Talent Management Project Report

This new age economy, with its attendant paradigm shifts in relation to the human capital, in terms of its acquisition, utilisation, development and retention, has placed a heavy demand on today’s HR professionals. Today HR is expected to identify potential talent and also comprehend, conceptualise and implement relevant strategies to contribute effectively to achieve organisational objectives. Hence a serious concern of every HR manager in order to survive this ‘War for Talent’, is to fight against a limited and diminishing pool of qualified available candidates to replace valuable employees when they leave, dramatically underscoring the difficulty to attract, motivate and retain the best employees in an organisation. To analyse the reasons, we first need to understand what “TALENT” means. People have different views and definitions. According to Leigh Branham, vice president, consulting service at Right Management Consultants and author of the book, “Keeping People Who Keep You in Business”, a talent is not rare and precious. Everyone has talent – too many to possibly name all. Talent is behavior; things we do more easily than the next person. We speak of “natural born talent” but those with a gift, knack, ability or flair for something can refine and develop that talent through experience. Talent, however, cannot be taught. As someone once said, “you can teach a turkey to climb a tree, but it is easier to hire a squirrel”.
Vice President, HR of Seagram, Mr. Gopi Nambiar, says talent can be best described as a combination of abilities and attitudes. The real trick is to match the right motivated talents to the right role, individually and collectively, harnessing and harmonizing this crucial attribute to achieve the objectives of your company.
Today, companies have become fiercely competitive when it comes to attracting and retaining talent. According to Branham, 75 per cent of the senior executives admit that employee retention is a major concern today, the obvious reason being the ‘increasing rate of turnover’. This dynamically changing and volatile demand-supply equation with such erratic attrition trends and cut throat competition has led organisations to focus on mechanisms pertaining to attracting and retaining talent. It is an accepted truth that turnover will happen and companies need to device a strategy to curb unprecedented turnover from affecting organisational success.
As the Director, HR (Asia) of Bausch & Lomb, Mr. P.G. George declares, achieving zero percent turnover is neither realistic nor desirable. People tend to seek change for a variety of reasons—more money, better benefits, the appearance of a greener pasture- and this has been a practice from the very beginning. Then, what is it that has really changed?
Despite intense competition being the key to market development and success, organisations have failed to identify some of the major reasons which highlight why ‘good performers’ leave. In his study, Branham clearly states that one major reason why people leave their organisation is because of the organisation’s failure to bring about a correlation between pay and performance. Human Resource experts in the industry believe matching the right blend of talent with the right job profile can lead to superior performance.
The present scenario with abundant opportunities has triggered a wave of employees, perpetually “on the move”, forever seeking better opportunities whenever, wherever and however they can. What is behind the restlessness of these hard to keep employees? By focusing on productivity, organisations are realising that it is imperative to hire employees who can do the job and be successful at it. The organisation no longer wants to just hire to hire, in fact they are striving to find the right people, bring them into the organisation and retain their services. One of the critical functions of HR is a sound Human Resource Planning through which they are able to project the demand for human resource and thereafter formulate strategies for acquiring them. As the leading HR heads of the country point out, the solution is not just about finding the correct retention mechanisms , but it starts from the very beginning by devising ways to acquire the right people for the right jobs.


Talent Management Project Report