Executive summary

Talent management describes the process through which employers of all kinds firms, government, non-profits anticipate their human capital needs and set about meeting them. Getting the right people with the right skills into the right jobs, a common definition of talent management, is the basic people management challenge in organizations. While the focus of talent management tends to be on management and executive positions, the issues apply to all jobs that are hard to fill. Decisions about talent management shape the competencies that organizations have and their ultimate success, and from the perspective of individuals, these decisions determine the path and pace of careers. Talent management practices can have a crucial impact on society as well. The lifetime employment model of the post-WWII generation, for example, provided the economic stability that created middle class society. Failures in talent management may be more recognizable than the concept itself. Those failures mean mismatches between supply and demand: Too many employees, leading to layoffs and restructurings on the one hand, and not enough talent, leading to talent crunches on the other. In India at present, it may be hard to imagine the problem of having too much talent, but the first downturn in the economy or even in a section of the economy will make that clear. These mismatches are among the fundamental problems that businesses and other large employers face. Over the past generation, corporations in particular seem to have lurched from surpluses of talent to shortfalls to surpluses and back to shortfalls again. The challenge employers face is to track much more closely the demands for talent to avoid both shortfalls and oversupplies. Many observers assume that the management of talent is really about the internal development of human capital, yet the majority of vacancies in corporations now are filled from outside. They also assume that internal development practices such as executive coaching, career pathing developmental assignments, assessment centers, high potential programs, and succession planning, are something new. These techniques and indeed, every employee development practice that seems novel now forced ranking performance evaluation systems, 360 degree feedback programs, executive coaching, etc. were all common in the 1950s. Except at a few very large firms, they have been scaled back and, in
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many cases, largely abandoned. The reason was not that these practices failed to develop talent. It was because they were too costly. And the biggest cost was the difficulty they faced in managing the unpredictability of the demand for talent. Internal development of talent collapsed in the 1970s when business forecasting failed to predict the downturn in the economy, and the talent pipelines continued to turn out talent under the forecast assumptions of booming corporate growth. The excess supply of talent and the no-layoff policies for white collar workers caused a bloating of corporate organizations, and the steepness of the 1981 recession in the US and elsewhere led virtually all companies to back away from developing talent. Lifetime employment came to an end, and the reengineering processes cut away the development practices and staff that created talent. After all, if the priority was to get rid of talent, why would companies maintain the programs designed to create it? A new way of thinking is required about the talent management challenge. A new framework for talent management has to begin by being clear about the goal. Talent management is not an end in itself. It is not about developing employees or creating succession plans. Nor is it about achieving specific benchmarks like a five percent turnover rate, having the most educated workforce, or any other tactical outcome. The goal of talent management is the much more general but important task of helping the organization achieve its overall objectives. In the business world, that objective is to make money. An important part of the goal of helping the organization is to address the financial challenge associated with developing employees and recouping the investments in their development now that labor markets:

The cost of employing those workers in the initial period exceeds the value of the contribution from them as the new hires are learning what to do and how to do it. The size of the cost gap grows as development efforts expand. That investment has historically been recouped in the next period, in the shaded blue area where the value an employee produces exceeds the cost of employing them. Even though wages and employment costs are rising, the value of the employees contribution rises even faster, and the employer earns back a return on their earlier investment. As long as the gap between costs and contributions is bigger in this second period than in the first, then the employer makes money on the investment. At the end of an individuals career, pension plans and other retirement programs reversed the flow of resources. During that period, the employer makes net payments back to the employees. The problem with this approach to recouping development costs began soon after the collapse of lifetime employment for managers and executives. As described in Chapter 2, employers broke that model first by laying off experienced employees. But layoffs alone did not necessarily collapse the ability to earn a return on training and development. That happened when employers began hiring experienced talent from competitors, in part at the executive level as a means for changing the strategy and culture of their own organizations but then later as a means of avoiding the time delays and costs associated with internal development.
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The flip side of hiring experienced workers is retention problems for competitors. The situation is sometimes described as an incomplete contract the employer makes an investment in the employee but did not require anything in return because, historically, the employee had little opportunity to leave. Once outside hiring started, an employees competencies became useful elsewhere and had a market value. In fact, an employee may actually be more valuable to a competitor than to their current employer because they bring with them not only their own performance but knowledge and insight about how their old employer operated. The competitors can pay the employee more than the current employer and still make money on the deal because they have no early investment costs to recoup. In the graph above, the market value of the employee becomes something closer to the line representing their true value to an employer. Employers then face what seems like an impossible choice: Either stay with their practices and watch their newly developed employees leave for better paying opportunities elsewhere, losing their investment in them, or raise wages up to the new market level, losing the ability to recoup the investments they have just made in their employees. The important question is how to make investments in development affordable, and part of that challenge involves employee retention, making it possible to at least retain employees long enough to recoup the training investments in them.

Human Resources An Overview

Human Resource Management (HRM) is the function within an organization that focuses on recruitment of, management of, and providing direction for the people who work in the organization. Human Resource Management can also be performed by line managers. Human Resource Management is the organizational function that deals with issues related to people such as compensation, hiring, performance management, organization development, safety, wellness, benefits, employee motivation, communication, administration, and training. The objective of Human Resources is to maximize the return on investment from the organization's human capital and minimize financial risk. It is the responsibility of human resource managers to conduct these activities in an effective, legal, fair, and consistent manner.

Human resource management serves these key functions:

Selection, Training and Development, Performance Evaluation and Management, Promotions, Redundancy, Industrial and Employee Relations, Record keeping of all personal data, Compensation, pensions, bonuses etc in liaison with Payroll, Confidential advice to internal 'customers' in relation to problems at work and Career development In the very narrow context of corporate "human resources", there is a contrasting pull to reflect and require workplace diversity that echoes the diversity of a global customer base. Foreign language and culture skills, ingenuity, humor, and careful listening, are examples of traits that such programs typically require. It would appear that these evidence a general shift to the human capital point of view, and an acknowledgment that human beings do contribute much more to a productive enterprise than "work": they bring their character, their ethics, their creativity, their social connections, and in some cases even their pets and children, and alter the character of a workplace. The term corporate culture is used to characterize such processes.

Modern concept of human resources

Though human resources have been part of business and organizations since the first days of agriculture, the modern concept of human resources began in reaction to the efficiency focus of Taylorism in the early 1900s. By 1920, psychologists and employment experts in the United States started the human relations movement, which viewed workers in terms of their psychology and fit with companies, rather than as interchangeable parts. This movement grew throughout the middle of the 20th century, placing emphasis on how leadership, cohesion, and loyalty played important roles in organizational success. Although this view was increasingly challenged by more quantitatively rigorous and less "soft" management techniques in the 1960s and beyond, human resources had gained a permanent role within an organization.

Talent Management a Top Concern

Finding, developing and keeping talent are among the top concerns for HR executives for 2008, according to a survey released by ORC Worldwide, a New York-based provider of human resource management consulting and data services. Nearly 62 percent of respondents said that the most pressing strategic issues they will face in 2008 would fall into the realm of talent management. Talent management, encompassing acquisition, assessment, development and retention of a workforce, was also cited by 33 percent of the survey's respondents as what they expect to consume the majority of their time in 2008. Stated by 7.7 percent of HR professionals, activities related to a "cultural transformation" were also among the top three concerns of HR executives. Shifting the culture of workplace has become an increasingly popular topic in recent years, according to the survey, encompassing the implementation of tools from performance management and "pay for performance." HR executives also foresaw a continued expectation of supporting the responsibilities of senior managers in implementing requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Among the most important issues ranked by HR executives, leadership development, succession planning, workforce planning, compensation and diversity ranked at the top. However, among medium and largest companies, leadership development and succession planning ranked the highest, and among the smallest companies, diversity was considered as a top emerging HR issue.

Introduction to Talent Management

This new age economy, with its attendant paradigm shifts in relation to the human capital, in terms of its acquisition, utilisation, development and retention, has placed a heavy demand on todays HR professionals. Today HR is expected to identify potential talent and also comprehend, conceptualise and implement relevant strategies to contribute effectively to achieve organisational objectives. Hence a serious concern of every HR manager in order to survive this War for Talent, is to fight against a limited and diminishing pool of qualified available candidates to replace valuable employees when they leave, dramatically underscoring the difficulty to attract, motivate and retain the best employees in an organisation. To analyse the reasons, we first need to understand what TALENT means. People have different views and definitions. According to Leigh Branham, vice president, consulting service at Right Management Consultants and author of the book, Keeping People Who Keep You in Business, a talent is not rare and precious. Everyone has talent too many to possibly name all. Talent is behavior; things we do more easily than the next person. We speak of natural born talent but those with a gift, knack, ability or flair for something can refine and develop that talent through experience. Talent, however, cannot be taught. As someone once said, you can teach a turkey to climb a tree, but it is easier to hire a squirrel. Vice President, HR of Seagram, Mr. Gopi Nambiar, says talent can be best described as a combination of abilities and attitudes. The real trick is to match the right motivated talents to the right role, individually and collectively, harnessing and harmonizing this crucial attribute to achieve the objectives of your company. Today, companies have become fiercely competitive when it comes to attracting and retaining talent. According to Branham, 75 per cent of the senior executives admit that employee retention is a major concern today, the obvious reason being the increasing rate of turnover. This dynamically changing and volatile demand-supply equation with such erratic attrition trends and cut throat competition has led organisations to focus on mechanisms pertaining to attracting and retaining

