Items Description of Module

Subject Name Human Resource Management

Paper Name Skill Development and Social Entrepreneurship
Module Title Talent Management
Module Id Module No. – 28
Pre- Requisites Basic understanding of Human Resource skills
Objectives To develop conceptual understanding of Talent Management and
its organizational relevance
Keywords Talent Management, Recruiting, Leadership, Career Planning
 QUADRANT-I

1. Module 28: Talent Management

2. Learning Outcomes
3. Introduction to Talent Management
4. Organizational benefits of Talent Management
5. Principles of Talent Management
6. Talent Management Process
7. Talent Management - Opportunities and Challenges
8. Application of Talent Management
9. Summary

1. Module 28: Talent Management

2. Learning Outcomes
By the end of this module, students will be able to
 understand the concept and relevance of Talent Management required in business
organizations
 get familiar with dimensions of Talent Management for improving their human resource
skills.

3. Introduction to Talent Management

Talent Management is managing the ability, competency and power of employees within an
organization. The concept extends beyond recruiting the right candidate, to exploring their hidden
and unusual qualities and developing and nurturing them to get the desired results. Hiring the best
talent from the industry may be an important concern for the organizations today but retaining
them and most importantly, transitioning them according to the culture of the organization and
getting the best out of them is a much bigger concern. Talent Management in organizations thus is
a continuous process that involves sourcing, hiring, developing, retaining and promoting them
while meeting the organization’s requirements simultaneously.

It also refers to the anticipation of required human capital and using strategic human resource
planning to improve business value for organizations to reach their goals. A talent-management
strategy needs to link to business strategy to make sense. Talent recognition for achieving
business goals, attracting them to work for you and strategically fitting them at a right place in
your organization is the next step. It is to be remembered that placing a candidate at a wrong place
can multiply your problems regardless of the qualifications, skills, abilities and competency of
that person.
4. Organizational benefits of Talent Management
Talent management can be a discipline as big as the HR function itself or a small bunch of
initiatives aimed at people and organization development. Different organizations utilize talent
management for their benefits. This is as per the size of the organization and their belief in the
practice. Some of the benefits are:

 Right Person in the right Job: Through a proper ascertainment of people skills and
strengths, people decisions gain a strategic agenda. The skill or competency mapping allows
in taking stock of skill inventories lying with the organization. This is especially important
both from the perspective of the organization as well as the employee, because if the right
person is deployed in the right position then employee productivity increased. Also since
there is a better alignment between an individual’s interests and job profile leading to
increased job satisfaction.

 Retaining the top talent: Despite changes in the global economy, attrition remains a major
concern of organizations. Retaining top talent is important to leadership and growth in the
marketplace. Organisations that fail to retain their top talent are at the risk of losing out to
competitors. The focus is now on charting employee retention programs and strategies to
recruit, develop, retain and engage quality people. Employee growth in a career has to be
taken care of, while succession planning is being performed those who are on the radar need
to be kept in loop so that they know their performance is being rewarded.

 Better Hiring: The quality of an organization is the quality of workforce it possesses. The
best way to have talent at the top is build talent at the bottom. Thus talent management
programs, trainings and hiring assessments have become an integral aspect of HR processes
nowadays.

 Understanding Employees better: Employee assessments give deep insights to the

management about their employees. Understanding employees development needs, career
aspirations, strengths and weaknesses, abilities, likes and dislikes makes it is easier to
determine what motivates whom and this also helps a lot in job enrichment process.

 Better Professional Development decisions: Talent Management exercise assists

organization towards identifying its high potential individuals. Since organisational
development calls for investment decisions towards learning, training and development of the
individual for growth, succession planning, performance management etc. Talent
management assists in investment decision making this professional development exercise
easier for them.

Apart from this having a strong talent management culture also determines how organization rate
their organizations as work places. In addition if employees are positive about the talent
management practices of the organization, they are more likely to have confidence in the future of
their organization. The resultant is a workforce that is more committed, engaged and determined
to outperform their competitors and ensure a leadership position in the market for their
organization.

5. Principles of Talent Management

The four principles of Talent Management are directed at bringing efficiency and effectiveness in
Manpower Talent Development process.

