Talent Management:

Talent management is a dynamic process involving planning, recruiting, developing,

managing, and compensating employees in the organization. For an efficient and effective
talent management system, the process should be aligned with companys objectives and
strategic goals, active CEO participation and HR management. The process refers to
classification of significant positions which are crucial for organization to maintain its
sustainable competitive advantage, development of a reservoir comprising of potential and
proficient talents, and formulating a method of facilitating competent personals to fill these
roles. Talent management is about putting the right person with right skills in the right
position at the right time. The process also enables the company to assess its ability to source,
select, develop, and promote employees.

In the present scenario of competitive marketplace, talent management is the key factor for an
organizations success. Organizations on assessing the importance and difficulties in
harnessing talent transformed their attitude from reactive to proactive towards talent
management. Talent management is crucial because with increase in complexities in business
demand for diverse and high performance employees is also increasing. But at the same time,
employees expectation for faster growth and career development signifies the need of
effective talent management system in an organization.

The key factors of an effective Talent management system are:

1. To develop an integrated, proactive talent management strategy. The system should be
employ oriented and flexible to the need rather than ad-hoc programs.
2. To balance management attention to talent attraction and employ retention
3. To know the companys future directives and plan according to the future needs.
4. To know the factors affecting talent acquisition and their retention.
5. To manage various retention factors according to the need
6. To assess the cost of losing potential talent and strengthen the motivation factors.
7. To communicate the brand value of the organization to present employees as strongly
as to outside talent.

Talent Management in IT
Indian IT sector employs 10 million people and is expected to be 300 billion dollar sector in
2020. Human resources is of prime importance in IT. It is considered to be an intellectual
investment that contributes towards the output of the industry. Hence recruiting, developing
and retaining talent is very crucial for IT companies to maintain their competitive edge.

Talent management in TCS:

Tata consultancy services(TCS), leading software service provider in India, employs more
than 3 lakh people. TCS have put in place an efficient talent management program that has
resulted in a high retention rate of employees despite the high attrition rate prevalent in the IT
sector. TCS has mature processes for talent management assessed at PCMM Level 5.
Recruting
Talent management starts with recruiting the right talent. TCS is a mass, employer. The
company on an average recruits more than 61200 people in 2014, a major proportion of them
being campus recruits. TCS growth is dependent linearly on the number of employees they

recruit. To build diversity they have started the program Ignite where they recruit nontechnical background people, train and deploy them. TCS also felt the need to optimize their
costs involved in recruiting. So they started following Just in time hiring from 2009.
Training
Development of talent is an important phase in talent management. TCS employs a lot of
programmes that focuses on building talent. TCS has developed Campus commune online
platform where recruits can self-train them by doing IT courses online before joining the firm.
This equips the recruits with right skills even before they join the company. In 1997, TCS
built a state of the art training facility Technopark at Thiruvananthapuram. The campus
recruits are given intensive training in this facility as a part of Initial Learning Program(ILP)
to make them job ready. TCS has also invested a lot in building an effective learning
infrastructure that includes interactive classrooms and virtual classrooms. Manpower
allocation task committee (MATC) is responsible for the career paths of the employees.
Performance management
Compensation at TCS is based on Economic value added(EVA) model. The employees are
apprised twice a year and are given feedback regarding their performance from their
superiors. The employees are evaluated against their goals which they set at the start of the
year. TCS gems is a tool that aids in rewards and recognition. It has well-defined process
and metrics to award these rewards. TCS also takes stock of the prevalent compensation
levels in the market by conducting surveys and research. This helps them offer competitive
compensation to their employees and retain them. Career Hub a digital platform is
maintained to record career aspirations, mentoring and track the progress of the employees.
Succession Planning

Potential leaders are identified and are put through Leadership Development
Programme(LDP) known as Inspire. They are then given the challenging role and are
groomed to take up leadership positions. Iexcel, a specialized programme to develop senior
women executive, has helped in grooming women employees to take up leadership roles.
Employee Engagement
TCS has built a platform Maitree that acts as an internal social network among employees.
This helps to build a sense of camaraderie within the firm. Many social events are initiated
through this platform voluntarily by the employees. TCS also regularly conduct many cultural
and sporting events to keep the employees motivated.

Fiscal 2014
` crores

%of
revenue

Employee benefit expenses

29,860.01

36.5

Overseas business expenses (employee

allowances paid overseas)

10,626.29

12.99

Services rendered by BA and others

Total

4,938.37

6.04

45,424.67

55.53

Source: TCS annual report 2013-14

As it can be seen from the annual report of TCS the expenses spent on employee benefits
contributed to nearly 56% of the total revenues.
The growth of an IT company is dependent on the quality of talent it attracts and retains.
Therefore, expenses on Talent management is always treated as an investment rather than
cost.