talent. It is an accepted truth that turnover will happen and companies need to device a strategy to curb unprecedented turnover from affecting organisational success. As the Director, HR (Asia) of Bausch & Lomb, Mr. P.G. George declares, achieving zero percent turnover is neither realistic nor desirable. People tend to seek change for a variety of reasons more money, better benefits, the appearance of a greener pasture- and this has been a practice from the very beginning. Then, what is it that has really changed? Despite intense competition being the key to market development and success, organisations have failed to identify some of the major reasons which highlight why good performers leave. In his study, Branham clearly states that one major reason why people leave their organisation is because of the organisations failure to bring about a correlation between pay and performance. Human Resource experts in the industry believe matching the right blend of talent with the right job profile can lead to superior performance. The present scenario with abundant opportunities has triggered a wave of employees, perpetually on the move, forever seeking better opportunities whenever, wherever and however they can. What is behind the restlessness of these hard to keep employees? By focusing on productivity, organisations are realising that it is imperative to hire employees who can do the job and be successful at it. The organisation no longer wants to just hire to hire, in fact they are striving to find the right people, bring them into the organization and retain their services. One of the critical functions of HR is a sound Human Resource Planning through which they are able to project the demand for human resource and thereafter formulate strategies for acquiring them. As the leading HR heads of the country point out, the solution is not just about finding the correct retention mechanisms, but it starts from the very beginning by devising ways to acquire the right people for the right jobs. Talent management refers to the process of developing and integrating new workers, developing and keeping current workers and attracting highly skilled workers to work for the company. Talent management in this context does not refer to the management of entertainers. The process of managing, the supply and the demand of employees talent, to achieve optimal business performance in alignment with organisational goals. Talent management is also known as HCM
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(Human Capital Management), HRIS (HR Information Systems) or HRMS (HR Management Systems), and HR Modules. Companies that are engaged in talent management (human capital management) are strategic and deliberate in how they source, attract, select, train, develop, retain, promote, and move employees through the organization. This term also incorporates how companies drive performance at the individual level (performance management). The term talent management means different things to different people. To some it is about the management of high-worth individuals or "the talented" whilst to others it is about how talent is managed generally - i.e. on the assumption that all people have talent which should be identified and liberated. This term is usually associated with competency-based human resource management practices. Talent management decisions are often driven by a set of organizational core competencies as well as position-specific competencies. The competency set may include knowledge, skills, experience, and personal traits (demonstrated through defined behaviors). Older competency models might also contain attributes that rarely predict success (e.g. education, tenure, and diversity factors that are illegal to consider in many countries). A survey conducted in 2008 by Knowledge Infusion in conjunction with the International Association for Human Resource Information Management (IHRIM) found that approximately half of all respondents said their companies had no integration between systems and talent management processes, and only fair to poor organisational alignment of the workforce to business goals. How Talent Management programmes are implemented within an organisation will vary, but regardless of the differences, the same core concepts established in this article will apply. Talent management is the process of ensuring that the organization attracts, retains, motivates and develops the talented people it needs.

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Managing the most important assets

More and more companies today are taking a holistic approach to talent management from attracting and selecting wisely, to retaining and developing leaders, to helping employees transition out of the company. Talent management is viewed as a strategic approach to managing human capital throughout the career cycle: planning, developing, retaining and acquiring your most important assets. 1. Planning 2. Developing 3. Retaining 4. Acquiring

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1. Program for a strategic talent management planning

The following four stages in the creation of a strategic talent management program will help develop the five areas. They operate as a cascade down the organization, from senior management, to talent managers and onto the people identified as talent themselves.

Strategy Formulation

Diagnosis

Analysis

Action Planning

Stage 1. Strategy formulation This stage involves understanding the current business context and its challenges followed by developing objectives and processes for the talent program. Meetings with senior management are used to elicit their views and experiences of existing methods for recruiting, developing and engaging talent and to understand demands for change. Further supporting input can be provided through reviews of competitor activities and benchmarked practices in other leading organizations. Stage 2. Diagnosis The next step is to hold interviews and focus groups with current managers of those identified as talent. The main focus of the diagnosis is understanding how well talent management is working in providing them with what they need to run the business, and in particular, what attributes they believe talent needs to exhibit. These attributes can be documented in a high-level talent framework. The diagnosis stage may also include an assessment of talent against the framework. By including head-hunters in this process, internal talent can be compared to people outside the organization who might also display the attributes identified in the talent framework. This comparison can provide information on internal talents strengths, weaknesses and further development or replacement needs.
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Stage 3. Analysis Based upon the results of the diagnosis, the future talent management program can be mapped out. This involves workshops and interviews with those people identified as talent. The understanding of what talent needs (moderated by what the organization believes it can provide) developed from this analysis can be documented as an organizational-level EVP. Stage 4. Action planning Recommendations to build upon existing talent management processes can be made based on the above data. Examples of strategic, value-adding actions that might arise at this stage in talent program development and that could excite business leaders strategy/implementation gap fall into three categories: 1. Pre-recruitment actions. 2. In employment actions. 3. Departure-related actions. 1. Pre-recruitment actions Organizations have an opportunity to ensure theyre recruiting the very best people (rather than just those who are available when an organization wants to recruit) by proactively searching for external talent. The benchmarking conducted in the diagnosis stage of talent program development has an additional benefit here in enabling organizations to pinpoint existing external talent. Organizations can then engage the external talent early on, finding out how they are being looked after and identifying their career drivers. This helps potential employers of choice to identify who to target when the time is right, but also to recruit internally with knowledge of all options and to succession plan externally as well as internally, transforming the level and quality of talent that can be made available. 2. In employment actions During employment, its the personalized relationships between talent managers and the individuals identified as talent that is the key. This relationship needs to be based on discussion
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and help close the

around the organizational and adapted individual EVP, supported by the enhanced manager capabilities described earlier on. With this support, management of performance extends into management of the deal clarifying both organizational and individual needs and providing a two way review of whether, and how well, needs are being met. However, even more important than the discussion, is effective delivery of the deal that has been agreed. One important area emerging from the EVP is likely to be development of potential. Experience and research tell us that the key development opportunities for talent lie within the roles they occupy and the element of stretch these roles provide. Formal executive education programs can address specific development needs and produce better performance, but theyre unlikely to offer the range of development situations necessary to maximize potential. Its therefore important that those assessed as talent are assigned to (and can contribute towards) high-value strategic roles or assignments. These should be real work assignments that a leader would be expected to deliver against. Effective development aligned to both the talent framework and the EVP will have the potential to significantly upgrade talents contribution and retention and so have tangible impact on business results. 3. Departure-related actions Most leading organizations already maintain ongoing contact with departing talent for six months or more following their exit, in case their career move proves not to be a success. Another common approach involves developing alumni networks to encourage talent with further appropriate development experiences outside of the organization back in again at a later date. However, a more strategic approach to either response would be to develop an ongoing relationship with those who have been identified as talent rather than focusing on just one short, transactional contract of employment. This approach recognizes that talent will always be in high demand and will also be attracted by the prospect of short periods of employment with a large number of employers.

2. Developing Talent

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Developing Talent, i.e. the learning and performance improvement of high performers, is an essential part of Talent Management. Firms can protect their human capital from being eroded by making knowledge, skills and capabilities more unique and/or valuable by a so called make system, or internal system of HRM, which comprises of comprehensive training, promotion-from within, developmental performance appraisal process, and skill based pay. Building on performance management systems, it is predicted that in the future, employees will receive custom made responses to task or skill weaknesses continuously. Although everyone can not become organisational superstars they can push the limits of what they can accomplish. Therefore, organisations which embed development into their very core can attract more Talent, retain it longer and have better performance over the long run. There is, however, a divergence from this academic truth. Most companies deliver poor development possibilities, but new approaches on development will simplify this by using already available tools i.e. job experience, coaching and mentoring. The change of mindset regarding development. Old Approach to Development Development just happens Development means training The unit owns the Talent; people dont move across units Only poor performers have development needs A few lucky people find mentors New Approach to Development Development is woven into the fabric of the organization Development primarily means challenging

experiences, coaching, feedback, and mentoring The company owns the Talent; people move easily around the company Everyone has development needs and receives coaching Mentors are assigned to every high-potential person

Job Experience It is identified that people need challenges and experiences to grow; this is especially true for highpotential employees. Further the importance of stretching the abilities, not being afraid to promote and assign projects to people without the specific relevant experience. Timing is, however,
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important since moving people too fast will undermine the ability of the employee to achieve any motivating results and wilt the learning process. Giving importance, not only on stimulating people through bigger jobs, but also stressing the fact that employees need different jobs e.g. line-to-staff switches, starting projects from scratch and fixing projects in trouble. Thus, this gives the pool of Talent many different challenges throughout their careers. Coaching Great importance is given to coaching as a part of the new paradigms of development who finds coaching to be a great improver of effectiveness. Employees need knowledge of their strengths and consequently the areas where they can improve to be able to develop in the best possible manner.Further, there is also a chance of derailment of highly talented people if no feedback is given, and then the lack of these practices becomes directly harmful to a business. Feedback should be given to allow for people to illuminate areas which they need to improve. Coaching builds on this knowledge and contributes instructions, guidance and support to allow employees to act on the feedback that they are given. This process should ideally be built on the coaches own experiences and be communicated through storytelling. This does not only make the manager appear more humane but also instructs and comforts. Leaders who are exceptional at providing vital development tools such as feedback and coaching should do so frequently in both verbal and written form. Including both genuine affirmation, but also provide direction on how the employee can grow and improve. Mentoring Another important way for developing Talent is mentoring. A manager builds self-esteem in the high-potential employee by offering praise, encouragement and support by believing in the employees ability to achieve above everyones expectations. However, the mentors role also requires the communication of painful feedback, but from the mentor position a bigger picture should be visible so that further encouragement and advise on how to develop from the source of the feedback can be initiated. The employees involved in mentoring experience greater career satisfaction and commitment.
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As with most of the concepts within Talent Management, mentoring needs to become an integral, embedded, part of the organisations whole strategy in order for a firm to reap its benefits. This is known institutionalisation of mentoring. Although there might be sporadic everyday cases of mentoring for a select few, which have found mentors themselves, few companies explicitly assigns mentors to high potential Talent. However, their research shows that mentoring is valuable for the development of Talent. Training Although development is no longer synonymous with training it is, still the most used approach and that it is not completely without value when it comes to Talent. Especially management development can be enhanced by foundational managerial education and high-impact leadership development. The latter that can only be delivered in a face-to-face environment where the instructor is a well respected senior leader within the organisation. This becomes an arena for development based on the solving of real and important business problems. Foundational managerial education on the other hand, is the knowledge of academic disciplines taught in M.B.A. or executive education programmes which become particularly useful for those facing transitions in their careers. It is how the training will be integrated into the job which is the main consideration of these approaches. These programmes have in common that they introduce new skills, concepts and knowledge. The high-impact leadership approach also provides in a powerful action-learning format. Further, this approach to development immerses the employee in the leadership principals and values of the company, and also facilitates the creation of trust-based networks and spontaneous mentoring relationships. It also becomes important to implement this way of developing into the mindsets of the participants so that they learn first hand what it takes to successfully lead the organisation. Succession Planning Succession planning is something overlooked by many companies, this becomes an increasing concern considering the departure of the baby boomer generation and the void they will leave behind them. Succession management can be executed with many goals in mind, and it is important for an organisation to identify these. Not only because the internal development of people or the potential successor to the CEO have different requirements, but also because the target audience for
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the programme needs to be determined. Role-based programmes target key positions critical for the business success. Individual-based programmes focus on specific employees that have great potential for future advancement while Pool-based programmes are created to facilitate the move of any number of people that could fill several positions within the company. The next step becomes the establishment of e.g. leadership competencies or qualities that are considered to be a part of desirable candidates profiles. This is integral so that the long term strategies can be built and supported by the HR practices. To know who will take the place of someone that leaves or gets an internal promotion, i.e. succession planning, is important but, other than in the case of retirements, could be problematic since the question of who leaves often is unpredictable. This call for organisations to be proactive and have a pool of people that can be promoted into leadership roles, hence invest in the development of junior manager graduates. Succession development is recognizing the need for the organisation to be flexible and able to choose from several options when someone leaves. Career Management The direct opposite of successor development is career guidance and it is described a place where the individuals career choices and development is in focus instead of what position to be filled. Todays increasingly changing environment makes the corporate ladder more diffuse and career moves are not necessarily vertical. Future development opportunities can be more important than a vertical promotion without it. Advancement is not synonymous with promotions in the traditional sense of the word. However, a lack thereof is the main reason for employee turnover. This added complexity makes career choices more difficult and guidance is appreciated by many, providing younger employees with a variety of paths for the future, simultaneously enhancing communication.

