Essay Example on Bank of America: Leading the Way with Talented Leadership

Introduction

Bank of America is one of the leading retail national banks in the United States. The Bank has grown tremendously over the years to what is now known all over the world. The success of the firm is attributed to the outstanding leadership that has been experienced throughout their fields of operation. Competent leadership comes from their focus on talent management. The Bank of America goes for highly qualified employees who are vetted through a well-structured process and in the end; the organization ends up with competent employees, which are the groomed and trained on the business culture in preparation for the future take-off of the firm. Talent management has been utilized in this institution and its impacts have been felt across all the branches in over 150 countries of their operations. This bank institution is committed to recruit, hire, manage, develop, and retain superior employees available in the job market.

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Talent Management in the Bank of America

Several programs and strategies have been laid down by the bank to ensure talent management is practiced effectively. Firstly, there are regular meetings between the top leadership of the organization. The Chief executive officer meets with fellow executive committee members every summer to discuss the various issue touching on the organization's progress and plans (Collings, et al, 2018). In the meeting, various issues are also touched on as they reflect on the success of the firm. Some of these issues that take the center focus of the meeting include talent leadership and management. Such regular meetings between the top leaders of the organization are crucial for the positive progress of the institution. It creates a platform where they discuss new challenges and then propose the necessary measures to solve them. It also presents an opportunity for the leaders to evaluate the available strategies and make proposals based on current experiences. For example, the American Bank has been able to adjust the onboarding process in their organization out of the knowledge and experience acquired with time. Additionally, out of the regular meetings, the institution has been able to design jobs within the organization. A clear and well-calibrated job specification is spelled out and supported by the stakeholders in the meeting. The well-defined job guides the recruiting department on the skills and talent required within the job in question.

Secondly, the human resource management works closely with the leadership development officers within the same department to see the development and recruitment of qualified and skilled employees. The leadership development officers play a central role in ensuring that the employees have enough knowledge of the organizational culture and leadership requirements (Collings, et al, 2018). The leadership department (LD) interviews the candidates to assess how well they would fit in their prospective positions in the bank, the value they will add to the team, and their leadership approach. This program of recruiting employees is critical as it sees the recruitment of competent and skillful employees with leadership qualities that suit the culture of the organization. This is a procedure that has served the American Bank very well over the years and has ensured the emergence of a good team. The employees that satisfy the needs of the human resources department and the leadership development are taken to fill the available position in the firm. The terms are outlined in the LD offices and are specific to the position. The leadership abilities and traits are most valued because of the future success of the firm. Notably, the LD is guided by the questions outlined in the questionnaires. These questions should be answered by the applicants and submitted to the organization for vetting.

The new executives are expected to identify and build a relationship with the key organizational stakeholders. The new executive must develop a mutual and friendly relationship with the major stakeholders of the organization as that will ensure a smooth consultation and acquisition of more knowledge concerning the organization structure and culture. To ensure this, the American Bank utilizes three major interventions, which include tool and process, orientation forums, and coaching and support (White 2018). The tool and process follow the integration of the new leadership team that sees the onboarding process of the new executives. The orientation forums include the generation orientation of the new employees and new executives on the structure and the culture of the firm. The employees are welcomed to the winning team when they are allowed to express themselves and feel like part of the family of the organization. On the other hand, the coaching and support are facilitated by three major stakeholders, which include the hiring executive, the human resource department and the leadership development office. Such moves are very useful and helpful to the firm as it ensures an early delivery of the new employees as they are trained to adapt to the new environment and the new job description. This can also act as a motivation to the employees as they exposed them to the strategies of the winning team.

Moreover, the institution also has the new peer integration sessions. These sessions are normally held within the first thirty to sixty days after the arrival of the new executives. These sessions contribute a lot as far as the success of the firm is concerned. Firstly, it creates a platform where the recruits interact and network with the experienced executive in the firm. This opens up an opportunity where the executive can give advice and guidance on the operation of the institution. Secondly, it also sees the onboarding progress where the recruits are educated on the norms and culture of the institution, which will then guide their service delivery for the next years that will be working in the bank. It is also an opportunity for executives to learn about each other's backgrounds and working principles.

The American Bank also values honesty and has no place for average or poor performance. The aspect of trustworthiness takes the center stage in analyzing the leadership of an individual (Viswanathan, 2018). This is very important because the same people will not be there forever. It is, therefore, crucial to have all leaders subjected to the spirit of truth as it enables the upcoming ones to learn the steps and now prepare them as they plan to take over the leadership role.

Opportunities for Improvement

Despite the outstanding performance of the American Bank and the good talent management process, there are opportunities for improvement that can be adapted to propel the performance of the firm to even higher levels. Firstly, the chief executive officer and the other executive committee should have even more regular meeting than the one that is being held every summer. The frequent meetings will impact more on the progress of the firm in that the rising issues will be dealt with as soon as possible and thus be able to resolve the challenge and get the firm sailing in the right direction.

Similarly, the onboarding process should also be looked into to have faster delivery of the new executives. The onboarding process of the American Bank follows a long process, which takes even months. This should be adjusted to have the new executives taking over their roles as soon as possible with ease. Similarly, the three tools of the tools of orientation forums, and coaching and support should also take the shortest time possible. The orientation forums involving the executives should take place shortly after the employment of the recruits to enable the executives to familiarize themselves faster and have their offices running towards the achievement of organizational goals.

Effective Approaches to Meet Talent Management in the Future

The organizations should have effective approaches to ensuring successful talent management even when looking into the future of the organization. For the case of the Bank of America, there are some of the approaches that need to be adjusted to ensure the future success of the firm. Some of these approaches include going beyond the regular performance of the firm, provision of professional development opportunities, and the measurement and improvement of the talent management with analytic. The Bank of America should not be comfortable with its current position and success in the talent management process. However, they should go beyond their regular performance by setting up higher limits and compete with itself. Their current success should not be the end. More work needs to be adjusted to bring more performance on the table even as they focus on the future delivery of quality services and recruitment of competent and talented employees.

Similarly, the organization should look into the provision of professional development opportunities to boost the skills of the employees (Mensah, 2019). The employees will always know the skill required to fill the existing gap in the organization (Maguire, 2019), therefore, they should be supported to acquire the same skills. This will boost the productivity of the employees and ensure a qualified and professional team across all fields of the organization. The Bank of America should find ways to provide professional development opportunities apart from the already existing ones which including coaching of new executives. Furthermore, the Bank of America should also measure and improve talent management with analytic. They should invest more in technological resources to ensure that the firm is riding with the latest trends in the market. The human resource data should also be adjusted to fit into the latest trends in the market (White, 2018) to ensure that the employees are operating with an excellent structure that meets the international standards.

References

Collings, D. G., Scullion, H., & Caligiuri, P. M. (2018). Global talent management. Routledge.

Lynch, M., & Morgan, C. L. J. (2017). Bank of America. Routledge.

Maguire, M., Kallikadavil, A., Christopher, H. A., Gudapati, P., Martin, A. S., & Purohit, N. (2019). U.S. Patent No. 10,229,417. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Mensah, J. K. (2019). Talent management and employee outcomes: a psychological contract fulfillment perspective. Public Organization Review, 19(3), 325-344.

Viswanathan, M. K., Krishnamoorthy, S., & Nair, S. G. (2018). U.S. Patent No. 10,147,066. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

White, A. M. (2018). Bank of America b. City of Miami: Standing and Causation under the Fair Housing Act. Loy. LAL Rev., 51, 413.