Talent management for successful trades  

By Taslim Ahammad:

Talent management exists to ensure that organization get the right people with the right skills into the right position at the right time so the business can accomplish its mission. The biggest challenge confronting organizations is managing talent amidst uncertainty and risk. Shrinking business cycles and increasing competition have intensified the war for talent across sectors and industries.

Talent management is a business strategy and system that promotes a high-performing workforce, identifies and closes skills gaps, and implements and maintains programs to attract, acquire, develop, promote, and retain quality and diverse talent.

Human resource management would ideally include talent management. Talent management is an organization’s commitment to recruit, hire, retain, and develop the most talented and superior employees available in the job market. So, talent management is a useful term when it describes an organization’s commitment to hire, manage, develop, and retain talented employees.

Talent management is a set of integrated organisational workforce processes designed to attract, develop, motivate and retain productive, engaged employees. The goal of talent management is to create a high-performance, sustainable organisation that meets its strategic and operational goals and objectives. Talent management strategy to create a higher-performing workforce. Hence, executives and HR management need to focus on basic talent management acquiring, hiring and retaining talented employees.

Processes of talent management system: (i) Planning – Depending on the workforce plan and how much talent an organisation needs to attract, the marketing strategy is developed.  This might be as simple as an online notice of positions available, to hosting a stall at career or school fairs. (ii) Attract top talent: Recruit the most talented and skilled employees available. When you have strategic talent management, you are able to create an employer brand, which organically attracts your ideal talent, and in turn contributes to higher levels of business performance and results. (iii) 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-board, who are enterprising but ensure that an organization does not suffer for the same. (iv) Developing – Development of talent can include; leadership development, emerging leaders, technical development, team building or team development days, secondments, project work and on the job development. (v) Depending on how an organisation chooses to define ‘talent’ they may focus some initiatives purely on employees who are high performing and with high potential, or they may include all employees.  Either way, part of the talent management process would ideally include processes, which are inclusive and fair, rather than meeting one need and as a result isolating a large group within the organisation. (vi) Developing leadership talent – It is essential that organisations do what they can to create a context supportive of developing leadership talent. The somewhat callous practice of simply throwing talented people into the fire to see who survives fails to capitalise on what has been learned about experience. Taking leadership development seriously means using experience wisely to help those with sufficient dedication and desire to learn the craft. (vii) Retaining: The importance of retaining top talent is critical because it can save on additional recruitment costs associated with hiring new employees, it can also save on the time it takes for a new employee to learn the job and start performing. Additionally, if an employee understands an organisation and its clients, and is a high performer or high potential, they have the capacity to significantly contribute to improving business performance and supporting it through times of change. (viii) Higher client satisfaction – A systematic approach to talent management means that there is organisational wide integration and a consistent approach to management. This in turn translates to general communication and dissolving of silos within the business. When systems are more integrated, client satisfaction rates are usually higher, since they are dealing with less people and their needs are met faster.

Outcomes of talent management: (1) Ready workforce – The workforce is positioned to address and accomplish evolving priorities and objectives based on anticipated and un-anticipated events. (2) Employee investment – The agency invests in its employees through formal and informal learning and development related activities to close competency gaps and enhance mission related outcomes. (3) Efficient operation – The workforce is aligned, positioned, and trained to provide efficient and effective services to the agency’s internal and external stakeholders. (4) Increased retention – Retention strategies create an environment where employees understand and are committed to the mission of the organization and empowered to make a difference. (5) Increased customer satisfaction – Learning and development activities demonstrate enhancements in program management and service delivery yielding increases in customer satisfaction. (6) Trusted labour/management relationship – Labour and Management partner to ensure the workforce receives the tools, resources, and training to accomplish the mission of the agency.

In simplest terms, the job of a talent manager is to organize and advance the career of a talented individual. Clients may include actors, artists, musicians, or athletes. You are responsible for seeking job opportunities for clients and representing your clients’ interests during the negotiation of contracts.

Ultimately, talent management consultants exist so that organisations can more effectively address their goals and business needs in order to improve business performance in the long run.  A talent management plan will enable your business strategy through your people.

An organization that does this kind of effective succession planning makes sure that the best talent they have is trained and ready to assume the next position in their career path. Succession planning benefits the employees and it benefits the organization. Employees are the predominant source of competitive advantage and need to have adequate processes in place to reduce turnover and maximize the performance of the organisations human capital.

Taslim Ahammad, Assistant Professor

Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Science and Technology University, Gopalganj, Bangladesh.

taslim.ahammad@gmail.com