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3. Talent Retention
The greatest challenge faced today by organisations the world over is retaining talented employees in the organisation. A debate raging since many decades has been as to whether to retain them is more important than finding a successor to the vacant position. Whilst the argument continues, let us examine the causes, consequences and control of employee turnover in an organisation. By employee turnover, we mean that employees of an organisation cease to remain in the services of that organisation and leave for reasons best known to them.

Some of the causes/consequences could be classified as:

Dissatisfaction parameter: Employees are dissatisfied with the salaries, perks and benefits offered by the organisation they are currently in. They may also be dissatisfied with their bosses or find their jobs meaningless and unimportant as a result of which their job satisfaction levels are very low. Further they may be dissatisfied with career opportunities in the organisation or even its personnel policies in general. As a consequence of the above, Employees leave to join other organisations which satisfy their needs. As the wheel of time moves along, they find a third organisation which offers to satisfy them even more. Thus they change again i.e. they are perennially job-hopping from one organisation to another. Alternatives parameter: Here the employee leaves the organisation in search of "greener pastures" such as starting his own business, joining the family business, joining an organisation in a foreign country or even availing of the Voluntary Retirement Scheme of the organisation and relaxing at home, living off the interest generated from fixed deposits and investment. An interesting trend in recent years in has been that many managers leave industry to become consultants or even faculty in management institutes or go abroad to complete their PhD or further studies. It is important to note here that the separation here was not because of dissatisfaction with respect to the present organisation but because of other available alternatives and inclinations in that direction by the employees. The consequence here is that the organisation loses some talented employees for no fault of theirs. In
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some organisations some of these employees are even used as consultants on a retainership basis from time to time. This is possible if and only if the separated employees are not always in a competitive area of work. Personal parameter: In this case, the employee chooses to separate himself from the organisation because of personal reasons such as ill-health, desire to return to the native place for family reasons, the spouse is transferred and the current organisation has no branch in the new location and so on. In the Indian context, women may have to give up their jobs post-marriage to resettle elsewhere in the country or even post-pregnancy. As some of the above problems are more common with the women employees, many organisations have an unwritten policy, which is widely practised i.e. to minimise employment of women. This is a very unfair and biased policy and unfortunately many competent and well-qualified women have had to suffer. But companies argue that many women executives, even in today's Indian context have to quit jobs after marriage or pregnancy. It is best therefore not to generalise and treat such cases on their respective merits.

Organisation initiated parameter: Sometimes employees have to separate from an organisation as they have not completed their probation period successfully or they are being laid off for want of work or their appointment was only on a temporary basis. In fact it is this aspect of separation that is most unpleasant since the earlier ones discussed were cases of separation which were employee initiated. Care must be taken by the organisations to ensure that the above be carried out as smoothly as possible else, this could create a lot of negative impressions about the company which could be detrimental for the organisation's image in the long run. One major consequence of this type of separation is that it affects the morale of the employees at large and creates a feeling of insecurity in general. Today recruitment has become both a highly specialised area and a costly exercise too. Once an individual joins an organisation, costs incurred on him include Acquisition costs i.e. cost of recruitment, selection and placement &Training Costs i.e. induction, specialised training and on the job training. Besides when he separates from the organisation, the company faces the cost of his position lying vacant besides having to pay his

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separation pay and such dues. Hence organisations today are focusing on minimising employee turnover.

4. Talent Acquisition
Companies realize that if they can attract and hire top talent, they will have a competitive advantage. In essence, companies are competing on the basis of their intellectual capital. Their ability to acquire top employees is critical due to the "war for talent," in which organizations are always looking to lure the "best and the brightest." A simple way chief learning officers can help improve talent flow is to offer training on effective interviewing techniques. When managers are able to select more effectively, it lowers the probability of making a "bad hire." But talent flow is more than just reducing poor hiring decisions. It also involves being able to attract top candidates. These talented individuals tend to have several choices as to where they can work because they are in high demand. Knowing that they can no longer rely on - nor desire - lifetime employment, these talented individuals are seeking something else: lifetime employability. Top candidates are seeking out jobs that will provide them with opportunities to learn and grow. By enhancing their skills, capabilities and education, these individuals know that they will be more marketable when they move on to their next employer. (Remember, the question today is not if an employee will leave, but when.) These increased capabilities help ensure their employability throughout their career, thus giving them even more job choices. For today's talented candidate, lifetime employability is the mantra. Thus, providing challenging job assignments and robust development programs that will help an employee grow professionally are critical for organizations to enhance their appeal to star job candidates. A 2006 study conducted by Accenture indicates that one of the top elements impacting candidates' decisions to join a firm is a company's ability to provide fast career growth and professional development. Alysia Vanitzian, assistant vice president of human capital at Farmers Insurance Group, indicates that a commitment to people development through stretch assignments and job rotation helps attract top talent.
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"Farmers are successful because we attract people who are achievement and results oriented. People with those attributes are attracted to us because we promise them a professional challenge and professional growth," she said. Companies with poor training and development opportunities are at a severe disadvantage in attracting star employees. Candidates see a lack of learning opportunities, or minimal tuitionassistance benefits, as a sign that an organization is not truly committed to employee growth, making job offers from such firms less attractive. While tuition assistance often is highlighted as a benefit in recruitment efforts, CLOs should ensure that staffing resources are able to sell all the learning programs available. It serves a company with excellent training programs well to promote such benefits aggressively as a part of its talent acquisition strategy. Enhanced Employment Brand No matter how hard a company tries to retain its top talent, it will be difficult to keep all its star employees due to today's increasingly mobile workforce. However, if companies take into account some amount of turnover due to talent flow, their talent development programs still can provide a benefit. Employees who feel their current employer has helped them learn and grow by helping them keep up their skills will still have a positive impression of the company even if they leave for a new opportunity. These results in a positive employment brand and alumni of the organization will speak favorably about their old employers. Companies can then leverage this positive employment brand to further help attract future talent. For example, a high percentage of the employees who join management consulting firm McKinsey & Co. do not stay very long at the firm. However, these employees know that while they are employed at McKinsey, the company will invest in their growth and development, thus enhancing its marketability in the future. Not surprisingly, McKinsey alums often are big advocates of the firm and help enhance McKinsey's employment brand. In fact, the company's employment brand is so strong that people who are "ex-McKinsey" are highly sought after by other employees. This reputation further enhances its ability to attract top talent. In the annual survey in Fortune magazine of the most
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desirable employer by graduates of top-tier business schools (Harvard, Wharton, etc.), McKinsey has ranked first or second throughout the past 10 years. As the talent-flow phenomenon continues in today's knowledge economy, it is clear a robust learning and development effort helps a company recruit, retain and develop the best. Not only do development programs help lengthen the average employee's tenure at a company, they enhance that employee's performance level during his or her time with a company. Thus, CLOs should seek a better understanding of the positive impact their programs have on talent flow.

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Talent Management: An Integrated Model

Talent management is a set of competency-based human resource management practices aimed at getting the best out of its high-value people and ensuring that right people are in place to do a particular job. A recent research by Success Factors and human capital expert Dr. Jac Fitz-enz has shown that smarter talent management leads to better financial performance of the company. The factors influencing Talent Management Strategy are to be dealt in such a way so as to fine tune it in accordance with the conditions that a firm is faced with. The macro-level variables are the environmental factors and the industry factors while the micro-level variables are the organizational factors. A Talent Management process model has been developed, which outlines the sequence of steps to be followed in effectively implementing the talent management strategy. In addition to these, ways of aligning the HR practices of the organization with the talent management initiatives have to be looked at. Thus it is seen that an Integrated Talent Management approach by the organization, with the talent management strategies and processes perfectly aligned with the various HR processes and with the overall organizational strategy, would help in getting the best out of the talent and in achieving its objectives.

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Objective of Talent Management

The objective of the Talent Management System is to capture the right talent, convert the talent by providing them with appropriate developmental opportunities, which will help them take on key positions in the organization. All this in turn will help in retaining the right talent. Talent management is viewed as a strategic approach to managing human capital throughout the career cycle: attracting, retaining, developing and transitioning your most important assets. The basic objectives: To identify various upcoming challenges of talent management To establish upcoming trends in talent management. To identify the ways to retain the best talent.

