Talent management

Refers to the anticipation of required human capital for an organization and the
planning to meet those needs. The field increased in popularity after McKinsey's
1997 research and the 2001 book on The War for Talent. Talent management in this
context does not refer to the management of entertainers.
Talent management is the science of using strategic human resource planning to
improve business value and to make it possible for companies and organizations to
reach their goals. Everything done to recruit, retain, develop, reward and make
people perform forms a part of talent management as well as strategic workforce
planning. A talent-management strategy needs to link to business strategy to make
sense.
History
The term was coined by McKinsey & Company following a 1997 study. It was later
the title of a book by Ed Michaels, Helen Handfield-Jones, and Beth Axelrod however
the connection between human resource development and organizational
effectiveness has been established since the 1970s.
The profession that supports talent management became increasingly formalized in
the early 2000s. While some authors defined the field as including nearly everything
associated with human resources, the NTMN defined the boundaries of the field
through surveys of those in corporate talent management departments in 2009
2011. Those surveys indicated that activities within talent management included
succession planning, assessment, development and high potential management.
Activities such as performance management and talent acquisition (recruiting) were
less frequently included in the remit of corporate talent management practitioners.
Compensation was not a function associated with talent management.
The issue with many companies today is that their organizations put tremendous
effort into attracting employees to their company, but spend little time into
retaining and developing talent. A talent management system must be worked into
the business strategy and implemented in daily processes throughout the company
as a whole. It cannot be left solely to the human resources department to attract
and retain employees, but rather must be practiced at all levels of the organization.
The business strategy must include responsibilities for line managers to develop the
skills of their immediate subordinates. Divisions within the company should be
openly sharing information with other departments in order for employees to gain
knowledge of the overall organizational objectives.
The talent management strategy may be supported by technology such as HRIS (HR
Information Systems) or HRMS (HR Management Systems).

Key talent management processes include:

JHU brand A career at Johns Hopkins University is more than a job. Johns Hopkins
University is a recognized leader in teaching, patient care, and research, and is a
great place to both develop professionally and make a difference.
Workforce planning The intentional and strategic projection and planning of
access to talent (either internal or external) with the skills, knowledge, and
behaviors essential for the achievement of the universitys strategic objectives
and/or demands.
Recruiting The ability to successfully attract and hire key talent for current and
future organizational needs through competency-based advertising and interviewing
efforts.
Onboarding The process of acclimating new hires and ensuring that they quickly
feel welcomed, and valued by the organization. This process enables new
employees to become productive members of the organization, who understand
expectations for their job roles. Onboarding goes beyond traditional "orientation"
programs which focus mainly on managing policies, forms, and procedures.
Strategic plan/goal alignment The process of developing and implementing
plans to reach an organizations long-term goals and objectives. It is the roadmap to
lead an organization from where it is now to where it would like to be in 3-5 years.
Performance management An ongoing, continuous process of communicating
and clarifying job responsibilities, priorities, performance expectations, and
development planning that optimize an individuals performance and aligns with
organizational strategic goals.
360 assessments 360-degree feedback is an assessment tool that provides
faculty and staff leaders with feedback about their performance. Supervisors, peers,
and direct reports answer questions based on their perceptions and observations of
the leaders skills and attributes.
Executive coaching A helping relationship between a client and a consultant,
who uses a wide variety of behavioral techniques and methods, to assist the client
to achieve mutually identified goals to improve professional performance and
personal satisfaction in an effort to improve the effectiveness of the clients
organization. (As adapted from Richard R Kilburg in Executive Coaching: Developing
Managerial Wisdom in a World of Chaos, pages 65 and 67.)
Leadership development Intentional goal-driven activities that enhance the
quality of leadership abilities or attitudes within an individual or organization
Professional development Process of establishing training goals and plans that
link to individual goal attainment, career planning, and possible succession
planning.
Career pathing/Career development How the organization structures the
career progress of their members, and the individuals process for identifying job
opportunities within an organizations structure, and the sequential steps in
education, skills, and experience-building needed to attain specific career goals.

