Making Talent Management a priority of HR

1. Managing People for Performance
Date: 18th February 2011
Making Talent Management a Priority of HR
Written by : RALPH YEW email : etyew@hotmail.com
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2. TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction 3
The issues
- Making Talent Management a Priority of HR 3-5
References 6-7
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3. Making Talent Management a Priority for HR
Introduction
Organization spent huge amount on attracting, hiring and retention of their best
people. Thus, the organization requires an effective talent management goal as a
strategic imperative for competitive advantage. In today economy, survival of the
company depends a lot on how to integrate their business strategy with their
human resources.
The issues – Making Talent Management a Priority for HR
Talent management is a methodology undertaken to attract, develop and retain
people with the abilities and aptitudes to meet current and future organisational
needs( Derek Stockley, 2009) Some other definition of talent management is a
integrated process on ensuring an organization has continuous supply of highly
productive individuals in the right job, at the right time( Dr John Sullivan, 2004)
The talent management activities involve both individual and organizational
development in response to a changing environment. Talent management can
also include creation and maintenance of a supportive people oriented
organization work culture. Talent management can deal with issues of leadership
succession in organization, the planning future resource for high level
management and to acknowledge the ever presence of hidden talents among the
organization own employees especially.
There are few key drivers identified here in accessing the effectiveness of
making talent management top priorities for HR. The questions serve as the key
issues when we analyze how to make talent management priorities for HR.
Firstly, a key point highlighted here is the organization talent and business need
to integrate and align with strategic management process(Morton, Ashton,
Strategic HR Review, 2005) In every organization when the top level
management set the strategic goal of the organization they must get the support
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4. from HR to align it with their strategic management process. An example is case
of the company AirAsia , that decided to centralize all its operation at the new
Low Cost Carrier Terminal in Sepang with all their entire staff operations
reporting to work there. AirAsia also has regional offices around South East Asia
and their HR hires the locals there to give a better support to the respective
market. HR managers need solid grounding in their company's strategic,
operational and financial objectives and thoroughly examine the hard and soft
impacts of their recommendation. Thus an integrated talent management
strategy is necessary.
Secondly, the other key points being the organization need to use positioning
talent management as a strategic or tactical decision and how talent processes
are designed (Morton, Ashton, Strategic HR Review, 2005). With the world
economy having gone through a financial meltdown and in slow recovery stage,
the talent planning role by HR is even more crucial (O’Leonard, 2009). As more
company downsize and restructure there is the greater needs to identify the
critical roles and evaluate their talent needs. Thus, HR has to position talent
management as a strategic decision to make the organization more productive
and competitive. The leadership development and succession planning must not
stop as it is a continuous process to fill the pipeline of management rank.
Thirdly, the key points like can the organization engaged all stakeholders in
clarifying the organization view on talent management with the talent
management agenda framed correctly being an issue that must be address
accordingly (Likierman, Ready, TalentMgt.com, 2009) After, having talent
management strategies the organization need to engaged all stakeholders to the
talent management agenda. They include high quality employee development
plans that align with the needs of employees and the organization, on leadership
development managers can take the role of teacher and facilitator instead of
hiring external consultant, and finally the integration of talent processes and
initiatives to make the organization truly effective in meeting their talent
objectives.(O’Leonard, 2009).
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5. Finally, the fourth key point is using the benchmarks of success in talent
management and on introducing HR score card (Kaplan, Norton, HR Scorecard:
Linking People, Strategy and Performance, 2001)
HR scorecard has been developed as an effective tool to measure and set the
benchmark in retaining the good talent that proves to be the competitive
advantage in most top fortune 500 companies. The result of Hewitt Top 10
companies in Asia Pacific showed a strong link in its human capital development
being the strategic competitive advantage that separates them from their close
competitors. The innovation companies like Google, Microsoft, Apple and SONY
spend a huge amount of investment to attract, train and motivate their work
forces.
