GLOBAL TALENT MANAGEMENT SWARNAM S SWARNAM S/CBS/HRP

Talent Management Talent management is using human resource planning to help a company achieve its goals. In order to be successful at global talent management, a company has to do more than just recruit and train to fill positions. There are six principles that have been identified as giving a company the competitive advantage when it comes to global talent management. We will take a look at each principle in this lesson. SWARNAM S/CBS/HRP

Two Views of Talent The Differentiated Approach: A plethora of companies placed heavy emphasis on high-potential employees. Much of the resources such as recognition, developmental opportunities and incentives were primarily reserved for “A Players” while fewer resources were allocated to “B Players” and “C Players” were aggressively weeded out who did not meet performance expectations and little potential. SWARNAM S/CBS/HRP

CONTD.. The Inclusive Approach: Some companies preferred a more inclusive approach to address the needs of employees at all levels of the organization. At Shell, they focus making it possible for any individual to maximize their strengths. Under the inclusive approach, the tactics are used for different groups’ assessment of how to best leverage the value that each group of employees can bring to the company. SWARNAM S/CBS/HRP

Principle One: Alignment with Strategy The first principle of global talent management is to make sure that the talent department knows and is focused on the corporate strategy. For example, if the talent department is just blindly hiring and training people, there is no alignment with the overall corporate strategy. If a company is focused on customer service, then the talent department needs to be focused on that aspect when recruiting, hiring, and training. The talent department leaders will make sure to recruit the right candidates with customer service in mind. They will also train with the company's strategy as the focus in order to help the company achieve its overall goals SWARNAM S/CBS/HRP

Principle Two: Internal Consistency There also needs to be internal consistency when it comes to talent management. The talent department cannot run on its own without taking into account the other areas of a company. For example, there has to be a basis for competitive and fair compensation in the company. The talent department cannot just hire people for the same position at all different rates of pay. It also has to focus on retaining employees. If there is no consistency, then it will be difficult to retain high-performing employees. SWARNAM S/CBS/HRP

Principle Three: Integrating Culture The third principle is to integrate the culture into the talent management process. It is important to keep the culture in mind when hiring and retaining employees. Every company has a culture that is embedded into its workforce. For example, Google has a unique company culture; it has been known to look for 'Goodliness' during the hiring process. This ensures that the new candidates will be a good fit into the company culture. SWARNAM S/CBS/HRP

Principle Four: Management Involvement The next principle is management involvement in talent management. Recruiting and hiring talent are not the only key aspects of talent management. Once employees have been hired, then the company needs to retain and develop their talent. Companies that have been successful in talent management have found that there needs to be management involvement. It cannot be solely up to human resources or talent departments to retain and develop talent. All the way from the CEO down, the managers need to involved in the development of talent. In order to have people ready to be promoted, managers need to be involved in their advancement. For example, some companies require managers to attend leadership training or employee development training to ensure that management involvement is happening SWARNAM S/CBS/HRP

Developing and Motivating Global Talent Career Planning It helps for organisations to identify a global talent pool with key positions, including successors for key executive positions, and high potentials. Assignees can then be monitored in terms of what they do and how best to develop them. Global talent review systems are crucial for managing assignees because they enable all parties to know what level assignees are operating at so that business units can pinpoint people with potential and determine in what roles they should next be considered. If little expertise exists internally to provide this, companies may wish to consider funding executive coaching and mentoring, which millennial employees in particular have found to be a valuable part of their expected training and development. SWARNAM S/CBS/HRP

Understand Assignee’s Needs When companies seek feedback from expatriates, the focus is all too often on process elements such as relocation assistance and the quality of the repatriation programme. Rarely do companies seek feedback as to expatriates’ personal satisfaction with an assignment and the outcomes they have derived from it. Questions that matter include whether assignees are happy with their new career/ role, whether they have plans to stay longer, and whether the assignment has helped their development. SWARNAM S/CBS/HRP

3. Prepare and Equip Ensuring that assignees are best prepared to be successful in their new, often challenging assignments, can make or break the important on-boarding and subsequent assimilation phase of the assignment. Organisations that spend the appropriate time and resources to fully prepare and equip their people before departure can help exponentially increase the effectiveness of the transition and also lay the groundwork for ongoing assignment success. SWARNAM S/CBS/HRP

Network and Support Maintaining contact with assignees who are considered high potential and alerting them to new opportunities usually involves little effort for a substantial return. However, this requires an organisation to have a structure in place internally, with clear accountability as to who is responsible to liaise with, and support, assignees throughout the assignment SWARNAM S/CBS/HRP

Manage Expectations Assignees’ expectations in relation to global career development are crucial. When expectations regarding what expatriates are prepared to buy into are clear from the outset, particularly for global careerists pursuing multiple assignments over many years, the commitment and retention rates of assignees are likely to be higher. SWARNAM S/CBS/HRP

Plan Repatriation Whether an expatriate is repatriating for good or intending to relocate again at some point in the future, the planning of repatriation activities is a major shortcoming of many companies. Best practice for repatriation involves having an assignee pop up on a list six months or more before he or she is due back, then identifying a job or at the very least entering into a discussion about what could be next. SWARNAM S/CBS/HRP

Instill Top Management Support When top management does not support global career activities, assignees know. Supportive senior managers, particularly those with their own global career experience, can be pivotal in sending clear messages that international assignees are valued and that global careers matter. They can also encourage others in the company to focus on improving global mobility and enhancing global career opportunities. SWARNAM S/CBS/HRP

Talk to your assignees One consequence of modern expatriation is that many assignees offered the opportunity to go abroad no longer look at just the next assignment. Instead, in an attempt to piece together how expatriation, as a career choice, furthers their career and personal aspirations, they look far beyond the next assignment, sometimes seven or ten years down the track, through subsequent re-assignments. SWARNAM S/CBS/HRP

Formalise a Talent Management Programme It is one thing to talk about talent management and another to actually do it. Many companies want and seek talent, but few “walk the talk” when it comes to implementing an effective GTM programme. Research shows, however, that organisations with a properly managed talent management programme (with clear internal accountability for administering, supporting, and deploying talent) have repeatable and sustainable success over their competitors. SWARNAM S/CBS/HRP

Reward and Recognition Ultimately assignees need to feel validated and appreciated for their efforts. Having a system of real reward and recognition tied to pay- for-performance demonstrates that an organisation actually values the experiences and skills assignees have gained. Linking talent management to performance and rewards then becomes the backbone to demonstrating true organisational commitment to an assignee programme SWARNAM S/CBS/HRP