Talent management is a process that emerged in the 1990s and continues to be adopted, as more companies come to realize that their employees talents and skills drive their business success. These companies develop plans and processes to track and manage their employee talent, including the following: Attracting and recruiting qualified candidates with competitive backgrounds Managing and defining competitive salaries Training and development opportunities Performance management processes Retention programs Promotion and transitioning

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Drivers for Talent Management

To gain competitive advantage, the demand for human capital drives talent management. Talent management strategies focus on five primary areas: attracting, selecting, engaging, developing and retaining employees. Although pay and benefits initially attract employees, top-tier leadership organizations focus on retaining and developing talent. Workforce trends drive talent management strategies. Factors such as an increasingly global and virtual workforce, different generations working together, longer life expectancies and an empowered and autonomous workforce have forever changed the workplace. Due to demographic changes, the workforce is also increasingly diverse from age, gender and ethnicity to lifestyles, migration patterns and cultural norms. Organizations are already taking advantage of these workplace trends. Talent management strategies also provide the context for diversity and inclusion. Proctor and Gamble, for example, feels that getting the right mix of people is a major part of talent management and hires many of its leaders as university recruits. Talent management is also driven by the anticipated skills shortage in the coming years. While not all organizations, industries and professions will experience a lack of skills, organizations are already competing for talent. For example, customer service, health care, computer support and technology repair are areas where there is an anticipated acute talent shortage. In addition, the anticipated loss of talent in the next decade will vary by organization size, sector and industry. For example, large organizations as compared with small and medium companies are more concerned about loss of talent from the retirement of the baby boom generation, and public and government organizations are more concerned about the loss of potential talent than private companies. Finally, key business strategies also drive talent management. For example, with the growing need for global technical expertise. Ford Motor Company links competency development to its organizational strategic goals. Corporate branding, a key organizational strategy, is another business strategy that drives talent management. Increasingly, firms are linking their brand to employees and corporate behavior At
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JPMorgan Chase, for example, the concept of leadership for all employees is part of its corporate branding: "One Firm, One Team, Be a Leader."

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Factors influencing talent management

There are certain factors which influence the importance and need of talent management. They include the following:

Globalization: Now for any jobseeker the whole world is the potential place to find employment. One can know the opportunities available in any part of the world easily and the number of talent seekers has also increased.

Increased Competition: Increased competition in the market place has necessitated the need for consistently good performance on the side of organizations. These have made the companies to put in all efforts to hire and retain the best talent in the respective field of operation.

Increasing Knowledge: The knowledge era has necessitated the retaining of those talents which have the ability to assimilate new technologies and knowledge, which are growing at a pace never seen before.

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Importance of talent management

Like human capital, talent management is gaining increased attention. Talent management (TM) brings together a number of important human resources (HR) and management initiatives. Organisations that formally decide to "manage their talent" undertake a strategic analysis of their current HR processes. This is to ensure that a co-ordinated, performance oriented approach is adopted. Quite often, organisations adopting a TM approach will focus on co-ordinating and integrating:

Recruitment - ensuring the right people are attracted to the organisation. Retention - developing and implementing practices that reward and support employees. Employee development - ensuring continuous informal and formal learning and development.

Leadership and "high potential employee" development - specific development programs for existing and future leaders.

Performance management - specific processes that nurture and support performance, including feedback/measurement.

Workforce planning - planning for business and general changes, including the older workforce and current/future skills shortages.

Culture - development of a positive, progressive and high performance "way of operating".

An important step is to identify the staff or employees (people and positions) that are critical to the organisation. They do not necessarily have to be senior staff members. Many organisations lost a lot of "organisational knowledge" in the downsizing exercises of a few years ago. The impact of the loss was not immediately apparent. However, it did not take long for many companies to realise

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their mistake when they did not have people with the knowledge and skills to either anticipate or solve problems that arose. The current discussions about skill shortages and the ageing population are also helping organisations to focus on the talent management issue. It may not be possible to simply go out and recruit new people to meet operational needs. Many leading companies have decided to develop their own people, rather than trying to hire fully skilled workers. In brief, every organisation should be implementing talent management principles and approaches.

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The focus of Talent Management

At the heart of talent management is developing the following intrinsic human capacities: 1. Capacity to learn (measured as learning quotient LQ) Enhancing an individuals capacity to learn improves the persons awareness. It adds to the persons quest to know more and delve into newer areas. This capacity is developed by holistic education that teaches how to learn, an enabling environment and good mentoring. Capacity to learn comprises of the following: Introspection is the individuals willingness to look back and learn ability to learn from mistakes and identifying areas of improvement. Reflection and contemplation is the individuals ability to observe his own thoughts, actions and emotions/feelings and using the awareness to improve further and perform better. Getting into the flow is the individuals ability to get into a new experience and flow with the experience. It is the persons child-like ability to derive joy out of learning. 2. Capacity to think (measured as conceptual quotient CQ) An individuals quest to know more leads his mind to create images. Enhancing an individuals capacity to think helps the person not only takes learning to a higher level of intellect but also improves creativity. Capacity to think comprises of the following: Analysis is about asking the right questions and breaking complex things into simpler elements. Creativity is about generating new thoughts and breaking the existing patterns of thought. Judgment requires both. This is what helps an individual take quality decisions.

3. Capacity to relate (measured as relationship quotient RQ)

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It is important for an individual to be able to relate to his learning and thoughts. This leads the person to be able to relate to other individuals and the environment around him. The outcome is indeed a sense of belongingness and an environment of trust at the organizational level and team spirit at the individual level. Capacity to relate comprises of the following: Listening is the individuals ability to listen with warmth and respect. Active listening is free of biases, evaluation and pre-conceived notions. Empathizing is the ability to put self in someone elses shoes and getting out of ones own shoes. Trust requires a combination of both empathizing and listening. It is about authenticity, openness and genuineness. 4. Capacity to act (measured as action quotient AQ) Action is how the above three capacities of an individual are manifested. It is the individuals ability to enact his intentions. Following are components of capacity to act: Organizing refers to the individuals ability to organize his time and resources so as to enable him to convert intentions into reality. Implementing means delegating, attention to detail, and focus on the right process. Perform under pressure means the ability to work under pressure and time constraints and handle multiple tasks without negative stress. The individuals values help in discriminating amongst alternatives and act as the bedrock for decisions. They act as multipliers in enhancing the individuals capacities, a sigma of which reflects the individuals true talent. Thus: (LQ + CQ + RQ + AQ) * Values = Talent Organizations provide individuals the opportunity and space for physically manifesting their talent into performance for achieving individual and organizational vision. Talent manifests into performance as follows:

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Talent + Vision/Mission/Strategy + Skills & Competencies + Role & structure + Opportunity + Encouragement & Recognition + Training & Development + Coaching + Action Plan & Goals + Resources Performance Management System Performance 33

Thus the domain of talent management focuses not only on development of individuals intrinsic capacities, but also on culture building and change management to provide the other elements listed above for manifestation of talent into performance.

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Need for Talent Management

Dramatic shifts in the make up of the workforce can influence the way organizations recruit, develop and retain employees in the future. They include: An increasing global labor market An increasing virtual workplace A vastly diverse workforce, in terms of age, race and culture A workforce independent views about their own lifestyle and access to information about career opportunities The supply side puts pressure on companies to attract the best talent and ensure that employees join the company and choose to stay in the organization rather than look for opportunities elsewhere. Present study is supposed to find out the existing Indian talent scenario so as to analyze its emerging challenges and trends. For several years, hundreds of people were laid off in one part of the business while hundreds of others, often with similar skills to those departing the organization, were hired in other parts of the company. Regrettably, this situation is not unusual in many organizations today. Indeed, many companies are missing substantial opportunities to save costs and improve performance by upgrading their talent management capabilities. Companies can take up steps to quickly assess their talent management process and begin improving their talent management competency.

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Talent management becomes an imperative

The reason lies in the convergence of dramatic economic, demographic, social and business trends. The scope and speed of these shifts have created a talent gap that is so deep and so wide that no organization can rely solely on recruitment to supply the talent necessary to stay successful. A few of the factors:

Worker Shortage: By 2010, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates the retirement of Baby Boomers alone will create a shortage of 10 million qualified workers. Forrester Research states that 45% of U.S. public employees will reach retirement age and refilling these positions takes up to 7 years of on-the-job training or 2.5 new employees to replace one skilled, experienced retiree.

Skills Shortage: In addition to long-documented skills gaps in reading, math and technical skills, a study by Americas Promise Alliance shows weakness in so-called soft skills: decision-making, teamwork and leadership, and communications.

The Pace of Change: The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that todays worker will have 10-14 jobs during their career. By 2010, the amount of new technical information is predicted to double every 72 hours.

Turnover: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that in February 2008, the U.S. employee turnover rate was 3.4%. This is the national average, however, and turnover in certain sectors of the economy and types of jobs can be far higher. For example, Jim Wall, Managing Director of Human Resources for Deloitte notes that turnover rates at the Big Four have historically been high roughly 15-20% the cost of which is astronomical.

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Growing Importance of Talent Management in Organisations

According to Towers Perrin's 11th Annual HR Service Delivery Survey, after a decade of upgrades, many companies are shifting priorities. Talent management has snagged the top slot this year in HR service delivery issues, and organizations are turning their upgraded systems into tools to leverage their people agendas. Organizations are now putting the people dimension first and viewing their existing technology platforms as the foundation for and the means of better enabling their people agenda to deliver on business needs and goals." The research also found that, despite the current economic downturn, large organizations continue to invest in their HR technology platforms. Specifically, 30% have increased their investment in HR-related technologies, and 55% are maintaining their technology budgets at 2007 levels. Only 15% planned budget cuts for 2008.

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And although companies will continue to upgrade and streamline their technology systems to create a better employee experience, a more significant slice of their budgets is now earmarked for:

internal and external recruitment and staffing succession planning workforce analytics other talent management-related technologies.

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Traditional understanding of talent management

Traditional talent management systems have clearly defined components including: Training and development, skill inventories, performance management, recruiting, and succession management. According to Kevin Wheeler, internationally known expert in talent acquisition and management says, Most companies perform two or three components of a talent management system well, but the total system seems to be elusive without executive level involvement. When you consider all of the complexities of human capital and how it impacts organisational performance, the senior executives across the organisation should be the sponsors and owners of talent management.