 Principle 1 - Avoiding mismatch costs

In planning for future manpower requirements, most of the HR professionals prepare a deep
bench of candidates or manpower inventory. Many of the people who remain in this bracket start
searching for other options and move when they are not raised to a certain position and profile. In
such a scenario it is better to keep the bench strength low and hire from outside from time to time
to fill gaps. This in no way means only hiring from outside, which leads to a skill deficit and
affects the organizational culture. Such decisions can be taken by thinking about the ‘Make or
Buy’ decision. Perhaps questions like - How accurate is the demand forecast? How long is the
talent required? Can we afford to develop? Answers to these questions can better help the talent
management to decide on whether to develop or buy talent.

 Principle 2 - Reducing the risk of being wrong

In manpower anticipations for future an organization can ill afford to be wrong. It’s hard to
forecast talent demands for future business needs because of the uncertainty involved. It is
therefore very important to attune the career plans with the business plans. A five year career plan
looks ridiculous along with a two year business plan.

Further, long term development and succession plans may end up as a futile exercise if the
organization lacks a firm retention strategy.

 Principle 3 - Recouping talent investments

Developing talent internally pays in the longer run. The best way to recover investments made in
talent management is to reduce upfront costs by finding alternative and cheaper talent delivery
options. Organizations also require a rethink on their talent retention strategy to improve
employee retention.

Another way that has emerged of late in many organizations is sharing development costs with
the employees. Many of TATA companies for example sponsor their employees’ children
education. Similarly lots of organizations use ‘promote then develop’ programs for their
employees where the cost of training and development is shared between the two. One important
way to recoup talent investments is spotting the talent early, this reduces the risk. More
importantly this identified lot of people needs to be given opportunities before they get it
elsewhere.

 Principle 4 - Balancing Employee Interests

How much authority should the employees’ have over their own development? There are different
models that have been adopted by various corporations globally. There is ‘the chess master
model’, but the flipside in this is that talented employees search for options. Organizations can
also make use of the internal mobility programs which are a regular feature of almost all the top
organizations.

6. Talent Management Process

People are, undoubtedly the best resources of an organization. Sourcing the best people from the
industry has become the top most priority of the organizations today. In such a competitive
scenario, talent management has become the key strategy to identify and filling the skill gap in a
company by recruiting the high-worth individuals from the industry. It is a never-ending process
that starts from targeting people. The process regulates the entry and exit of talented people in an
organization. To sustain and stay ahead in business, talent management cannot be ignored. In
order to understand the concept better, let us discuss the stages included in talent management
process:

 Understanding the Requirement: It is the preparatory stage and plays a crucial role in
success of the whole process. The main objective is to determine the requirement of
talent. The main activities of this stage are developing job description and job
specifications.

 Sourcing the Talent: This is the second stage of talent management process that involves
targeting the best talent of the industry. Searching for people according to the requirement
is the main activity.

 Attracting the Talent: it is important to attract the talented people to work with you as
the whole process revolves around this only. After all the main aim of talent management
process is to hire the best people from the industry.

 Recruiting the Talent: The actual process of hiring starts from here. This is the stage
when people are invited to join the organization.

 Selecting the Talent: This involves meeting with different people having same or
different qualifications and skill sets as mentioned in job description. Candidates who
qualify this round are invited to join the organization.

 Training and Development: After recruiting the best people, they are trained and
developed to get the desired output.
 Retention: Certainly, it is the sole purpose of talent management process. Hiring them
does not serve the purpose completely. Retention depends on various factors such as pay
package, job specification, challenges involved in a job, designation, personal
development of an employee, recognition, culture and the fit between job and talent.

 Promotion: No one can work in an organization at the same designation with same job
responsibilities. Job enrichment plays an important role.
  Competency Mapping: Assessing employees’ skills, development, ability and
competency is the next step. If required, also focus on behaviour, attitude, knowledge and
future possibilities of improvement. It gives you a brief idea if the person is fir for
promoting further.

 Performance Appraisal: Measuring the actual performance of an employee is necessary

to identify his or her true potential. It is to check whether the person can be loaded with
extra responsibilities or not.

 Career Planning: If the individual can handle the work pressure and extra
responsibilities well, the management needs to plan his or her career so that he or she
feels rewarded. It is good to recognize their efforts to retain them for a longer period of
time.

 Succession Planning: Succession planning is all about who will replace whom in near
future. The employee who has given his best to the organization and has been serving it
for a very long time definitely deserves to hold the top position. Management needs to
plan about when and how succession will take place.