Recognition programs A method of acknowledging, honoring, encouraging, and

supporting individuals and teams who contribute, through behaviors and actions, to
the success of the organization.
Compensation A way to reward individuals for important work accomplishments,
contributions to the goals of the university, and increased skills and competencies
in their jobs.
Succession management Succession management is a process for identifying
and developing internal personnel with the potential to fill key or critical
organizational positions. Succession management ensures the availability of
experienced and capable employees that are prepared to assume these roles as
they become available.
Diversity/Inclusion Diversity represents a group comprised of individuals with
similar and different experiences and backgrounds. Some of these differences
include race, color, religion, gender, national origin, sexual orientation, age,
disability, veteran status, and ethnicity, but there are many other dimensions of
diversity. Diversity does not address how people with different backgrounds and
experiences function or work together. Inclusion is a sense of belonging: feeling
respected, valued for who you are; feeling a level of supportive energy and
commitment from others so than you can do your best work. Miller, Frederick A.
and Katz, Judith H. 2002. The Inclusion Breakthrough: Unleashing the Real Power of
Diversity. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Engagement The extent to which employees are committed to their
organizations goals and values, motivated to contribute to organizational success,
and are able at the same time to enhance their own sense of well-being.
Competencies Those measurable behaviors, characteristics, abilities and
personality traits that identify successful employees against defined roles within an
organization.
Retention A systematic effort focused not only on retaining an organizations
talented performers but also to create and foster a welcoming work environment
and high-retention culture. The end result is an organization that operates more
effectively and efficiently, while becoming a great place to work.
Talent Management
Talent management implies that companies are strategic and deliberate in how they
source, attract, select, train, develop, retain, promote, and move employees
through the organization.
Research done on the value of talent management consistently uncovers benefits in
these critical economic areas: revenue, customer satisfaction, quality, productivity,
cost, cycle time, and market capitalization. The mindset of this more personal
human resources approach seeks not only to hire the most qualified and valuable
employees but also to put a strong emphasis on retention.
Evaluations

From a talent management standpoint, employee evaluations concern two major

areas of measurement: performance and potential. Current employee
performance within a specific job has always been a standard evaluation
measurement tool of the profitability of an employee. However, talent management
also seeks to focus on an employees potential, meaning an employees future
performance, if given the proper development of skills and increased responsibility.
Competencies and Talent Management
This term "talent management" is usually associated with competency-based
management. Talent management decisions are often driven by a set of
organizational core competencies as well as position-specific competencies. The
competency set may include knowledge, skills, experience, and personal traits
(demonstrated through defined behaviors). Older competency models might also
contain attributes that rarely predict success (e.g. education, tenure, and diversity
factors that are illegal to consider in relation to job performance in many countries,
and unethical within organizations). New techniques involve creating a competency
architecture for the organization that includes a competency dictionary to hold the
competencies in order to build job descriptions.
Talent marketplace
A talent marketplace is an employee training and development strategy that is set
in place within an organization. It is found to be most beneficial for companies
where the most productive employees can pick and choose the projects and
assignments that are ideal for the specific employee. An ideal setting is where
productivity is employee-centric and tasks are described as judgement-based
work, for example, in a law firm. The point of activating a talent marketplace within
a department is to harness and link individuals particular skills (project
management or extensive knowledge in a particular field) with the task at hand.
Examples of companies that implement the talent marketplace strategy are
American Express and IBM.
Current Application of Talent Management
In adverse economic conditions, many companies feel the need to cut expenses.
This should be the ideal environment to execute a talent management system as a
means of optimizing the performance of each employee and the organization.
Selection offers are large return on investments. Job analysis and assessment
validation help enhance the predictive power of selection tools. However, within
many companies the concept of human capital management has just begun to
develop. With more companies in the process of deepening their global footprints,
more questions have been asked about new strategies and products, but very few
on the kind of leadership structure that will bring them success in their globalization
process. In fact, only 5 percent of organizations say they have a clear talent
management strategy and operational programs in place today.
Strategic HR: The Philippine Government Perspective
What is Strategic HR?

