Talent management is at the heart of every organisation, no matter how big or small.
In the past, HRM was limited to recruiting the right people for the job, keeping them motivated through promotions and cash incentives, managing leave schemes, replacing people who left the organisation for whatever reason, and establishing HR and management policies and rules.
Talent management, on the other hand, has become a core area of human resource management. In many cases, HR departments neglect talent management, resulting in high employee turnover and loss of revenue for the organisation.
Here we take a look at everything that is involved in HR and talent management in this day and age.
A new definition of talent
As mentioned earlier, human resource management is limited to a handful of functions in any organisation. While these functions are important to any company, today all HR departments need to rethink their role.
Over the last decade, technological advances, and the development of an ecosystem of start-ups that encourage entrepreneurship, telecommuting, freelancing and high employee turnover have redefined HR and its management.
This means that HR departments around the world are having to change decades-old policies to meet these new demands. Talent management will have to become a key function.
What is Talent Management?
Talent management remains a grey area for most companies, regardless of their size. Every company strives to recruit the best talent but often does not know how that talent will perform when they are hired.
It is clear that there are employees who perform well despite having little experience and, in some cases, no qualifications.
Conversely, there are employees with great experience and the right qualifications who fail to perform.
This is where talent management comes in. It is an important function that HR departments around the world must perform, regardless of the size or location of the organisation.
Aligning HR and Talent Management
Any organisation that is serious about survival must integrate HR and talent management. This process must be seamless.
Breaking away from traditional HRM practices is essential, but it is not the only way. There are many ways to ensure that HR and talent management is up to date with the needs of the organisation.
This starts with the recruitment process.
HR strategy
HR professionals and their departments who are serious about talent management must first develop a new recruitment strategy. This includes mapping out the existing staff and their roles and tasks. The HR department will need to develop a short, medium and long term talent management strategy.
This includes coordinating with different departments. For example, HR will need to identify which employees are leaving or leaving the company and need to be replaced immediately or within a reasonable timeframe.
The departing employee may have specific skills or talents, but there is no need to search for a suitable person to fill the upcoming vacancy.
Instead, HR professionals can look for candidates with a range of skills who can be called upon at short notice and who may be useful to the business.
Technical development
The HR department also has to decide how many people are needed. Due to developments in technology, it is not necessary to increase the number of staff for a particular job unless it is labour-intensive.
To do this, we need to recruit people with the right skills to meet current demand. It must also be possible to develop these skills.
You also need to consider the average age of your future workforce when planning your strategy. Recruiting employees who are too young can lead to high turnover. Younger employees are more likely to be attracted by slightly higher wages and the employer’s image in the market. They will therefore change jobs without thinking twice.
Hiring older employees means acquiring one or more employees who do not have the necessary talent for that age group. It is therefore expensive to train employees to the required level.
Training and skills development
In the past, training and skills development was often marginalised as a function of the HR department. Instead, the burden of training fell on the various departments of the organisation.
This situation resulted in a significant imbalance of talent between departments. Some departments had the talent they needed, while others lagged behind in the organisation.
In order to synchronise HR and talent management, we need to develop the skills of each employee and ensure compatibility between departments. This is not an easy task.
It requires time, effort and, of course, resources. Managers and HR departments must therefore work together with the rest of the organisation to create or find suitable training courses.
This talent management function is very important for a company to gain an advantage over many of its competitors.
Identifying remote workers and freelancers
Finding the right people for your organisation may not be possible in all locations. Where this is the case, HR departments need to identify opportunities where the people they need can perform specific functions remotely.
A global trend is an increase in telecommuting or teleworking (also known as working from home). HR departments can take advantage of this trend to recruit employees with the skills they need.
A freelancer with good skills can also do almost any job, skilled or unskilled. Hiring freelancers is another way of managing your human resources.
This allows organisations to get the right person for the job, while also extending the payroll period as there is no need to employ full-time staff.
Remuneration strategy
The days when the financial reward was the only criterion for all employees are long gone. Today’s employees seek more than just financial rewards. This includes promotions, short-term assignments in new locations and timely recognition for their efforts.