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Talent Management v/s Traditional HR Approach

Traditional HR systems approach people development from the perspective of developing competencies in the organization. This can actually be a risk-prone approach, especially for companies operating in fast evolving industries, since competencies become redundant with time and new competencies need to be developed. Thus, over time, the entire approach to development of people might be rendered obsolete calling for rethinking the entire development initiative. Talent management on the other hand focuses on enhancing the potential of people by developing capacities. Capacities are the basic DNA of an organization and also of individual potential. In fact, the following appropriately describes the role of talent management:

D
Point of Departure
into goals and mapping required level of capacities and and vision competencies to achieve goals

N
Navigation
the vision with organizational values varied

A
Point of Arrival
understanding roles of the the within organization and appreciation of the value-addition from self and others leading to building a culture of trust, sharing and team orientation Individual growth to meet and transformational roles in an overall scenario of acknowledged need for change

Translating organizational vision Aligning individual values and Clear

Assessment of talent to profile the Enhancing capacities to learn, level of capacities and set of organization competencies possessed within the development initiatives

think relate and act through accept varied, incremental and

Gap analysis and identification of Helping individuals realize their Developed individuals enabling development path full potential through learning and development breakthrough performance

Growing trend in strategic talent management

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In a recent article by Dr John Sullivan called Talent Management Road Kill, Part 2, he says, There is a growing trend of choice HR jobs being awarded to non-HR professionals following years of senior management dissatisfaction with HR in general. Talent management is seen as a strategic task by senior leaders, but the perception is that HR professionals are generally incapable of executing talent strategies. While most senior managers may believe that HR lacks the skill set to effectively run a talent management programme, most senior management has not determined how to create a fully integrated talent management strategy. Approaching talent management from a comprehensive view point, companies will be able to analyse, plan, forecast and execute business plans based on accurate workforce and market data. Roles and responsibilities will be well defined and performance measures are designed to reward employees that contribute to the overall well being of the company. Employees are trained or hired for competencies determined by workforce analytics and gap analysis. Training and development complementary to succession planning are aligned to current and future organisational demands and goals. Data, reporting, analysis and forecasting will monitor performance and model scenarios will aid management in their decision making processes.

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Benefits of talent management to organisation

Clearly, as the worker shortage grows and the pace of change accelerates, recruitment alone cant supply the smart leaders, strong managers, high-performers and ever-changing skills sets necessary for success. Thats why organizations are balancing recruitment with an investment not just in training, but in comprehensive talent management strategies. Talent management processes give organizations valuable metrics, performance motivators, and insights into workforce skills, competencies, and emerging leaders. This vision empowers organizations to become more strategic in how they select, train, develop, retain, reward, and help employees grow within the organization.

By focusing resources on growing new talent from existing employees, a good talent management strategy sharpens an organizations competitive position, reduces recruitment costs, drives higher performance and boosts retention rates. There are many benefits of taking on the complicated multi-layered project of creating an integrated talent management and workforce planning structure.

Predictability of performance Higher customer satisfaction rates Lower employee turn-over Increased profits as a result of right people/right time Increased revenue as a result of efficiencies Increased employee engagement Assurance of stable management team today and in future

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Process
There are four steps that companies can take to quickly assess their talent management process and begin improving their talent management competency: Step 1 Identify Key Roles. Analyze the key steps in each part of the talent life cycle (identification and attraction, hiring and inculcation, motivation and development, appraisal and reward, building and sustaining relationships) and map the key players and their roles and responsibilities to each stage. Are there gaps in responsibilities key activities that no one is directly accountable for? Are there overlapping responsibilities multiple people responsible for the same activity? Are the right people in the right roles? Are line managers provided with consistent and effective processes, guidelines and tools for managing talent? Step 2 Take an Inventory of Your Talent Management Skills. Identify the critical skills needed to play the key roles in the talent life cycle effectively. To what extent does your company employ people who possess them? What might you do to improve or develop them? What are you doing inhouse that might be better outsourced? What have you outsourced that you should be doing inhouse? Step 3 Measure the Right Things. Assess the measures you use to evaluate the performance of your talent management process at each life cycle stage such as offer-to-hire ratios, average tenures of new hires, performance ranking, and skill fit to job requirements, etc. What data are you capturing and reporting? Does it feed directly into an enterprise talent scorecard? How do these measures align with your overall talent management strategy? Step 4 Set Up a Process-Wide Feedback Loop. Everyone managing talent needs to understand the big picture and to connect their role and responsibilities to the overall objectives of the process. How is data captured in each stage of the life cycle reported and communicated? How are knowledge and experiences shared across the process? Where are the information gaps and missed communications? How much feedback is formally captured and communicated versus informally discussed among staff? What key actions might you take to improve your feedback mechanisms?
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With so much of the costs and performance of a business now dependent on people, it is now the time to manage them and make it a core competency of the organization.

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Closing the Talent Management Gap

M OST BUSINESS LEADERS understand that having the right people in the right place at the right time to maximize business opportunities has become the most important factor in ensuring ongoing organizational success. While managing employees effectively is obviously important, its the acquisition, allocation, development, retention and succession of the most important, value adding people that can best create competitive advantage. No wonder then, that so many surveys show effective management of an organizations talent ranking as one of business leaders most critical challenges. For example, Accentures latest global survey1 found that attracting and retaining talent is the third biggest concern of senior business executives, coming after only the health of the global economy and worries over competition.

Identifying the talent gaps

However, despite the strategic importance of talent management, few business leaders are currently heavily involved in leading and sponsoring talent management programs. The reason for the disconnect between talents importance and the low-key nature of the response: The gap may be caused by the prevalence of nonstrategic talent management programs that treat talent very much the same as everyone else in an organization. Most people identified as talent find that they benefit from just a few incremental additions to other employees a little more development, some coaching, a few more planned career moves but the basic career dynamic remains the same. An organizations relationship with its talented employees needs to be fundamentally different from that of other employees if the strategy and implementation gap is to be closed.

Becoming a real employer of choice

A strategic approach cannot, therefore, treat all employees as talent. This method boils down to straightforward HR without the strategic benefits of employee segmentation. Talent management,

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implemented effectively, doesnt have to be seen as divisive by those people not identified as talent, or stop organizations developing the skills and potential of all their employees. The opportunity is to present the organization as an employer of choice. A real employer of choice will have developed and promoted itself in such a way that those people the organization considers to be its talent would never want to look anywhere else (perhaps only to add a bit more variety to their career). This doesnt mean that only very few organizations can become employers of choice just as there are plenty of variations in business strategy and the way that these strategies are executed, so there are many opportunities to differentiate those people who are identified as talent. Strategic talent management programs indicates that closing the strategy and implementation gap and delivering real business value requires a holistic approach to managing the following five areas. 1. Talent strategy In order to develop strategic capability, potential employers of choice need to ensure they clarify the requirements of their talent management program including the success criteria to be used to measure their programs contribution. Questions that need to be answered within a talent strategy include: What should be the balance between assessment and development, inclusivity and exclusivity, openness and closure? How will talent management be integrated with existing performance management, development, succession planning, reward and recognition and other HR processes? 2. Talent definition As well as creating a talent strategy, organizations need to clarify the focus, scope and boundaries of their own approach to talent management. The appropriate definitions of talent will depend upon an organizations business strategy, type of firm and competitive environment, but could cover the following types of talent pool: the current leadership team; other people in key roles; senior people with particular capabilities, networks and relationships which would be difficult or time consuming to replace;
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individuals with skills that are scarce in the employment market; high performers who make a particular contribution to value-adding processes; and high potentials, which could include graduates in early career grades, or employees at positions just below the leadership team.

Those within the talent pool are referred to as people who have been identified as talent, but it is advisable to avoid labeling individuals as talented (and others as untalented) as this is firstly unhelpful and secondly inappropriate. Using the names of the individual talent pools generally does the job so people are high performers and high potentials and so on. The point here is that talent and talent management are useful concepts and approaches, but are insensitive descriptions to use internally. In a strategic approach to talent management, the people any one organization identifies as talent will differ from those identified by any other, and will bear only tangential relationship to any objective measure of having natural talent (i.e., theres no single, correct view of whether any one individual is generically talented). 3. Talent framework A talent framework adds detail to the definition of talent by describing what an employer needs its talent to exhibit and develop. Talent frameworks are broader than most competency frameworks in that they encompass an employees entire long-term contribution and are therefore a mix of competencies, plus knowledge, networks, relationships, mobility, values, motivation and potential. Its important that the framework references the values and other attributes that talent will be required to possess and display in the future, in order to ensure that potential is not harnessed to criteria which are obsolete by the time that potential is developed. Once completed, the talent framework can be used as the basis for assessing and confirming talent, using the appropriate combination of framework-based interviews or group discussions, psychometrics (possibly involving specific tools that have been developed for the assessment of potential, for example, CPA2, Potentia3 and Prospector4), problem-solving exercises and role plays. Effective use of the talent framework for assessment and development of talent helps ensure that talent management actions are aligned with the organizations talent strategy. 4. Employee value proposition
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An employee value proposition (EVP) should articulate whats unique and compelling about an organization that would make people want to join and stay. It therefore partly formalizes and articulates the psychological contract between the individual and the organization. However, to have a strategic impact, the organizations EVP needs to be aligned to people within the talent pools, rather than just to all employees. As the diagram indicates the EVP will cover a range of individual and organizational, and tangible and intangible factors. For example, a research shows that the most important factors for a broad range of talent groups are: compensation linked to performance; understanding how they contribute to the success of the company they want to make a difference; friendship with quality colleagues; flexibility within work-life balance; and job security.

Once developed for a particular organization and talent pool, the EVP needs to be consistently demonstrated through all HR and management processes. Note also that although the key need is for an organization to understand the EVP it offers as a whole, the demand and competition for talent today is such that the EVP also needs to be restated and reinterpreted for each individual person identified as talent. The EVP then becomes the basis for the deal with individual employees, in which the organization commits to meeting their particular, broad needs in return for ongoing contribution to the organization. In this way, the organizations and each individuals EVP become key elements of developing a compelling employer brand and engaging talent to help become an employer of choice. 5. Talent management capabilities Those key individuals identified as talent deserve and require more intensive support than other employees. This can often be provided through mentoring, executive shadowing and coaching to leverage exposure and learning within the organization. This type of support, if set up and maintained in a consistent manner, can be of significant value to talent and the business in general. However, effective implementation of this support depends on the motivation and capability of managers who
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are going to provide it. Since many line managers struggle to manage even everyday performance effectively, introducing this enhanced management and support is likely to prove a significant challenge in most organizations.