Johnson & Johnson

Johnson & Johnson is predominantly involved in manufacturing of healthcare products. It
started focusing on talent management when senior management realized that top performers
were not identified, and there was a lack of appropriate guidance to them to succeed.
The most critical aspect of all Johnson & Johnsons strategies including talent management is
its corporate credo that emphasizes on the responsibilities of the organization towards the
people it affects.
Senior leadership plays a significant role in the talent management including recruiting,
selecting, training, promoting and retaining. They frequently meet the high-potential
employees to make the connection with them and communicate the benefits of staying with
the firm. They invest around 10% to 25% of their time on talent management activities.

Recruiting
Johnson & Johnson focuses on university recruiting. The firm establishes long-term
relationships with the selected group of colleges and maintains a constant presence on those
campuses. It also provides intern programs that give the opportunity to learn about each other.
Later, if employment offers are accepted, then it leads to the high comfort level.

Training of Employees
Johnson & Johnson has several programs to train the people at every level of management
that leads to the good performance of transitioning employee.
Action Learning: This is one of the major programs. In this best employees are supposed
to work on real business issues and get a chance to interact with senior managers
Management Fundamentals: It is a one-year program for new managers. It involves 192
hours of guided training activities that include both self-paced and scheduled modules.

Johnson & Johnson e-University: It comprises of the all the multimedia courses and
materials available across the company. It ensures the consistent training to all the employees
globally.

Other: Recently graduated new employees in disciplines like finance and information
management are placed in the two-year training program. In this, they are exposed to four
different operation areas of the organization so that they can find the area of the closest fit.

Performance Management
Senior managers make judgments regarding their identification of high-level performers.
After they have been identified, they are brought together in various forums to enhance
interactions between them and upper management. Low- performing employees are also
given proper feedback so that they can modify their behaviors and change into the best-fit
area.
Succession Planning
It is an essential process to track the talent pipeline of the company and take appropriate steps
to avoid any gaps between the current state and the desired state in it. Due to diverse markets
in which the firm operates, it should have different pipelines for succession planning.
Strategies for Retention
The organization continually analyzes the reason for the attrition and determines the suitable
course of action to resolve it. It focused on robust front-end selection processes, long-term
incentives and integrated talent management processes to retain talent in the firm. The
company has adopted following strategies for talent management:

Follow all the values stated in its credo.

Encouraging the employees to take advantage of multiple growth opportunities offered by

different operation areas of the company.
Training programs at every level to ensure their development and better performance in
their new roles within the enterprise.

Emphasizes on the long-term relationship with the employees by using long-term rewards.

Talent Management in Unorganized Sector

Unorganized sector, as defined by National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganized
Sector, consists of unincorporated private companies which run on propriety or partnership
basis with less than 10 employees.[1] Due to the nature of the sector in terms of low barriers
to entry, poor technological infrastructure, small scale of operation, local ownership etc, the
number of studies on Talent Management in unorganized sector are relatively less.
The literature review shows that compared to organized sector, workers in unorganized sector
are less satisfied with physical conditions of work, training and development opportunities,
and compensation.[2] On the contrary, they are satisfied with social aspects of work and
moderately satisfied with their relationship with manager/boss. Besides this, the biggest
challenge is high attrition rate and lack of proper recruitment process.
To study the Talent Management in unorganized sector, and due to lack of literature, our
group designed a study for Caf Tanstafl (CT, in-campus food joint). We developed a
questionnaire covering the four broad aspects of Talent Management recruitment, training &
development, motivation, and retention.[Exhibit A]
The key observations from the interaction with the employees at CT are as follows:
Recruitment & Selection: Most of the recruitment happens through Referrals. The
manager/owner communicates the personnel needs to the employees. The employees inform
their friends and family members. Based on the interest and prior work experience, applicants
are made offer to join the firm. The workers get a nominal referral bonus in case their
applicant makes through the process. The amount of bonus is not fixed as varies from case to
case.