Rewarding employees with money is not helpful in itself. An employee may hold onto a position because of the financial rewards but will be tempted to leave if a better offer comes along.
This situation can be managed by applying a good remuneration strategy. Be clear about what you expect from your employees and give them realistic deadlines. Those who achieve their targets will be rewarded with a promotion or a move to a specific position.
In some cases, they may even be allowed to work from home. Combine these rewards with some financial benefits. Praise is effective, but so is money.
Reduce employee turnover
The bane of any organisation’s talent management is turnover. There are many reasons why valuable employees leave an organisation. Employees leave when they feel that their efforts are not valued.
The second reason employees leave is that their skills are not being used to their full potential. The third reason is generally low morale, and there are many reasons for this.
Talent management must therefore take all of these factors into account. Remuneration strategies can help to dispel the general feeling of being unappreciated, but serious action is needed to control other causes.
HR departments need to ensure that talented employees have ample opportunities to demonstrate their abilities. In addition, specific measures need to be taken to resolve problems caused by low morale.
This includes identifying and addressing the causes of poor morale.
Talent development
In addition to remote workers and freelancers, HR professionals should also consider the possibility of outsourcing certain functions of the organisation. Outsourcing can lead to cost savings, but not always.
It can, however, provide access to some of the best talent available, both locally and from overseas.
As part of talent management, outsourcing plays a very important role. It gives companies flexibility and choice when looking for suppliers. This means that even if you want to outsource, you still need to recruit the best people.
Outsourcing also makes it easier to monitor performance. Contractors have to report on their work and so on. In order to keep their contracts, these outsourcing service providers go the extra mile to keep their business.
Careers and jobs
Smaller organisations in particular are at risk of losing talent. Its employees leave the company for bigger and more prestigious organisations. This is one area where HR departments can play an important role and help stop the brain drain.
Taking measures to ensure that employees are not influenced by the size of the organisation they work for can go a long way to helping them achieve their career goals.
Employees will go the extra mile to develop their skills to a certain extent if they are confident that they will be rewarded in the long term.
Employees who have considered a career in the organisation will be encouraged to participate in team-building in different departments.
This will help to attract the best people, exchange ideas and increase productivity.
Leadership development
It is understandable that no employee wants to stay in the same position. They will strive to improve their position within the organisation. Promoting achievement is a good thing, but sometimes it can have the opposite effect.
It is a mistake to promote talented employees who do not possess leadership or management skills to managerial or supervisory positions. It demotivates other employees and takes away from the job satisfaction of those promoted.
This can be avoided by implementing leadership development initiatives as part of your people management. HR professionals will be better able to identify the right people for management and supervisory positions.
In addition, leadership development initiatives mean that organisations develop secondary and tertiary lines of defence and attack management that can be deployed as required. This, in turn, will enable us to retain our people.
Employee assistance programmes
More and more companies are recognising the inherent benefits and importance of employee assistance programmes in talent management. Employee assistance programmes provide employees with the means to care for their families and themselves in the event of an accident or unforeseen event.
This creates a deep sense of trust in the organisation at work and can have a significant effect on loyalty. HR departments can consider developing a range of employee assistance programmes.
Traditional employee assistance programmes are acceptable for organisations large and small, but clearly defined programmes can contribute to talent management by improving employee retention.
There are no specific measures or prohibitions on employee assistance programmes. HR managers can therefore develop what is right for their organisation and their employees.
However, care needs to be taken to ensure that these programmes are attractive and give employees the confidence to continue to provide their services.
Conclusion
In modern HRM, there are no time or space constraints. The size of an organisation should not be an obstacle to talent management.
Talent management requires intelligent planning to define organisational goals and identify the methods and tools needed to achieve them.
Talent management helps organisations reduce or eliminate loss and turnover through turnover, recruiting and training of new employees. It can significantly reduce the number of productive man-hours that would otherwise be lost due to the various reasons outlined above.
It is therefore essential that all organisations, large and small, embrace talent management as part of their overall human resource management. Failure to do so can be fatal to a company.
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