Digital CIOs’ Agenda XVI: IT Talent Management Innovation II

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People are always the most invaluable asset in businesses. “Hiring the right person for the right position at the right time,” is the mantra of many forward-thinking organizations. The question is how would you define the right people? How do you define wrong, average, mediocre, good, great or extraordinary person? Or put simply, for what should they be right? Traditional Performance Management focusing on measuring what an employee does (mainly being told to do) in a quantitative way is not sufficient to identify high performance or high potential, should we see through talent from different angles and how to innovate IT talent management and beyond?

IT Talent Management Innovation II

• Performance Management vs. Talent Management: Talent Management (TM)  focuses more on the people element of the organization; where Performance Management (PM) is more about the overall alignment of various organizational functions towards shared vision, mission, and objectives.

• Why are Majority of Employees not Engaged in the Work? The latest research pointed out that engaged employees put forth 57% more effort and are 87% less likely to leave their company than employees who consider themselves disengaged. But statistically more than two-third of employees are not engaged in their work. Consequently, organizations have begun the survey analyzing the engagement level by function or by the job. Is a researcher more engaged than a clerk checking thousands of invoices a month? Are people in strategy focused organizations more engaged than in process-oriented organizations? What are the root causes of employee disengagement, and how to engage talent to improve productivity, creativity, and overall employee satisfaction?

• What Differentiates Top IT Performers from the Norm?  With the changing nature of technology, IT talent may also need to present such ability to adapt to the changes, so what differentiates top IT performers from the norm? Or an alternative question might be to consider what personality and behavioral characteristics are displayed by top IT performers. Are there any key differences between IT leaders (like CIOs) and top performers on their staffs? With the pace of change speeding up, are those key performance indicators changing?

• How to leverage Talent Development Plans in Building the Capabilities for future? Talent Development Plans are often used in a variety of ways, depending on individual and organizational needs. Some companies treat them as something that happens annually (annual event), others use them as the need arises and yet others do a combination. Some use them only for growth and use action plans for improving work that is below minimum standards. And there is every flavor in between for that as well. But more specifically, how can managers leverage Talent Development Plans to build skills and capabilities to compete for the future?

• High-Performance vs. High-Potential vs. Mediocrity   Modern talent management is both art and science. However, most of the HR organizations still use static mechanisms to measure talent performance, mainly based on quantitative delivery, with ignorance of qualitative perspective, talent potential assessment, intangible culture effect, and lack of tailored solutions to reach the next level of talent management maturity. For example, as a talent manager, how do you differentiate High-Performance vs. High-Potential vs. Mediocrity, and how should you treat them same by treating them differently?

• Three Missing Elements to Fail Talent Analytics? People are always the most invaluable asset in businesses, but most of the HR organizations only play the supporting role as an administrative function; talent analytics becomes the very tool to help HR in their digital transformation journey. However, some pivotal organizations who adopt talent analytics earlier than others do not achieve the expected result, what’re the missing elements, or the pitfalls of doing talent analytics, and how to learn from others’ failures?

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Posted in: Sum UP,Talent Master