Invest in Talent Management and Outperform your Competitors

“Employees are a company’s greatest asset - they’re your competitive advantage,” said Anne M. Mulcahy, the former CEO of Xerox. An organization which has better talent has a competitive edge over its rivals. It is therefore extremely important for a company to invest in hiring the best talent in the market and nurture and retain them. Sure, hiring and training employees involves time and cost. Therefore, a robust talent management system must be deployed to retain trained employees. 

The maintenance of a talent management system that takes care of the employee recruitment, development and retention is easier said than done. It is an expensive process, however, one worth spending on to justify the recurring monthly expenses on the talent pool. There are four important fronts which need to be tackled for the talent management system to be effective - 

●     Recruitment: The first area that requires assessment is the recruitment processes itself. Every aspect of the process must be evaluated, for example, whether the job postings are being targeted to the right candidates, whether the selection process follows a standardised method and whether the HR managers are equipped with the best tools for evaluation of prospective employees. It is necessary to hire people who fit with the company’s culture. All this requires the recruitment team to have special skills and hence, investing in a skilled talent management certification is extremely desirable.

●     Development Post Hiring: The job of the talent management team extends beyond hiring. The hired employees must be acquainted with the company goals and vision. Apart from this, they must also be provided with learning opportunities to grow within the organization. Hence, the talent management team must possess the relevant tools to manage everyday performance, goals and learning opportunities of employees. The senior management must be proficient employee performance metrics and the employees must have a career growth plan in the organization. All these things must be handled through a single portal - the talent management system. 

●     Leadership: Good leadership is an important asset for all organizations. Good leadership skills are different from the skills of a good manager. It is important that the talent management system recognises and promotes awareness of leadership skills with a 360 approach whereby the overall personalities of employees with leadership skills blossoms. This is important for the future growth and direction of the organization.

●     Bottom-Up Communications: Feedback from the lower working classes is extremely important for the growth of any organization. While most organizations follow an 80/20 rule, whereby, 80% of communication has a top down approach and only 20% communication happens from bottom up, it is most important for futuristic companies to have a bottom-up communication channel. The talent management system of the company must ensure that appropriate feedback is collected across all levels. 

Thus, investing in a great talent management system is similar to investing in building the backbone of an organization. Any organization which is looking to have a competitive advantage must have a functional and above par talent management system because the only true differentiator for any organization in the long run will be its employees.