Top Trends to Shape ‘World-Class’ Talent Management

People are always key pillar of the business, and Talent Management is Human Capital Management nowadays. 

With continuous digital disruption and highly dynamic business environment, now more than ever, top executives and talent practitioners need to design and implement a much more holistic, strategic approach to talent management. With the New Year around the corner, it’s the time to identify the top trends in reshaping the future of talent management, and how talent practitioners can best adapt to create the most value for the business in light of the trends over the next five to seven years.

HR plays a role as a strategic partner to the top management for defining the proper organizational culture. There has never been a greater opportunity for a truly qualified HR who can be a strategic partner in scaling a business by finding and fitting talent into the organization;.from industry statistics, HR helped "lead the charge" which resulted in high-performance work systems with high commitment cultures, which were 25 - 55% improved in every performance measure (productivity, profitability, innovation, safety, quality, reduced labor issues, etc.). The traditional roles and the newer roles, when understood holistically and designed as such, together make HR into an amazing force for success.

HR has the most power and potential to impact an organization's future when it drives bifurcated strategy--strategic and operational. The ability to anticipate talent for current and future needs is a critical capability for any organization.

• Sourcing, recruiting and competing for talent
• Building global leadership
• Reengaging the workforce
• Managerial excellence
• Recognition and rewards
• Career opportunities
• A flexible work environment
• Great online tools
• Corporate mission or purpose 

HR plays a strategic role in driving the Agile Organization. As the world becomes increasingly unpredictable, organizations that can adapt to changing business conditions will outperform the competition. From industry survey, there is a significant difference between the responses of high and low performers:

•  High performers are 60% more likely to identify talent as one of the critical factors for determining future competitiveness.

• High performers are 50% more likely to see access to talent as a reason to enter rapid-growth markets. 

Social Media Drives the Democratization of Work: Instead of relying on solutions dictated from the top of the organization, organizations will be populated with knowledge workers who harness social media to create solutions in conjunction with each other, thereby radically disrupting organizational structures, hierarchy, and job titles. Companies with wide adoption of social and mobile tools will find it easier to attract and retain people, they can collaborate and perform better, and their people can learn faster. From survey:

• High performers are 43% more likely to be achieving flexibility through devolving decision-making and 30% more likely to be seeking to improve their workforce skills as a result.
• Consequently, high performers are 16% more likely to have a concern about labor cost pressures.

The multi-faceted talent practitioners to handle talent paradox: Are employees truly satisfied? Or are they simply accepting their fate by “making do” with their current employers because of a difficult job market? Employees who believe their employers make effective use of their talent and abilities appear to be overwhelmingly committed to staying on the job, while respondents who said their job does not make good use of their skills are looking to leave. Due to the globalization of the economy, companies must be nimble in managing talent to have the right people in the right place at the right time. The talent practitioners must be capable of becoming:

• Animators—capable of breathing new life and energy into their organizations
• Culture propagators—able to design people policies and processes to build a winning culture
• Change facilitators—able to instill in employees the beliefs, values and basic assumptions required for the organization to succeed

Capabilities Development: Surveys find companies which outperform their competitors

because they have deeper skills, a stronger learning culture, and a deep investment in leadership. These winning companies continuously invest in their team’s skills (technical, professional, and leadership)—and they do not slow down during recessions. This “continuous capability development” approach makes them more innovative, responsive, and agile as their markets change.

Focus on Continuous Learning: More organizations adopt “continuous learning model”—one in which people receive some amount of formal training, coupled with a significant amount of coaching, support by experts, developmental assignments, development planning, and management support, learning includes development planning, rotational assignments, coaching, mentoring, and lots of expertise sharing. Companies that outperform their peers have an entire tapestry of learning occurring—driven by a learning culture which permeates all levels of management.

Redefining Engagement: Focus on passion and the creative environment to consider Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Higher levels of engagement come from recognition, feedback, growth, and opportunity. While compensation and benefits are important, they are only the foundation. Top performers are looking for growth, recognition, career opportunities, and learning. Organizations should continuously monitor employee engagement through social communication channels with people at all levels. Building a sense of purpose and mission, to build a strong corporate brand to attract top talent.  

Talent mobility: It is not just enough to talk about it at leadership meetings—you have to take the plunge and invest. Developing a culture and set of programs around talent mobility is not easy. It takes work on behalf of the employee, manager, HR, and the top executives of the company. The top leadership team has to feel comfortable in letting people move around—creating a system of “continuous re-education” of people.

The emergence of the “Corporate Talent System: Talent practitioners need to think of all of the elements of talent management as one integrated “system”—each working together, but fitting into a total employee environment. Further, there’s a new opportunity emerge—the need to shift from “integration” to “optimization,” driving new practices in almost every part of HR. These new programs no longer stand alone; they fit together into an integrated system—and HR organizations need to learn how to apply them to your business challenges in a highly customized way. More organizations will make a bold step—reengineer or redesign the old fashioned performance appraisal process, and focus on “enabling high performance. In many traditional organizations, their performance management, development planning, benefits, learning administration, and other HR applications and programs are simply too complex and reactive, not agile to adapt to changes or focus on the delivery of talent services, performance consulting, and deep expertise in management, coaching and recruiting.

Leverage analytics for global talent management planning, and embed it into talent management strategy and key processes: Data-Information-Insight- Intelligence lifecycle needs to be managed effectively to make sure you have an integrated infrastructure that makes these systems easy to use, secure, and available at all times

 Innovation comes to Talent Management: Talent practitioners must plan for the future. HR, through its particular lens into the business, has a unique perspective on the people challenges and opportunities. Therefore, talent practitioners must innovate, think outside the box and drive a view into the future—develop an understanding of future skills gaps, and take a systematic approach to the art of people management. 

The dynamic economy will continue to present opportunities and risks in talent management, Talent management needs to have a strategic impact. Take human, physical, economic/financial assets as "pillars" of the organizational dynamics. In the upcoming New Year, with top executive team's support, talent management practitioners need to establish a set of strategic priorities, develop a roadmap of processes to build competitive capabilities they want to deliver and make people a true asset and human capital of the business.