If you will review HR theories, you will find that Strategic HR is actually a theoretical
framework. In the 80s, HR emerged as an important academic field that fed into its
actual practice. What organizations have been doing all this time is most probably
what we know as HR and OD today, but the process of defining it and studying its
processes has just recently been extensively done.
According to HR researchers Naresh Khatri and Pawan Budhwar, human resource
management is in transition. Over the years, human resource management (HRM)
has shifted from its traditional, micro-focused role to a macro-strategic paradigm
in which individual HR functions such as selection, training, compensation, and
performance appraisal are aligned not only with the organizational strategy but also
with one another.
The term strategic human resource management or SHRM emerged in the 90s as a
result of this so-called transition. According to Khatri and Budhwar, SHRM is an
approach to HRM that links organizational structure to HR function, considers
culture as an important organizational factor affecting HR function, looks at the role
of HR competencies in managing human resource in organizations, and regards
strategy as key to achieving HRMs full impact.
Strategy in this context refers to HRM that seeks a vertical fit between the HR
function and organization strategy, plus a horizontal fit among individual HR
practices. Researchers of SHRM say that when HR practices exist as a coherent
system within a particular system strategy, then it is able to effectively benefit the
organization. SHRM is also considered by some researchers as an overarching
framework that guides the integration of individual HR practicesand one would
expect an organization having an HR strategy to have consistent and nonfragmented HR initiatives.
Simply put, Strategic HR is when HR processes are integrated and form part of the
agency strategy. It is strategic when individual performance is linked to the
achievement of organizational goals. Most importantly, it is strategic when there is a
results-based performance monitoring system.
In the Philippine context, we have this in the form of the Performance-Based
Incentive Scheme or the Performance-Based Bonus, also widely known as the PBB.
Administrative Order No. 25 or the Unified Results-Based Performance Management
System was issued. The AO created an Interagency Task Force on the Harmonization
of National Government Performance Monitoring, Information, and Reporting
Systems. This will also be the basis for determining entitlement to performancebased allowances, incentives, or compensation of government personnel.

Over the years, human resource management (HRM) has shifted from its
traditional, micro-focused role to a macro-strategic paradigm in which individual
HR functions such as selection, training, compensation, and performance appraisal
are aligned not only with the organizational strategy but also with one another.

How important is the PBB in performance management and Strategic HR?

HR researchers confirm that compensation is a strategic human resource
management issue, whether it is in the form of wages, remuneration, or reward.
The ability of a government to properly implement pay and rewards systems has a
strong link in its ability to attract, retain, and motivate state workers.
In a study on Malaysias government-run centers for indigenous peoples,
researchers confirm that when there is strong perception of adequate pay, there is a
greater level of job satisfaction among state workers. They further revealed that
when employees are consulted about payment and rewards schemes, there is a
greater chance of them being having job satisfaction.
In Indonesia, policy makers have linked poor performance of government agencies
to low salary scale. They saw the shift from the pay as entitlement perspective to
the pay-for-performance perspective as the solution to the problem. HR scholars
say that pay-for-performance will link individual performance to organizational
performance. It is a more progressive approach to pay because it will be based on
an individuals level of expertise and performance, the risk level of the job, and the
scope of work. Pay-for-performance may be in the form of allowances, bonuses, and
benefits that are geared toward making the employee perform well.
From the Philippine government perspective, we always have to account for fiscal
resources. At the same time, we are mindful of our socio-economic situation, and
the understanding that government employees have to be able to meet their needs
if they are to be good performers in their respective jobs.
Do incentive structures affect the quality of the Philippine bureaucracy and is this,
in turn, correlated with agency performance? This is a question that Toby C. Monsod
asked in his paper on incentive structures in the Philippine government. He says
that the impact of incentives can be measured through job satisfaction surveys and
personnel turnover, plus the corresponding agency performance. After examining
trends on Career Executive Service positions and approval ratings of selected
government agencies in a particular period, Monsod concluded that incentives,
both monetary and non-monetary, have affected the quality of the bureaucracy in
the Philippines. He further says that demoralization and deterioration of the quality
of the public sectors human resource is greatly dependent on monetary and nonmonetary disincentives. Monsod sees the need to strengthen enforcement on
personnel hiring to avoid ineligible and political appointments, to reform monetary
incentives, and to strengthen policies on transparency, especially on entitlements of
higher officials.

Now that we have the SPMS, we can complete the whole picture. We have an
incentives scheme that would correspond to the results of the performance
management system. Integrating pay and performance is a move toward Strategic
HR. Consequently, it is also a move toward ASEAN integration.