Training & Development: The first two days after joining the firm are spent on training of the
employees. One senior member in the restaurant briefs the new workers about the processes
how to give orders, table numbers, kind of behavior expected. Effectively, 2-day salary of the
senior member and the new workers are spent on training & development. Cooks require
more training than the other workers, therefore, they have a large component as on-the-job
training. To get estimates of the costs involved in on-the-job training for the given firm is
difficult.
Motivation: The employees typically get a monthly remuneration of INR 6000 plus food. The
primary motivator is the salary hike received on completing one year in the organization.
Other motivators include festival bonus and performance bonus. The performance bonus
typically depends on the feedback received from the customers and other workers. The
workers interviewed were happy with the peer group but they did not have any particular
attachment to the firm.
Retention: The attrition rate is quite high and unpredictable. There are two types of attrition.
One, employees shift to competitive firms Tapri, Bizzare et al. Two, employees move back
to their hometowns and find jobs there. The two primary reasons are (i) compensation, and
(ii) family issues.
Based on the above observations, it can be concluded that firms in unorganized sector hire the
right talent as it is based on their previous work experience. The components of Talent
Management which need improvement are training & development, motivation, and retention.
The high attrition rate acts as a cost to the firm. Because of the high attrition, firms like CT
are less willing to spend on training & motivation of the employees. The supply for
employees is sufficient and the main reason for leaving the organization is compensation.
Therefore, Talent Management in unorganized sector is mainly concerned with recruitment &
selection of appropriate candidates, and little on training & development of the employees.
The motivation and retention are not the main concerns of the employers in unorganized
industry.
Exhibit A
Questionnaire for CT
Organizational Structure:
1. Hierarchy
2. Number of employees 28
3. Different departments cooks, table servers, managers
Recruitment & Selection:
1. What is the source of recruitment?
2. On what basis are applicants tested?
3. Do employees get referral bonus? If yes, then how much?
Training & Development:
1.
2.
3.
4.

Is there any training given to new employees?

Who gives the training?
What is the cost of the training?
Does training enhance the efficiency of the workers?

Motivation:
1. Is the employee happy? If yes, then primary factor? Peers? Manager? Salary?
2. Do you get any bonus?
3. Do you get any feedback?

4. Is there a chance of getting fired?

5. How often do you get salary hike?
Retention:
1.
2.
3.
4.

How many employees leave the organization on a monthly/yearly basis?

Is attrition seasonal?
Do employees shift to competitive firms Bizzare, Tapri?
Primary reason for leaving the organization?

Start-up talent management: Cost vs investment

Talent acquisition
For a start-up hiring talent is one of the most crucial steps as the people who recruit initially
would define the long term culture and values of the company.
The chief recruitment officer of Zomato Upasana Nath says, Hiring someone isnt simply a
predefined interview process, but a series of conversations across various internal setups, it
goes a long way in helping you pick the right talent. Zomato has a unique policy of hiring
former entrepreneurs who manage the various operations and thus there is a unique
entrepreneurial culture in Zomato.
Start-ups have designed novel ways of hiring the right talent which is the key for talent
management. One of the new trends developing is experimental hiring where a candidate is
made to work for half a day to see his compatibility with the company, thereby giving him a
chance to interact with the people there.

Training
Training programs are required to make employees in order to their productivity for the startup. As opposed to other big firms, employees in start-ups are required to work initially do not
have a very specialized work domain and it is necessary for them to help out in various
domains. The employees are not destined for a pre-defined career path and thus are not
trained in specifics. The training program mainly revolves around communicating the vision
and generate a cordial work culture.
Retaining Talent
It is imperative for a growing start-up to retain its talent due to the costs associated with the
developed talent and also of hiring new talent. In the current scenario where start-ups are
booming, it is a tendency of employees to search out for better opportunities. They adopt
various unique ways to motivate employees.
Motivating employees
Positive reinforcements: Instead of the genral human tendency of pointing out the things
which are being done wrong, companys focus should be on motivating them positively to
achieve their goal. For example, Bigbasket.com conducts a quarterly awards night for all of
its employees ranging from the sweepers to the managers rewarding them for their

performance for the quarter. Celebrations like these makes the employees feel valued and
renders good overall productivity.
Decision making power: Zomato empowers their employees to make influential decisions
like its their own company. According to Upasana (Chief recruitment officer), This instils a
sense of ownership which is one of the most important aspects of retaining talent.
Employees are given freedom to take risks helping the company to innovate and grow.

Focus on personal growth

Start-ups have a need to retain people to carry the company forward. Retention of employees
requires the company to focus on the growth of every individual. Start-ups do not have a predefined career path and hence they give immense opportunities to individuals to follow their
interests and grow in their preferred field.

Open and flexible culture

This makes the employee feel comfortable while working which brings out his best and is a
factor which can make him stay. Start-ups like Myntra and Housing have taken this approach
and created an extremely open environment for the employees where they can feel like
working.

Feedback and improvement

Many a times, introspection into why an employee leaves the company can tell a lot about the
areas to work on which could help in employee retention. As said by Upasana Given the
pace were growing at, sometimes the organisation grows faster than you. When people leave,
we do introspect and try to understand why. We try to understand if we could have done
something differently to make their experience at Zomato a better one.
This method helps improve the work place and provide the employees what they are looking
for, which in turn reduces attrition.