Table of Contents
Introduction
Thorne & Pellant, (2007) assert that talent management plan refers to all decision-making procedures done at the organizational level and is meant to use human capital to improve the value of the business. It entails carrying out specific strategic goals regarding human resource management and planning to hasten the realization of the project and target goals (Goldsmith & Carter, 2010). Talent management plan is a multifaceted organizational strategy, which is carried out in different stages to ensure there is the maintenance of beneficial outcomes in the long run. It can be induced during the recruitment process where the human resource management team delves on identifying the most suitable people who can help the organization to grow and expand.
Therefore, the most important aspect is to ensure candidates who depict high potential of helping the organization achieve its goals are not left out. Other procedures employed during the talent management plan include retention of beneficial employees, rewarding them, and creating effective grounds for their continuous development (Goldsmith & Carter, 2010). The principle aim of using the management strategies is to make sure the creation of a proper workforce planning that is strategic with the goals and aims of the organization. It is imperative that an effective talent management plan needs to make up with an effective conduit through which business strategies can be made to be sound and relevant. Contrarily, talent management plan may be sometimes discriminative (Thorne & Pellant, 2007). This has been observed in a situation where the organization is enabled to create a balance between the identification of talented employees and need to need to maintain and improve the performance of the business. They find it difficult identifying, engaging, developing, as well as retaining their talented and valuable employees (Thorne & Pellant, 2007). As a result, this induces a major challenge especially during strengthening the talent management procedure. This paper is set to assess talent management strategies used and key challenges experienced in trying to make it effective. Briefly, it will try to identify how the process can be discriminative and how appropriate remedies can be applied to improve the general effectiveness of the whole plan.
The System of Talent Management
Talent management plan is a comprehensive system that incorporates four pillars. The four segments are recruitment, learning, as well development strategy, compensation management, and performance management. Talent management section plays a very critical role in trying to identify and provide planning assistance to the business or organization in a way that helps it to accomplish its long-term projected goals. However, it is worth noting that individual’s talent is given higher priority when identifying such potential human resource that can help hasten the process of achieving the identified objectives. The human capital is identified as the most important resource that can assist the organization to attain its major projected goals and within the specified period. This is the major reason talent management system is also called ATS, which stands for ‘applicant tracking system’ (Thorne & Pellant, 2007). It incorporates various important implementation steps whereby integrated systems and other strategic plans are designed with an overall aim of creating a surge in the viability of the important human resource development procedures. It, simply, improves recruitment, retaining, development, and identification of the people who possess special skills that realign with the future needs of the organization.
The recruitment process is one of the most important steps when implementing talent management strategy. The recruitment process is a multistage activity that entails the careful verification and identification of the right and potential people who can realign with the goals and objectives of the specific organization. The first procedure or stage is related to the posting of the job (Pham-Gia, 2009). Human resource department is entitled to carry out or implement this procedure. It is the department, which understands and able to identify a shortage of employees based on each organizational department. It also understands the specific skills required in each department.
The second step is called the verification of the attributes of each applicant by going through their resumes (Thorne & Pellant, 2007). This is a very important procedure given that the human resource department may come into an agreement there is no need to proceed with the next recruitment stage if they are sure they have identified the right pool of potential employees from all applicants. If not, all applicants must be interviewed as a way of identifying their weaknesses and strengths (Pham-Gia, 2009). The major aim of interviewing all applicants is to ensure the organization hires the right pool of people who can help to advance and bolster the achievement of the long-term goals of the organization. ATS is one of the most important tool organizations uses as a way of ensuring recruitment process if carried out in the most effective manner and that no potential talent is locked out.