In a very recent study conducted by the World Bank, researchers looked at the link
between pay and performance in the Philippine civil service through the PBB.
According to the study, perceptions on the PBB are generally favorable. There is
strong support for the PBB across all departments and bureaus. Bonus levels are
considered to be substantial components of pay. There are positive perceptions on
the motives behind creating the PBB. There are positive perceptions on
management practices. Note, however, that some respondents say PBB has made
the pay system unfair. In addition, there were comments that the rating process is
not transparent, and that there is little impact on the improvement of individual
effort.
Most of the respondents regard PBB as monetarily substantial, especially for those
in the higher paid categories (better and best performers in the better and best
bureaus).
Respondents cite positive reasons for the creation and implementation of the PBB.
Some of the reasons cited include: to set and enforce performance standards, to
improve morale and motivation, and to enable public officials to better serve the
citizens of the Philippines.
Respondents have also observed a positive impact on the workforce. There is better
teamwork among employees, and the management is now more diligent in setting
targets. However, other respondents, especially those belonging to the lower
performance categories, commented that the pay system has become unfair since
the introduction of the PBB. They also perceive that the rating process is not
transparent, that is why they were not able to get a higher incentive.
Based on these findings, the researchers offered some recommendations. First is to
increase the amount of the PBB and make it a percentage of an employees base
pay. Second, restructure the PBB to give greater weight to the group bonus. Third,
complement the PBB with non-financial incentives, especially for managers. Lastly,
researchers say that PBB should form part of a reform package that would be linked
to the individual performance appraisal.
From the studies I have been discussing so far, we see a link between pay and
incentives systems, performance management, and agency performance. A
performance management system is necessary if we are to ensure that state
workers get the right incentive, and that they are highly motivated to perform well.
The answer to this is the Strategic Performance Management System or SPMS. The
SPMS concretizes the link between individual performances to organization
performance. It ensures that performance goals and measurements are aligned to
the national development plans, agency mandate/vision/mission and strategic
priorities, and the organizational performance indicator framework.
Understand that the while the Results-Based Performance Management System or
RBPMS cascaded indicators from Societal to Sectoral, down to the Organization, the

SPMS provides the link between organization and individual employee performance,
using the same set of indicators. The SPMS thus supports the RBPMS through the
monitoring of all organizational and individual employee targets and
accomplishment, and not just the targets enrolled in the RBPMS.
Now that we have the SPMS, we can complete the whole picture. We have an
incentives scheme that would correspond to the results of the performance
management system. Integrating pay and performance is a move toward Strategic
HR.
Consequently, it is also a move toward ASEAN integration.
Global HR trends reveal that organizations are shifting to performance pay in their
pay reform agenda. Researchers note that traditional HR does not really give
importance to performance as basis for pay or allowance increase. Pay has also
rarely been used to motivate productivity. Now, more and more organizations in
Asian countries are looking at pay increase and giving of incentives as a means to
boost their competitiveness in terms of employment. Singapore, in particular,
reaped the benefits of shifting to a high wage economy in order to build a highly
motivated workforce.
Performance bonus, just like the PBB, is one form of performance pay. As countries
in the ASEAN region look into economic growth and development, Philippine HR also
need to shift from traditional to strategic in order to prepare and engage the
workforce in a highly competitive environment. Human resource practitioners,
therefore, cannot remain at the transactional level. Since HR is no longer merely
computing salaries or accomplishing documentary as required by the CSC, HRMOs
are not disengaged officers doing their own thing at the office. HR is now part of
agency strategy that is why HRMOs are now partners of management in fulfilling
organizational goals. More than developing the human workforce, HRMOs also have
a critical role to fulfill in organizational performance, and in the long run, the
fulfillment of our societal goals.
With the SPMS, individual state workers now know their place and their direct
contribution to the organization. HR now has the tool to evaluate employee
performance and give basis for incentives. This integration is part of Strategic HR.
I hope that the HRMOs in our midst now see how important their role is in shifting
our government to Strategic HR. As you can see, excellence in HR translates to
excellence in public service. Our ultimate goal is for government services to have an
impact in the lives of Filipino men and woman