In conclusion, in the past HR has been slow and often acted in traditional method
of selecting and hiring new employees, however the modern day HR must
recognize that talent management is a proven methodology in managing their
talent effectively and there is always a competition going on to hire good people
and talent in an ever increasing globalised world economy. By incorporating
talent management as part of HR planning it will transform HR into a key function
of achieving organization’s sustainable competitive advantage.
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6. REFERENCES
1. Bryan, Joyce, Weiss, Making a Market in Talent, Mckinsey Qtr May
2006.
It mentioned that 21st century organization should put as much effort
into developing their talent as it puts into recruiting them. Also
traditionally organization have difficulty in identifying their talented
worker at such the organization spent most energy improving quantity
as opposed to quality of the line-management talent. Research has
demonstrated the companies with talent management policies have a
higher return on investments, sales, equity and assets. In a global,
modern and knowledge-based business environment, the intangible
assets such as the person skills, reputation and relationships
generates the highest value. The talent market is suited for complex,
growing and talent-driven companies. Talent marketplace holds the
key to the talented individuals that can make the most competitive
asset, and talent markets represent the cutting edge of resource
allocation.
2. Likierman, Reddy, How Effective are your company’s strategic talent
management initiatives, Mckinsey Qtr March 2009.
Excerpt of the journal challenge the organization to question if they
have framed a talent management’s agenda correctly, and whether
they engaged all stakeholders in clarifying their view on talent
management. Also have the organization linked their talent initiatives
to building mission-critical organizational capabilities. And have the
organization create measures that truly develop their talent.
3. Ashton, Morton, Managing talent for competitive advantage, Strategic
HR Review, July – August 2005, pg 28.
The summary here is that organization must have systemic approach
to talent management. Developing their talent can create long term
organizational success. The McKinsey research revels that 75% of
CEO concerned about talent shortages, while Deloitte reports that
retaining best talent is top priority for their 87% surveyed HR directors.
4. Hewitt Best Employers 2009 in Asia Study, Regional Highlights 2009,
Hewitt.com, April 2009.
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7. With the survey concluded that the Top 20 Asia Best Employers for
2009 like Agilent Technologies, AMEX, Aviva, Fedex, Cisco Systems,
Dow Corning and others had shown a persistent execution of human
capital programs, empowerment of their managers, and having highly
efficient HR functions. The empowerment of their managers are in 3
forms: focusing their leaders on leading, equipping their managers to
do the job, and creating self-sustaining reinforcement
5. Guthridge, Komm, Why MNCs struggle to manage talent, Mckinsey Qtr,
May 2008, page 132
Excerpt mentioned that managing global talent is complex and
demanding and few companies has risen to the challenge. Yet
companies that can satisfy their global talent needs and overcome
cultural and other silo-based barriers tend to outperform those that
don’t. Participants cited several personal disincentives to global
mobility, but one of the most significant was the expectation that
employees would be demoted after repatriation to their home location.
“Overseas experience is not taken seriously and not taken advantage
of,” commented one senior manager.
6. Becker, Huselid, Ulrich, Making HR a Strategic Asset,, State University
of New York, Oct 2001
The excerpt include the need to break HR function as administrative
overhead rather to think about HR as a strategic asset because of the
increase emphasis on speed, innovation and flexibility. Organizations
are seeing the intangibles as the source of competitive advantage. The
senior managers recognize now is a war for talent, thus a new
perspective on what is meant by HR in the organization and
understanding how HR creates value in the organization.
7. Kaplan , Norton, The HR Scorecard Linking people, Strategy and
Performance,, Harvard Business School Press, 2001
It mentioned the HR scorecard with 7 steps to making HR a strategic
asset this includes clearly define business strategy, building business
case on how HR matters for strategy implementation, building a
strategy map describing the causal flow of strategy implementation,
Link HR architecture to strategy map, designing HR system in
alignment with HR deliverables, designing HR strategic measurement
system (HR scorecard) and implement management by measurement.
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