1. 9/6/13 How Singapore firms can win the war for talent | Singapore Business Review
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How Singapore firms
can win the war for
talent
BY PROF SATTAR BAWANY
In 1997, a ground breaking McKinsey study exposed
the "war for talent" as a strategic business challenge
and a critical driver of corporate performance. Then,
when the dot-com bubble burst and the economy
cooled, many assumed the war for talent was over. It's
not.
Subsequently in 2001, the authors of the original study
revealed that, because of enduring economic and social
forces, the war for talent will persist for the next two
decades. McKinsey & Company consultants Ed
Michaels, Helen Handfield-Jones, and Beth Axelrod
argued that winning the war for leadership talent is all
about much more than frenzied recruiting tactics.
It's about the timeless principles of attracting,
developing, and retaining highly talented managers -
applied in bold new ways. And it's about recognising
the strategic importance of human capital because of
the enormous value that better talent creates .
The outcome of the study is applicable to Singapore
companies as it was fortified by five years of in-depth
research on how companies manage leadership talent -
including surveys of 13,000 executives at more than
120 companies and case studies of 27 leading
companies - the authors proposed a fundamentally new
approach to talent management.
They describe how to: create a winning EVP (employee
value proposition) that will make your company
uniquely attractive to talent; move beyond recruiting
hype to build a long-term recruiting strategy; use job
experiences, coaching, and mentoring to cultivate the
potential in managers; and, strengthen your talent pool
by investing in A players, developing B players, and
acting decisively on C players.
Central to this approach is a pervasive talent mindset -
a deep conviction shared by leaders throughout the
company that competitive advantage comes from
having better talent at all levels.
Using practical examples from companies such as GE,
The Home Depot, PerkinElmer, Amgen, and Enron, the
authors outline five imperatives that every leader - from
CEO to unit manager - must act on to build a stronger
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CEO to unit manager - must act on to build a stronger
talent pool. Written by recognised authorities on the
topic, this is the definitive strategic guide on how to win
the war for talent.
The Singapore Context
In today’s tight labor market in Singapore and many
other Asian economies, companies are facing intense
competition for talent – and are giving increased
attention to ways to retain talent rather than rely on
costly replacement and retraining.
Retention of talent with critical skill sets is vital for
achievement of business growth and to build
organisational competencies, which represent a
sustainable competitive advantage for Singapore
companies.
The loss of needed talent is costly because of the
resultant bidding up of market salaries for experienced
hires to replace them, the costs of recruiting and
assimilating new talent, the lost investment in talent
development, and the hidden costs of lost productivity,
lost sales opportunities, and strained customer
relationships.
Can Singapore companies win the “war for talent”? Will
we be able to define and implement a retention strategy
that will give us the stable, committed, capable
workforce required to achieve a competitive business
advantage?
Consulting firm and research organisation reports,
published books and articles, and internal company
retention studies suggest that everyone is following the
same overall plan. How will this approach give a
company an edge?
Few, if any, organisations today in Singapore have an
adequate supply of talent. Gaps exist at the top of the
organisation, in the first- to midlevel leadership ranks,
and at the front lines.
Talent is an increasingly scarce resource, so it must
be managed to the fullest effect. During the current
economic downturn we may experience a short
ceasefire in the war for talent, but we’re all seeing new
pressures put on the talent running our organisations.
Are today’s leaders able to do more with less? The A-
players can, and there should be a strategic emphasis
on keeping those leaders—and developing their
successors. Many organisations are reducing their
workforces, but let’s be careful not to cut so deep that
talent is scarce when the economy rebounds.
The supply of leadership talent is critical to any
organisation’s prosperity and is, therefore, a central
element of talent management. The increasing trend of
growing leaders from within is based on a dawning
realisation that a popular alternative for acquiring talent
—poaching key people from competitors—ultimately
leads to frustration.
Outstanding leaders who can ‘ramp up’ quickly are
hard to find, increasingly expensive, and even when
successfully recruited, tend to move from company to
company. So the best approach, usually, is to develop
systems and processes to identify available leadership
talent.
Many studies have shown that an important factor for
commitment and retention is the effectiveness of
immediate management. Employees say it is an
important element of the work environment; research
shows it highly correlated with commitment and
retention scores, and employees cite poor
management as a key reason for leaving a company.
Accordingly, there have been many books focused on
manager effectiveness. One big seller was "First,
Break all the Rules", reporting on the Gallup
Organization’s findings and recommendations for better
management of people.
Integrated Talent Management
So, what do we mean by talent management? In the
broadest possible terms, it is the strategic and tactical
management of the flow of talent through an
organisation. Its purpose is to assure that the supply of
talent is available to align the right people with the right
jobs at the right time based on strategic business
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jobs at the right time based on strategic business
objectives.
The term “talent management” is often used to denote
e-recruitment and automated applicant tracking
systems. This emphasis on staffing and recruiting is
more appropriately called the talent acquisition phase
of the talent management cycle (see Figure 1), an
important but preliminary step in the overall process.
Figure 1: CEE Talent Management Cycle
Vision, Mission, Strategy and Values
The Talent Management Cycle includes the proactive
analysis and planning to assure long-term strategic
development and deployment of critical leadership and
other resources through systematic identification,
assessment, planning, and developmental action.
Talent Management Cycle is composed of several
essential elements:
1. Talent Acquisition: Proactively recruiting
world-class, diverse leadership talent and providing on-
boarding support for them to accelerate their
assimilation into their roles.
2. Talent Development: Developing and
executing learning and development programs,
processes & assessment tools to grow current and
future leaders
3. Performance Management: The process of
creating a work environment in which people can
perform to the best of their abilities.
4. Succession Planning: This is critical towards
developing a leadership pipeline or assuring near-term
leadership continuity by thoughtful consideration of the
availability, readiness, and development of internal
talent (including High Potentials) to assume critical
“priority” leadership roles.
5. Organisational Results: This is obviously the
ultimate outcomes of any integrated talent
management system. However it is a lagging indicator
and leaders will have to focus on the organisational
climate which will have an impact on the other
elements of Talent Management Cycle as explained
earlier.
The flow of effective communication and the systems of
recognition and rewards are integral part of the climate
which influences the talent’s performance effecting
productivity, creativity and in driving results with the
right impact. The climate is impacted by a values-driven
leadership team.
Conclusion:
Your organisation can create a new product and it is
easily copied. Lower your prices and competitors will
follow. Go after a lucrative market and someone is
there right after you, careful to avoid making your initial
mistakes.
But replicating a high-quality, highly engaged workforce
is nearly impossible. The ability to effectively hire,
retain, deploy, and engage talent—at all levels—is
really the only true competitive advantage an
organisation possesses.
The views expressed in this column are the author's own
and do not necessarily reflect this publication's view, and
this article is not edited by Singapore Business Review.
The author was not remunerated for this article.
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SEE ALSO
Prof Sattar Bawany
Prof Sattar Baw any is the Chief Executive Officer of the Centre for Executive Education (CEE) and
Strategic Advisor of IPMA Asia Pacific. He is also Master Executive Coach of Executive
Development Associates (EDA) for Asia Pacific and an Adjunct Professor of Strategy of PGSM.
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