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Understanding and Implementing Talent Strategies

Understanding the importance of all these skills is one thing; being able to put this understanding into practice is another. How many corporate leaders today can say with confidence that their management cadre has the complete package of skills to take the company forward? How many are certain that their executives are deployed where and when they can put their specific talents to the best and highest strategic use? And when a leadership need arises, how many can accurately discern whether its time to promote an individual or if that executive needs further development? Until they gain strong insight into the talent in place within their organizations, senior managers are essentially flying blind when it comes to talent strategy, whether the task is to determine current needs or to prepare for tomorrows management challenges through succession planning. Compounding the difficulty is the sheer size and complexity of many contemporary business organizations, which make it no simple undertaking to gather the information that will enable senior leadership to craft a winning talent strategy. And without robust information and analysis, leaders have little basis for deciding when and who to develop internally.

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Global companies are changing

Corporations around the world are in the process of deploying the next generation of enterprise technology. It is not a trivial transition. Enhanced functionality, dynamic global influences and requirements, new solution delivery models and an infrastructure shift to services-based architectures are changing the way companies upgrade and adopt new technology solutions. The success of the talent management market rests on: Integrated functionality and usability: Many vendors have invested heavily in the usability and integrated functionality of their solutions. The ability to seamlessly integrate data and streamline navigation and use enhances the user experience and encourages increased use of the solutions. A single data model technology infrastructure is ideal to maximize performance and simplify application management. Dynamic influences in shaping the global workforce: Companies are being forced to adjust to ever-changing global regulatory and compliance issues that outline how companies can find, recruit and manage their workforces. In addition to automating HR processes, companies are now focusing internally to build a performance-based culture centered on metrics-based business outcomes and driving additional value of the company by adapting and improving the way they manage their global workforce. Rapid acceptance of the on-demand model: The majority of most vendors revenue comes from an annuity-based hosted delivery mode. Indeed, many recognize 100 percent of their revenue from their on-demand solutions. The general acceptance of the on-demand model owes much to its proven success within other enterprise application categories such as CRM. In addition, the diminished impact of security issues has helped build the ondemand model. Demand for service and support excellence: Service and support distinction has surpassed security issues as the key concern for those adopting talent management applications. Although security issues are still prevalent, especially if IT is involved in the decision-making process, key stakeholders in the vendor selection process have shifted their
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focus toward ongoing service and support issues as their key areas of interest. Many vendors continue to develop support options that meet the needs of their customers and have become very sophisticated in the tools and techniques used to measure service-level performance. Multinational capabilities: Global enterprises are demanding multi-language capabilities and in-country domain expertise to support the ever-changing international laws. A changing global landscape and an increasing assortment of compliance issues require vendors to maintain a strong international presence. The time is now to leverage talent management technologies. Todays available talent management solutions can not only support the changing dynamics of your workforce, but help plan for the future in building both a high caliber workforce and performance-based culture.

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Using Talent Strategies as a Change Agent

In the 21st century, organizations will not survive; much less grow, unless they evolve from a collection of insular, isolated business units into cooperative, collaborative, synchronized enterprises. Such massive change efforts require new skills and competencies of their leaders, yes, but also something more. Change demands a new vision of the organization, one that recognizes talent as a vital component of strategy, on an equal footing with technology, finance, and marketing. Talent management takes on a new dimension in todays competitive marketplace. It requires an understanding of corporate strategic goals and of the role that talent plays in reaching them. And it requires a nimble organization with the expertise and resources to identify talent needs and quickly decide whether to meet them from within or draw them from outside. Indeed, it is not an exaggeration to say that the future belongs to businesses that can weave talent and strategy into a seamless whole, and in the process build an organization with not only optimized performance but also with a significant competitive advantage as well.

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Problem Identification
IT TAKES Talent to spot Talent! A tone deaf will never be able to appreciate the music of maestros. Only a seasoned jeweler would know that all that glitters is not real! And, only those who can recognize the worth of a diamond can value it, for others it's just a stone! Talent is doing easily what others find difficult. In an organization, there is nothing more crucial than fitting the right employee in the right position. Or else you would be trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. When people do jobs that just don't suit their liking, inclination or temperament, the results, or rather the lack of them will be disastrously obvious. Low productivity, dissatisfaction, low morale, absenteeism and other negative behavior will become typical till the employee is shown the door. Or perhaps, there is another option Talent Management A conscious, deliberate approach undertaken to attract, develop and retain people with the aptitude and abilities to meet current and future organizational need Organization need to have a vision and a well defined strategy on hiring for the future. India has become the outsourcing capital of the world and this has created its own set of HR challenges. Indias biggest problem is that qualified graduates are becoming scarce. Despite the large population, the supply of engineers cannot keep up with the sharply increased demand. So, do we have the right talent within to attract and retain the best available talent?

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The Challenge
The challenge of talent management has two facets to it. First is how to find new people and second is how to retain the present workforce. Each of the challenges has to be tackled in the most efficient way possible so that the organization can achieve its objectives.

The First Challenge - Where to find new talent?

All the organizations are finding loads of business opportunities and consequently, their revenues are growing at a rapid pace. The increasing business opportunities has necessitated that these organizations go in for massive recruitment. But, the question is where to find the best talent which is able to fit the job description and also adjust to the organizations values and norms. If we scan the environment, we find there is a shortage of skilled workforce that can be employed. Some of the possible reasons that have led to the shortage are: Demographic Constraints: This is a common problem faced by many of the developed countries, where a large chunk of its population is nearing the age of retirement or is over 50 years. USA, Germany and Japan are facing the same problem. All these countries will see a decline in their workforce and talent. In the coming years, they will see a great shortage in their skilled professionals. Existing Educational System: The graduates and the postgraduates that are being churned out of the universities are found to be ill-equipped to handle the challenges of the workplace. They are mostly equipped with only the theoretical aspects of the issues and lack the application part. The educational system is faulty and does not take industry needs into consideration, resulting in a mismatch between industry requirements and educational preparation. Cost Factor: Recruiting new employees is becoming tougher and tougher in the developing countries, where the HR department has to sort out thousands of applications for a handful of jobs. Finding right person for the right job becomes a very difficult process. It also involves very high cost to conduct the recruitment and selection process for such a large population of applicants.

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Attracting the Best Talent: This is another challenge. As was the case in the past, the best available talent is not just motivated by the name and fame of the organization. Not any more. They have a new set of motivators like - challenging work, conducive work environment and freedom from bureaucratic structure.

The Second Challenge - How to retain the existing employees?

Gone are the days when a person would join an organization in his mid-20s and would work till his retirement in the late-50s. Today the young professionals hop jobs, especially during the first 4-5 years of their work life. Though the Indian service industry is basking in the light of outsourced jobs from the developed countries, they also cannot ignore the fact that the BPO industry is also facing one of the highest attrition rates, infact never heard before in India, of around 35%. It is a fact that its the people that add value to organizations. It is also a fact that humans are a restless species who, unlike the immovable Banyan Tree, cannot stay rooted in one place. People need to move on for one reason or another, and the organization stands to lose. Let us look at some of the reasons behind the massive attrition rates: 1. Gap between organizational values and goals and the personal values and goals is one of the major reasons of the attrition rates. If they go parallel, there is no way both would be satisfied and inevitably, the organization would lose out on a talented employee. 2. Working environment is another major factor. Employees in the knowledge era demand creative and a democratic work environment. Failure on the part of the management to provide such an environment will result in a talented employee leaving the organization. 3. The competitive world has made sure that there is high work pressure on the employees of any organization. This has led to psychological problems like stress, and in extreme situations, total burnouts. It also leads to other health related problems. 4. Movement for higher salary is also common among the younger professionals. There is no shortage for organizations who are looking for talented employees and who are ready to shell out a hefty salary for a talented person. Other lures like better job opportunities, higher posts and overseas assignments are also major factors in the attrition rates. 5. Not taking proper care during the recruitment and selection process and not taking proper care to fit the right person to the right job also breeds dissatisfaction among the employees.
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6. Bad or opaque policies from management on issues of succession planning and promotion, appointments for senior positions also is a major factor which makes the organization lose out on the talented employees. 7. The professionals have different aspirations at different times of their career. During the initial years, they have good salary and foreign assignments. Next on the list is working on cutting edge technology. More seasoned professionals look for learning opportunities. So employees tend to move to those organizations which provide them with means to fulfill their aspirations. Retaining the present employees is of the foremost importance to the organizations because; the company would have already incurred heavy costs in the form of training and development. Now if the organization has to look for a replacement for the employee who has left, it involves a lot of costs like - hiring costs, training costs and the induction costs. Also it takes some time for the new employee to adjust to the new work environment. During this time the productivity of the employee will be low. The HR department will have to fit the new employee into a proper role in the organization. Apart from causing the company a monetary loss and breaks in their day-to-day operations, attrition contributes to knowledge transfer, which is a great loss and adversely affects business.

The Question is - How to Manage the TALENT?

It is now proved beyond doubt that, in the era of technology and knowledge, talent is in the driving seat. One who possesses it dictates. Not he who pays for it. It is the demand of the time that business leaders elevate management of talent to a burning corporate priority. It is not a walk in the park for the talent market. Quality people are no longer available in plenty, easily replaceable and relatively inexpensive. These are some of the measures that should be taken into account to hire and retain talent in the organization, to be efficient and competitive in this highly competitive world: 1. Hire the Right People:

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Proper care must be taken while hiring the people itself. It would be beneficial for an organization to recruit young people and nurture them, than to substitute by hiring from other organizations. Questions to be asked at this stage are: Whether the person has the requisite skills needed for the job? Whether the person's values and goals match with those of organization's? In short, care must be taken to fit the right person to the right job.

2. Keep the Promises:

Good talent cannot be motivated by fake platitudes, half-truths and broken promises. Unfulfilled expectations can breed dissatisfaction among the employees and make them either leave the organization or work below their productive level. Promises made during the hiring stage must be kept to build loyalty among the employees, so that they are satisfied and work to their fullest capability.
3. Good Working Environment:

It has to be accepted by the organizations that highly talented persons make their own rules. They have to be provided with a democratic and a stimulating work environment. The organizational rules must be flexible enough to provide them with freedom to carry out their part of task to their liking, as long as the task is achieved. Opportunities should also be provided to the employees to achieve their personal goals.
4. Recognition of Merit:

It is highly motivating for any person if his talent is recognized and is suitably rewarded. One way is providing them with salary commensurate with their performance. Promotions and incentives based on performance are another way of doing it. Another way is by providing them with challenging projects. This will achieve two objectives - it makes employee feel that he is considered important (a highly motivating factor) and gets the work done in an efficient manner and brings out the best in the employee.

