasing emphasis is being laid on identifying the top performing and talented employees to think of ways to develop, nurture and retain them. Further organizations also like to keep skill inventories for contingencies. As organizations realize the skills and abilities of individuals, they can then be more focused on devising means and strategies to attract, develop and retain these people.

1665

Talent Management / People Problem in Talent Management

« on: April 25, 2012, 03:39:52 PM »

Organizations globally are one in their view that managing people in a strategic priority. Yet something somewhere seems to be going wrong and research has it that it is the human factor that is big impediment in talent management processes. Is it something in the implementation or lack of people participation at the top level? Let’s try to understand.

McKinsey conducted one research in this direction in the year 2006 and found out that the obstacles preventing talent management programs from delivering business value are too human! Either the top management holds business line managers responsible for not giving enough time to the issue of people management or the executives blame the top management for failing to align their business strategies with talent management strategies.

Senior managers blame the apathy of the top management towards the issue and also that the line managers are not sufficiently committed to people development. According to the survey it was found out that 54 percent of the respondents believe that senior managers don’t spend enough high quality time on talent management. Perhaps the senior managers fail to recognize the strategic importance of the process in their business and therefore don’t see the point in spending so much time on talent management or maybe they are not managing their time well.

Business line managers, according to the survey are equally responsible. Fifty two percent of those interviewed contributed that line managers were not sufficiently committed to people development. Understandably because lower the organizational hierarchy the focus remains more on the present than on the future; additionally it was also found out that line managers do not want to differentiate their employees are top, average and underperformers. Add more to it, forty five percent reasoned that the managers failed to deal with the underperformers.

Another forty five percent people in the survey believed that some part of it could be attributed to silo thinking i.e. focusing on the interests of only one part of the organization. Silo thinking results in immobility of talent across the organization and also hinders knowledge sharing across various departments.

Apart from the above mentioned factors succession planning and lack of understanding of critical jobs in the employees is another impediment to talent management.

The Solution

We may begin from the bottom or start from the top, because both have a stake. Beginning from the bottom would mean performance management for line managers and employees with self service convenience. Performance management systems with superior user experience will increase the use of the system. Business line managers need to be trained on various aspects of delegation and dealing with underperformance and reporting the same. Employee rotation within the organization may help and this needs to be conveyed.

Similarly a top down approach would mean aligning talent management strategy to the business strategy. Intelligent reporting system has some answers perhaps because the results are seen immediately. If the problem is of conviction and belief in talent management as strategic tool rather than a mere cost center, perhaps intelligent reporting may solve it for the organization. For talent management to be successful a though participation and belief in required up and down the organization hierarchy.