Performance management is considered another important procedure. The major aim of using this procedure is to strengthen the achievement of the set goals. Talent management planning team ensure that the planned and projected goals are met in the most efficient and effective way. As such, the major focus induced by the performance management ensures any department, an aggregate of employees, and the whole organization is streamlined towards achieving the set of target goals (Pham-Gia, 2009). Performance management is also designed to achieve effectively designed products in order to make the projected deliverables are achieved in the most effective manner. The management is also designed to align and creating a specific and designed orientation of employees and systems of the organ organization in a specific way. The major aim is to ensure the scarce resources are not wasted and that they are used to designed way based on the identified priorities (Thorne & Pellant, 2007).
Performance management is considered a key management tool in the workplaces. As a talent management tool, it can be used to identify talents in any place people interact as a way of optimizing of the best practices that can help to achieve the identified organizational goals. It is used by employees when trying to reconcile various personal goals based on the one that is identified and earmarked by the specific organization (Goldsmith & Carter, 2010). This is deemed significant in assisting such organizations to attain higher productivity, as well as increase their productivity among other primary goals. Its effectiveness is measured in terms of the overall commitment, which is depicted during the achievement of the organizational goals based on the mission and vision statements created.
Such statements underscore the major priorities of the organization such as the purpose and the scope of the products and services the organization aims at achieving (Pham-Gia, 2009). Thus, a good performance management plan must ensure that the employees are able to realign their activities based on the major principles highlighted in the mission and vision statement (Goldsmith & Carter, 2010). One of the major benefits of using performance management structure is that it ensures that employees are able to realign their activities with the identified operational and strategic goals.
Learning management is also program is also another important system used to manage, identify, and strength talent control in any organization. This composes of the administration, tracking, delivery, documentation, and reporting of all employees’ training programs. The system is considered a range of different levels of training, as well as educational programs where software are used to distribute different course regarding employee development (Pham-Gia, 2009). As a result, it is considered an important program that can help to strengthen the whole process of employee’s conscious development and improvement of his/her expertise in a manner such that he/she is able to deliver the assigned duties in the most efficient manner (Goldsmith & Carter, 2010). The major purposes of creating a learning management principle are to make sure there is an improved way of coming up with the proper way of handling different organizational activities. As a result, this helps to improve the achievement of the set goals and objectives in the most efficient manner.
Compensation management is also another section of the talent management plan and it deals with the crafting of the appropriate strategies that can help to identify the right and deserving employees in any given organization (Pham-Gia, 2009). The talent management team must be able to understand that compensation is supposed to be implemented ways that encourage and motivates employees to keep on working hard. The aggregate improvement of the performance of employees is believed to have sound effects in improving the productivity of the whole organization (Goldsmith & Carter, 2010). Therefore, the compensation management strategy should be aimed towards eliminating any organizational hindrances that may affect the achievement of the project deliverable asset. Nevertheless, it is worth noting the talent or human resource management team should be very cautious not induces any discriminative strategies that may end up affecting the organizational capacity to develop effectively.
Discriminative Talent Management Strategy
Talent Management planning is no easy program as it may seem to ramble at sometimes, thus, producing skewed results. The talent management team is considered to have used the wrong approach whenever it wants to tap into the huge pool of people and benefit from the identified but scarce talent (Thorne & Pellant, 2007). It is important noting that discriminative strategies can be identified in the management process based on the aspects such as the poor identification of the preferred organizational management perspectives. The capacity to develop appropriate organizational talent identification procedure may also fall short of employee engagement (Goldsmith & Carter, 2010). This is very detrimental as employees’ participation is considered a key factor during the development of the organization and improvement of its level of performance (Goldsmith & Carter, 2010).In the contemporary world, it has become arduous for many organizations to identify, engage, retain, and develop their talented and valuable employees. This is because a sizeable number of them have not laid down properly and well-developed talent management strategies and other initiatives.