5. Providing Learning Opportunities:

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Employees must be provided with continuous learning opportunities on and off work field through management development programmes and distance learning programmes. This will also benefit the organization in the form of highly talented workforce.

6. Shielding from High Work Pressure:

If an organization has to make the most of the available talent, they should be provided with adequate time to relax, so that they can di-stress themselves. It is very important to provide them with holidays and all-expenses-paid trips, so that they can come back refreshed to work and with increased energy. They must also be encouraged to pursue their interests which are also a good way of reducing work environment stress. Recreation clubs, entertain programmes, fun activities with in the work area will also reduce the work life stress of the employees and develop camaraderie among the workers and result in a good working environment.

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Challenges of Global Talent Management

Global competition for skilled workers is keen; worldwide, many employers are experiencing a talent shortage. A survey of nearly 33,000 employers in 23 countries reveals that 40% are struggling to locate qualified candidates. With the liberation of trade policies, transnational companies moving production to low-cost areas and the corresponding growth of global supply chains, increased globalization has resulted in socio-economic and cultural challenges. Further, talent now takes many forms, from migrants crossing borders (temporarily or seeking new homes), students gaining degrees and expatriates on assignment to tourists, refugees and business travelers. Consequently, the demand for skills has countries working hard to develop policies that will attract talent with human and technological skills to support economic growth, retain talent and even reverse talent migration. In a "reverse brain drain" effect, China and India, for example, encourage their educated nationals to return and fill jobs at home. Thus, the need for talent creates movement between countries. The United States relies on foreign talent, particularly in certain fields. U.S. universities, for example, are not graduating enough U.S. students in science and engineering, and by 2010, 25% of the nation's scientists and engineers will reach retirement age. Reflecting this shift, in 2000, 22% of all U.S. science and engineering positions were held by foreign-born professionals, up from 14% in 1990. In contrast, countries such as China and India have a wealth of talent in science, engineering and technology. Each year, China produces 350,000 graduate engineers and India 120,000, compared with 63,000 in the United States. In addition, the demand for foreign-born talent is further demonstrated by the fact that the total cap on the number of available H-IB visas under U.S. immigration policies is regularly reached months in advance of the application deadline. Clearly, the ability to attract and retain talent is increasingly important to long-term growth. Managing global talent has challenges and significant implications for sustainability and growth. A recent study of global companies, for example, states that companies are concerned about the development of future leaders capable of navigating the global business environment. Key findings show that the most important determinant of global talent management (GTM) success is the degree of involvement by the CEO, the board of directors and the GTM leader in talent
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management activities. On average, for example, CEOs spend 16% of their time speaking publicly about GTM, mentoring high potentials, participating in talent reviews and approving the succession plans. Board members in 46% of companies provide input into assessment of key employees and 39% meet with high potentials during the year. In sync with the trend to develop global HR policies and practices, organizations are creating global talent management processes. For example, at Intel Corporation, a global chip maker, HR utilizes a talent management program and works with management to assess workforce needs. Research shows organizations value having global frameworks, specifically around a common language and structure in areas such as performance management, leadership development for high potentials and professional development. There is less agreement, however, about developing common frameworks for recruitment.

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Seven keys to global success

1. Determine organizational readiness. This exercise helps build the part to success. Survey results and live interactions give the project team a clear picture of each regions readiness to adopt new processes, practices, and technology. The project team also meets key sponsors and stakeholders who are critical to success. 2. Establish measurable business goals and objectives. Defining key business goals is critical at the local level and headquarters levels. Measurable goals enable the team to agree on a project scope, monitor progress and measure success. Create tangible goals at key milestones. This enables the team on each success step by step. 3. Secure executive sponsorship and engaging stakeholders Securing executive sponsorship help reinforce corporate vision and create unity across cultural lines. Regional executives can set the standard for local success, possess the authority to allocate resources, remove obstacles, drive key decisions and demonstrate a commitment to project success. 4. Assign strategic local project resources. In determining regional resources, one should get participation of subject matter experts in each area. Local experts can share deep knowledge of local business processes, relationships with internal and external candidates and expectation of hiring managers. 5. Develop a strategic implementation plan. Build a plan that defines project goals, develops a strategy for achievement, explains how solution supports the strategy and ensures value for the users. Describe activities and owners for key projects initiatives including process design, change management, content development, training, network assessment, legal review and data privacy, website navigation, interaction and reporting. 6. Adopt a Phased Implementation Approach

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A phased approach should be undertaken. That way you achieve cost and productivity savings in key areas of the enterprise quickly. You also avoid the big bang approach where success can only be assured if all regions are ready for the implementation. This level of synchronicity rarely occurs. You also gain valuable feedback from initial phases that you can apply to improve future stages. 7. Define User Support Structure and Ongoing Knowledge Exchange. The proper setup of a global support structure is important for continued success. A lack of focus on internal support usually leads to disappointing user adoption. Effective support boosts user confidence and helps the organization to identify issues and opportunities faster. A global support structure must deal with time zones, languages, cultural differences, and availability of resources. Global enterprises must manage their talent across multiple geographies, lines of business, hire types, and processes like assessment, acquisition, development, and alignment.

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Shortage of Talent Higher Compensation

Many IT companies in India have offered higher salary increases during the increment season of this year, compared to what they did the year before. The increases appear to be particularly high at mid levels, where talent scarcity is becoming pronounced. More so in smaller companies, for whom retaining talent has become extremely challenging. Most of the companies have increased their pay packets but, despite the high pay packet structure in MNC companies, India still offers a low cost arbitrage which in turn has forced Indian biggies to push up their salary levels. While most employees are likely to rejoice at such salary increases, companies are far from enthusiastic. The issue now is how long they will be able to maintain these levels of increases. The general cost factor is becoming a concern said a COO of another company. In the salary game, everybody is a loser considering particularly that billing rates have not gone up dramatically. HR managers in the biotech field appear to have realized that they would not be able to attract and keep top talent if companies do not open their purse strings long and wide. Some surprisingly pleasant facts expressed by the concerned top management personnel are, The biotech sector has money its only a matter of companies wanting to part with it. That can only happen if they find an exceptional talent. Companies seem to have realized the need to take care of the fresh candidates. In case of IT its becoming difficult between retaining employees and clients as the billing rates have not gone up to meet recurring increases in compensation to employees.

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Benchmark Firms
Firms that have been recognized for their broader and more strategic approach to talent management include:

Microsoft GE Pepsi Wachovia Intel Wal-Mart Dell Southwest Airlines SAS

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The service and consulting areas of talent management emerged are:

Talent appreciation Potential enhancement Acquisition of talent Knowledge management

Grow Talent offers services in all the above areas. Grow Talents offerings are based on the models discussed above and follow a unique methodology. Talent appreciation (TATM) TAPTM services from Grow Talent are focused on assessing the way individuals learn, think, relate to others, and act. Tap is used to evaluate the capacities, competencies and values of individuals for assessment of potential for career development and succession planning. This is intricately linked to helping organizations map their capacity and competency requirements and then assessing talent to draw up individual development plans. The talent profiling thus done for organizations helps them identify critical competencies to be developed and capacities to be enhanced in order to meet future business requirements and achieve plans. Potential enhancement (PETM) The focus of PEPTM is to create learning experiences and solutions for individuals that will help convert their talent into competence. It also involves designing learning events and processes that enhance the potential of individuals. Two intrinsic components of Grow Talent PEPTM are: Capacity building modules - which focus on enhancing the four capacities of individuals

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Competence building modules which focus on specific areas like consulting skills, problem solving, service quality, strategic selling, process designing, interviewing skills, etc.

Acquisition of talent (ACTM) Grow Talents approach to helping organizations acquire talent is based on the following: Helping organizations define roles for specific leadership positions based on 'preferred futures' and strategy Identifying the competencies required for each of these jobs Determining the levels of fundamental capacities of learning, thinking, relating and acting needed to acquire these competencies Defining the values which are needed to display the desired behaviors Identifying individuals who would fit into these positions Enable organizations and individuals to establish mutually acceptable contracts for employment and lay the foundation of win-win relationships Knowledge Management The domain of talent management includes culture-building and change management. Knowledge management services from Grow Talent are aimed at leveraging knowledge for performance by creating an environment for sharing by building trust. The focus of knowledge management is to connect people and technology to capture and harness the tacit knowledge of the organization. By making trust the bandwidth of communication, knowledge management enhances sharing and thereby creates an appropriate environment for talent to translate into performance. With its comprehensive spectrum of services for talent management and unique methodology, Grow Talent is strongly positioned to help organizations gain a competitive and sustained talent advantage.

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Top ten talent retention tips

by Craig Donaldson A recent US white paper found that by 2010, there could be as many as 10 million more jobs available in the country than there are employees. Further, there is growing evidence of worker dissatisfaction, primarily as a result of layoffs, lack of career growth, and minimal pay increases over the past several years. Additionally, some employers have become ruthless in order to survive over the past decade, creating aggressive cultures that may not be comfortable for many workers. The Responding to the mega-billion- dollar retention crisis white paper, produced by The Ken Blanchard Companies, detailed 10 steps for building retention within organisations:
1. Show genuine interest and appreciation. Continue to be or become genuinely interested

in each person whom you support and depend on.

2. Make work meaningful. Help people see the connection between what they do and what

difference it makes, to the company, the internal or external customers, and society.
3. Ask courageous questions. Dont shy away from asking why people stay and what it will

take to retain them.

4. Grow competencies, situationally. Look for opportunities to put people into challenging

situations where their skills and competencies will grow.

5. Meet one-on-one, routinely. Conduct regular, but brief one-on-one meetings between

manager/leaders and direct reports. Begin by asking, Whats on your mind? then listen and act.
6. Make retention everyones responsibility. Encourage all members of the work group to

feel responsible for the retention of their peers and to be alert to problems that can be fixed.
7. Be a career builder. Talk to people about their long-term career aspirations and help them

use or build the skills and competencies they need for the future.
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8. Help people get an Alevel. Give the gift of being clear about what an Alevel

performance looks like.

