Talent Management (Essay Sample)

TALENT MANAGEMENT
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Introduction
Talent management as a concept has been part of business organizations for over 50 years. Some common terms that have been synonymously used to refer to talent management include human resource planning, talent strategy, internal development, management development, and succession management (Mellahi & Collings 2010). Several authors in the field of business believe that the main concept behind human resource management is talent management. Currently, more and more organizations have increased focus on developing career development plans that enhance employee motivation as well as create and maintain organizational excellence (Tarique and Schuler 2010). To realize this goal, an organization must identify the most effective approaches that can be used in analyzing, planning and eventual development of talent based organization in order to ensure the organization meets both its present and future goals (Lewis & Heckman 2006). Talent management is an essential tool for organizational competitiveness and organization performance. This paper presented an overview of talent management with a specific focus on the need to adopting talent management, talent management strategies, and the role of leadership in talent management
Talent Management as an Organizational Practice
The major area of research in the field of talent management is the talent shortage (Scullion et al. 2007; App et al. 2012) and its implication on the human resource management practices in business organizations (Romans et al. 2006). Evidence suggests that the recent economic turmoil is associated with the inability of business organizations to effectively manage talents (Beechler & Woodward 2009). Thus, in the recent past, more organizations have been involved in human capital management efforts. The main approach for talent management is through identification and nurturing skills that will be important in sustaining future competitiveness of an organization (Love & Singh 2011). According to a study by Lewis and Heckman (2006), successful talent management must be broad-based, strategic, and connected. Thus, talent management practices cover activities such as succession planning, talent review, talent retention, training and development, staffing, recruitment, gap analysis and evaluation. As a result, for an organization to sustain and improve on its performance, and deal with the current dynamic business environment, all this processes must be aligned with the organization’s business strategies (Mellahi & Collings 2010). Furthermore, the organization must identify, attract, and retain key employee competencies and future management skills. An organization’s present employees as well as prospective employees must be screened using organizations human resource department life cycle and future growth prospects to ensure their capabilities are adjusted to be in line with future organizational needs.
Organizational Capabilities and Talent Development
Numerous research studies have established a link between strategic human resource management and competence development (Scullion et al. 2007; App et al. 2012). According to Beechler and Woodward (2009), leadership can be developed if an organization’s human resource strategy for talent management is appropriately used. Moreover, this can provide effective support for the development of organizational capabilities and learning initiative among the employees (Romans et al. 2006).
Other than training and development of individual skills and raising the educational standards of employees in an organization, capacity and capability building also involves creating an enabling environment that is supported by effective organization, policy, and legal frameworks that ensure sustained recognition, development and use of employee capabilities (Strack et al. 2008). An organization should. The process of developing capability should be institutional, organizational, and human resource to ensure effectiveness and comprehensiveness (Tarique and Schuler 2010).
The main reason that has made the need for talent management to be essential in promoting sustained competitiveness in an organization is the current global skill shortage (Allen & de Grip 2012; App et al. 2012). Therefore, this makes the process of attracting and retaining employees challenging to more organizations. The problem of employee retainance emanates from the current global demographic makeup where most of the working population are aging (Scullion et al. 2007; Strack et al. 2008) with most of the employees approaching retirement age. More so, the current skills in the market have focused on specific interests, which have resulted to skill gaps as very few people have undergone training in some areas of employment (Love & Singh 2011). Furthermore, business organizations have formulated a variety of talent management strategies aimed at overcoming the current skill shortages in the job market (Allen & de Grip 2012). Organizations are focused on attracting and holding on to young talents in the job market.
Another factor that makes the need of talent management imperative to business organizations is the nomenclature of Generation Y, which has brought different career and work attitude. The current job market is filled with individuals that are high performers but require high maintenance (Eisner 2005). Bearing in mind that many of the current employees really value their own worth makes it even challenging to manage such employees and sustain their motivation. Such employees have heightened desire to shift jobs and develop a work/life balance. Thus, managing such employees requires the use of both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation at work (Strack et al. 2008). As employee retention becomes an important aspect for sustained competitiveness of an organization, the changes in expectations and values of the current workforce makes the process of recruitment and management of talent more challenging young employees are clearly aware of their worth increasing their bargaining power (Tarique and Schuler 2010).
Thus, it is important to ensure employees of all ages in an organization are effectively motivated to ensure the current and future supply of human capital is well managed. In dealing with such issues, several employers have opted to offering new recruits accelerated career development and promotions as a form of intrinsic motivation for attracting and retaining young talents (Allen & de Grip 2012). Other common employee motivation packages include flexible work arrangements, family-friendly working conditions, numerous leave opportunities, and educational support (Romans et al. 2006). For, instance, employees may be allowed to adopt a flexible working environment where they can work from home for some tasks to offer them more time to spend with family hence increasing their job satisfaction level.
Therefore, there are three major factors that have emerged in the business environment that can only be dealt with through adopting talent management as part of the human resource management strategies. These factors include changing attitudes among new employees towards work and its structure, changing demographics and shortage of latent in the job market (Allen & de Grip 2012). As a result, for an organization to manage these three factors effectively, it must adopt talent management strategies that are focused on attracting, developing, retaining, and mobilizing workforce to ensure they promote and sustain competitiveness of an organization (Eisner 2005)
Talent Management Strategies
Due to increased dynamism in the current business environment, organizations are forced to make fast and better decisions in talent management stages including recruitment, assessment, and compensation. This has resulted to the formation of a variety of talent management strategies at organizational level. There are three major areas in talent management that determines the strategy to be adopted in talent management, namely recruiting, developing, and retaining (Khoo et al. 2009). Various factors at organizational level determine the talent management strategy to be adopted. For instance, an aging population encourages business organizations to employ developing and training strategies in facilitating the transfer of skills and knowledge from aging employees to the younger employees (Hailey at al. 2005). The approach in which the talent management strategy is utilized is also influenced by organizational environment. For example, an organization that has a shortage of skilled employees will employ in-house learning activities as an approach for developing talent within the organization (Analoui 2007). Additionally, the approach an organization adopts in evaluating its talent influences the strategy adopted in talent management. Just to mention, an organization that is undergoing changes that affect job structures for the employees will force the organization to adopt talent evaluation policy that is more frequent due to increased uncertainty of job tenures. Thus, to be able to fully analyze the talent management strategies it is necessary to analyze with reference to specific areas of talent management
Attracting Talent
Analysis of studies on attracting talent revealed three major talent management strategies, namely talent planning and exploitation, insistent talent sourcing and HRM reputation (Analoui 2007). Talent planning involves the identification of future talent requirements in an organization (Romans et al. 2006). According to research, organizations at this level focus on personalities, abilities, skills, and knowledge that will be required in the organization as identified by organizational corporate strategies (Khoo et al. 2009). Talent planni...