Major drawbacks have been identified in many organizations as far as the incorporation of the talent management strategy plan is concerned. Many organizations are still lagging behind as their workforces are still rigid and do not depict any aspects of diversity. Many organizations are still not very effective in improving their workforce diversity. They have still retained most of their old employees especially on the major positions (Pham-Gia, 2009). As a result, this denies clear opportunities for the many deserving and promising young employees from putting their expertise into practices. They are compelled to continue service at the junior position, thus, not being able to realize their full potential (Trost & Plank, 2014). Moreover, this denies the organization a chance to tap into their talents as many are the time such employees become demotivated, thus, lowering their overall performance. As such, the training program can be regarded as a biased procedure that denied minorities to display their talents despite their inducing their immense efforts to create significant contributions towards the development of the organization and achievement of its key goals (Thorne & Pellant, 2007). This has exacerbated the development of skills and innovation of the minorities by creating a glass ceiling effects. Most of the contemporary companies are not able to alignment their management ideologies to the socially accepted principles that promote workforce diversity.
The assigned roles are, therefore, to be the source of demotivation effect as they are not challenging to the employees who feel discriminated. They end up on not being innovative enough. As such, the organization misses on the points as its propensity to encourage discrimination has affected the overall performance of the employees. This is because their skewed nature makes employees feel that their skills and talent are undermined and not valued at all. Therefore, in order to rectify such unnecessary outcomes, such organizations must be ready to promote diversity as a means of improving the overall performance of the organization (Goldsmith & Carter, 2010).
Workforce diversity is not only undermined on the basis of age of the employees. Many other social factors also act as a clear indicator that the future of many organizations is at stake. For example, racial discrimination is also deemed another major factor that affects the identification of the talents in any organization. Racial discrimination refers to any form of bias against a person on the basis of the color of his/her skin (Rattansi, 2007). This has become a common trend, especially in a major traditional organization. As a result, this has threatened their future existence as many of the potential employees have been discriminated against since they are not able to showcase their talents. The minorities are given mere junior roles, thus, making them feel discouraged and being denied equal opportunities to execute their commands based on the best of their capabilities (Trost & Plank, 2014). However, this should not be the case given that talent management strategy plan should be done in a free a fair manner regardless of the background or affiliation of an employee (Pham-Gia, 2009). In fact, this would promote cultural diversity, which is considered a major ingredient that helps to promote the identification of the key talents and potential of employees for the overall benefit of the organization.
Conclusion and Recommendations
Key Remedies to the Identified Drawbacks
It is worth noting that the organization should be at the frontline in identifying some of the most important management strategies that would eliminate any form of discrimination and promote diversity. Any organization operating in the contemporary world should be ready and willing to promote workplace diversity as a way of tapping into talents of a huge pool of employees (Pham-Gia, 2009, p. xx. Indeed, this is the only way they will be able to improve their overall performance and in achieving the set goals. However, the organization should be able to follow the following procedure when implementing its talent management strategy plan.
First, it should lay special grounds for identifying the appropriate organizational goals and priorities. This is because these goals will act as the important guidelines from which they can select the right kind of people in their organization. Secondly, they should also be able to identify the appropriate challenges and drivers that keep the organization on moving (Trost & Plank, 2014). As a result, this will help to estimate the level of benefits or drawbacks that can be associated with the pool of people they would higher. The third steps deals with the identification of the gap. This entails the determination of the shortfalls of the employees based on what the organization wants them. This can help to create an effective training procedure to help such employees improve their overall performance.
The fourth step entails carrying out an effective definition of the human resource goals and priorities. This is very important considering that the department is key in ensuring that the recruitment of employees takes into consideration important contemporary issues such as the need to embrace diversity (Trost & Plank, 2014). This will ensure there is the maintenance of a good management and operation conduit. The measurement of the identified successes and positive contributions made by such groups should also be encouraged. This is because the move will act as a simple way of determining whether the embraced talent management plan was effective or not. Therefore, the move will enable the organizational talent management team to come up with the appropriate remedies if such a plan seems to jeopardize the overall organizational goal. Thus, they should strive to make sure it embraces workplace diversity to help the organization fit the contemporary competitive world.
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- Rattansi, A. (2007). Racism: A very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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- Trost, A., & Plank, E. (2014). Talent relationship management: Competitive recruiting strategies in times of talent shortage.