9. Manage the meaning of change. Move toward people in uncertain times, including

personal and organisational change. Be there and be open. Check in with people often.
10. Walk your talk. Be aware that people are always watching and assessing you and your

actions as a leader.

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HR Managers Findings
Most of the covered companies have talent specific initiative in place (81%) and they give them top priority in their organization (86%).They also have exclusive staff member for managing talent initiatives (68%) In most of the companies the talent is identified by competencies (42%) and the HR professional view to increase career growth opportunity. HR staffs as well as the department heads are responsible for recruiting individuals (64%) Retaining the current talent is top priority for the organization (38%) Sales and business development are the two areas where retaining talent is most difficult Class room workshop, mentoring and coaching are usually used by the organization to carry out talent development activities. More than 60% of the respondent view organizational culture as a main driving force for the new talent and for the existing talent. Even rewarding plays an important role (48%) Base pay (57%) and Job security (52%) are the two main areas for retaining talent in coming years. Other than this, training plays an important role in motivating the employee. Organizations are using certification for improving the training programs. In more than 90% of the organizations budget for recruiting developing and retaining employees is going to increase over the next three years

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Employees Findings
Most the employees have a clear knowledge about the companys vision, mission and objectives. And they know how to achieve these objectives (76%) They are clear about their role and responsibility (85%) and they know about other staff members also. Most of the respondents are satisfied by job description, salary review, health care benefits etc. Base pay (60%) and Job security (44%) are in top priority for the employees in coming years. Apart from financial benefits, employee emphasis more on career growth, work culture and international opportunities. 91% of the employees want more training in their specified job. The employees have a mix response on benefits like Medical insurance package, Company savings plan, Retirement plan, Holiday Entitlement, Job market etc. 64% of the employees are satisfied with the company's personnel policies where as 36% are neither satisfied nor dissatisfied Overall 32 % employees are extremely satisfied where as 52% are just satisfied with their organization.

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Opportunities for Improvement

Although organizations have made significant progress raising awareness and attention to talent management and implementing foundational programs, these efforts have not led to well-executed talent management programs that are aligned with business priorities. Organizations still lag in their ability to integrate talent management programs and evaluate the return on their talent investments. The reasons are many, including: Human Capital is not Sufficiently Aligned With Business Strategy: While senior leaders clearly recognize the importance of human capital, a number of companies struggle to connect their people practices with their business imperatives. Only 17% of respondents say their workforce strategy is consistently aligned with their business strategy across the organization, while even fewer (7%) report consistently utilizing a specific quantitative framework in which investments in talent management are aligned with business results. Lack of Accountability and Capability for Talent Development: While most organizations hold their executives and managers accountable for achieving business results, they are not being held accountable for talent development. Few organizations consistently hold managers (7%) or senior executives (10%) accountable for developing their direct reports. Furthermore, most managers lack the basic capability to develop talent effectively. Just 5% of organizations say their managers have the skills to grow people in their jobs or to provide the constructive feedback that supports and encourages employee development consistently across the organization. Inconsistent Execution and Integration of Talent Programs: The majority of companies report having fundamental processes for talent management in place, such as basic workforce planning, development programs for high potential employees, and succession planning. However, few consistently execute these programs across the entire organization. While slightly more than two-thirds (69%) of companies say they conduct workforce planning across all divisions and business units, fewer than one-fifth (15%) do so consistently.
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Furthermore, only 21% of companies consistently integrate talent practices across the organization (e.g., rewards are tied to performance; performance is tied to development). Limited Use of Meaningful Talent Analytics: Data and analysis have long played a role in driving business decisions; yet when it comes to talent analytics, most organizations have a long way to go. Mired in tracking traditional workforce measures, such as headcount, turnover, and cost-based metrics, few have graduated to tracking the metrics that matter. Fewer than 10% of responding companies measure the effectiveness of talent management programs, track the quality of talent, or use specific quantitative frameworks to align human capital investments with their business strategy.

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The future is now for talent management technologies

The worldwide market for talent management technologies is thriving. A number of factors are fueling the exponential growth: a dynamic geo-economic climate that increases focus on the workforce; a changing global labor market; and the need for organizations to transform their workforce and build a climate and culture of performance and innovation. The impact of organizational brain drain and the fear of a global talent shortage due to an increasingly aging workforce have caused companies to focus on finding, developing and retaining superior, talented employees. That makes talent management technologies must-haves for organizations committed to developing a competitive human capital advantage. Demand for talent management solutions is pervasive throughout North America, Europe and Asia, where interest is high and adoption is brisk. The talent management market includes HR process functionality for recruitment, performance, compensation, succession planning, learning and other capabilities around self-service, analytics and reporting. Many vendors have pursued a suite approach in an effort to leverage the data and intelligence across the various modular capabilities while others have chosen to go deep in distinct modular functionality. The growth of talent management technologies will nearly double by 2009 and will exceed US$4.0 billion, a compound annual growth rate of more than 26 percent in the next four years. Based on the heavy influence of the on-demand, software-as-a-service subscription model, many organizations are attracted toward talent management solutions based on low upfront costs, limited deployment risks, and predictable pricing model. Over 2300 companies worldwide adopted some form of talent management technology in 2005. Of those companies, approximately 65 percent of those companies deployed their talent management solution in an on-demand model. Recruitment and learning categories will fuel growth because of an increasing talent shortage and focus on training and career development. Asia-Pacific will invest and spend between 2006 and 2009.
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Think towards the future

Real employers of choice will be totally focused on developing their talents full potential and will understand that the best development opportunities can sometimes be found elsewhere. Through enabling open, honest conversations, these employers of choice need to encourage their talent to review their long-term career development needs and how these needs can best be met internally or externally. At the appropriate point, employers should encourage those theyve identified as talent to leave, in order to rejoin as even more valuable talent later on. Implementing this approach would fundamentally alter the talent career dynamic and make it absolutely clear which organizations were operating as true employers of choice. Following the four stages involved in developing a strategic talent management program will provide the basis for understanding which of these examples and other strategic actions may be appropriate for your organization and your identified talent groups. The opportunity is there to make a difference and perhaps future surveys will indicate that talent management activities are starting to live up to the strategic challenge of managing an organizations key resource: its talent.

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Recommendation and Suggestions

Organizations must have meaningful descriptions of the capabilities (skills, behaviors, abilities and knowledge) required throughout the organization. Organizations must be able to relate those skills and capabilities to a role or a center of demand, such as a job position, project or leadership role. Talent management processes must create a comprehensive profile of their talent. They must be able to track meaningful talent related information about all of their people - employees, contractors, or candidates. The working culture of the organization should be improved and maintained to retain talent in long run. More certified training should be given to the employee to boost their effectiveness and efficiency. It should be used as a tool of motivation. The organization should identify the crucial talent initiative to attract and retain the employee. They should know which talent management elements can have the greatest impact on the business and therefore provide a better basis for prioritization and implementation. To create a sophisticated talent management environment, organizations must: Define a clear vision for talent management Develop a roadmap for technology and process integration Integrate and optimize processes Apply robust technology to enable processes Prepare the workforce for changes associated with the new environment With the increasing competition for highly skilled talent, creating an open and innovative culture, aligned with what matters most to employees, will provide the organisation with the competitive
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edge to retain and attract the talent necessary to achieve organizational goals. The best practices critical to retaining talent include providing career development opportunities, leadership who can articulate core messages and live them everyday, trust-based relationships with managers founded on open communication and feedback, and giving employees a voice in the business along. If a climate that is characterized by an open culture is created, the groundwork set for an environment consistent with what most employees want would be the result. Maximum use should be made out of this engaging climate to attract new talent as well as retaining current talent. Articulate this employment brand in the form of an employee value proposition, that is, what employees in your organization get for what they give. An employee value proposition can be developed by interviewing top performers in your organization, targeted talent in the marketplace, and the clients and customers, asking questions to gain insights about what is most important to them when choosing a company as an employer or as a service provider. This should be followed by examining the competitors employee value propositions. It is essential to get differentiated among the other organizations in the industry. Then, based on a compilation of this data, an employee value proposition can be articulated. An intensive training and communication effort then needs to unfold in the organization to be sure there is continuity of expression. Having ensured that the employee value proposition accurately reflects the reality of working in the organization, one then communicate, communicate, communicate, as well as publicize, publicize, publicize.

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Conclusion
The HR department is a very traditional function that is slow to change. Professionals in recruiting are no different: they seem to like their independence and they often loathe working closely with generalists, compensation, or development professionals. But companies like Wal-Mart that have championed integrated processes like supply chain management have demonstrated the dramatic impact that coordination and integration can have on companys success and profitability. A successful talent management process starts with the foundation built by supply chain management, Six Sigma, CRM, and lean manufacturing, and adapts it to HR. Unfortunately, its strength and integration are also the primary roadblock within HR because getting HR people to coordinate their efforts is about as easy as herding cats. Highly demanding business environment makes it imperative for the organizations to build competence in the form of superior intellectual capital. It is agreed by almost all CEOs of big companies that it is the human resource - a talented one - that can provide them competitiveness in the long run. So it is the duty of the HR department to nurture a brigade of talented workforce, which can win them the war in the business field. The talent has to be spotted, carefully nurtured and most importantly preserved. As organizations continue to pursue high performance and improved results through TM practices, they are taking a holistic approach to talent managementfrom attracting and selecting wisely, to retaining and developing leaders, to placing employees in positions of greatest impact. The mandate is clear: for organizations to succeed in todays rapidly changing and increasingly competitive marketplace, intense focus must be applied to aligning human capital with corporate strategy and objectives. It starts with recruiting and retaining talented people and continues by sustaining the knowledge and competencies across the entire workforce. With rapidly changing skill sets and job requirements, this becomes an increasingly difficult challenge for organizations.

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Meeting this organizational supply and demand requires the right Talent DNA and supporting technology solutions. By implementing an effective talent management strategy, including integrated data, processes, and analytics, organizations can help ensure that the right people are in the right place at the right time, as well as organizational readiness for the future.

Right person for the right job - is the new mantra.

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