 Exit: The process ends when an individual gets retired or is no more a part of the
organization.

Talent Management process is very complex and is therefore, very difficult to handle. The sole
purpose of the whole process is to place the right person at the right place at the right time. The
main issue of concern is to establish a right fit between the job and the individual.
7. Talent Management - Opportunities and Challenges
There is no dearth of professionals but there is an acute shortage of talented professionals
globally. Every year b-schools globally churn out management professionals in huge numbers but
how many of are actually employable remains questionable! This is true for other professions
also. There are the following opportunities and challenges that the talent management in
organizations has to face today - dealing with demographic talent problems:

 Recruiting Talent
The recent economic downturn saw job cuts globally. Those who were most important to
organizations in their understanding were retained, other were sacked. Similarly huge shuffles
happened at the top leadership positions. They were seen as crisis managers unlike those who
were deemed responsible for throwing organizations into troubled waters. It is the jurisdiction of
talent management to get such people on on-board, who are enterprising but ensure that an
organization does not suffer for the same.

 Training and Developing Talent

The downturn also opened the eyes of organizations to newer models of employment - part time
or temporary workers. This is a new challenge to talent management, training and developing
people who work on a contractual or project basis. What’s more big a challenge is increasing the
stake of these people in their work.

 Retaining Talent
While organizations focus on reducing employee overheads and sacking those who are
unessential in the shorter run, it also spreads a wave of de motivation among those who are
retained. An uncertainty about the firing axe looms in their mind. It is essential to maintain a
psychological contract with employees those who have been fired as well as those who have been
retained. Investing on people development in crisis is the best thing an organization can do to
retain its top talent.

 Developing Leadership Talent

Leadership in action means an ability to take out of crisis situation, extract certainty out of
uncertainty, set goals and driving change to ensure that the momentum is not lost. Identifying
people from within the organization who should be invested upon is a critical talent management
challenge.

 Creating Talented Ethical Culture

Setting standards for ethical behaviour, increasing transparency, reducing complexities and
developing a culture of reward and appreciation are still more challenges and opportunities for
talent management.

8. Application of Talent Management

In wake of the economic conditions human resource professionals are under huge pressure to cut
costs. Logically this is best time to validate the importance of talent management. Hiring and
compensating the best talent in the industry optimally and ensuring performance at the same time.
As per industry statistics only five per cent of organizations possess a talent management strategy
that is operational!
Aging workforce is another area of concern that has created vacuums in organizations leadership
positions. Organizations also report shortage of talent business line managers.

All this has opened up avenues for HR professionals for vindicating their stand on talent
management and once organizations understand that they need an integrated approach to talent
management, the involvement of a top executive is important for driving success.

Developing Leadership Pool: Succession planning and leadership development are two issues
that have felt a sense of urgency after the recent economic downturn. Organizations have been
seeking leadership positions to rescue them out of crisis.

Performance Management: After succession planning and leadership development, performance

management comes next on the list. Without a thorough and standard way to measure
performance it is not possible to promote right people to right positions and motivate them to
perform for organizational growth and development.

Recruitment assumes significance: Recruitment becomes strategic so to say. Recruitment

practices determine organizational effectiveness. In a tight labour market it a daunting task to
attract the brightest talent towards your organization and then getting them on board. Internet has
become an important source of external recruiting. Systems and standards have been laid down
for the same. Here building an employer brand is important. Those who do, get right people on
board.

Skill based Manpower Planning: Manpower planning is a strategic HR process these days.
Instead of a mere headcount based hiring; manpower planning now extends to the locating critical
skills, roles and responsibilities and then ascertaining current and future talent needs for those
roles.

These are vital processes that optimize the performance of the human capital management. What
is required is to ensure that they are consistent in order to ascertain they meet the business
objectives.

Talent management is in its nascent stage, there are still more processes that will be added in due
course of time as organizations opt for more initiatives in the direction.

9. Summary
Talent management seeks to attract, identify, develop, engage, retain and deploy individuals who
are considered particularly valuable to an organization. By managing talent strategically,
organizations can build a high performance workplace, encourage a learning organization, add
value to their branding agenda, and contribute to diversity management. For these reasons, HR
professionals widely consider talent management to be among their key priorities.

The term "talent management" is usually associated with competency-based management. 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 behaviours).