Essay on Competing for Talent in a Tightening Market: Talent Management Strategies

Introduction

The rapid increase in the need for globalization has forced businesses to engage in relentless, greedy competition to secure their market segments. Competition in the market continues to tighten, with each organization employing different strategies to remain on top. Large organizations are particularly obliged to establish long-lasting plans that would see their survival and constant profit-making. One of the strategies that organizations employ to remain competitive is known as talent management: this involves an organization's holistic process of identifying, attracting, recruiting, engaging, and maintaining top-performing employees who hold critical positions in the organizations' production, distribution or sales processes. The human resource department (HR) is responsible for the recruitment and management of the labor force. The evolvement of talent management has facilitated in transforming HR to a holistic structure that is involved in the strategic processes within organizations.

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Talent management strategy for Albeit Company

Albeit Company is a profit-oriented company with 200 employees, including 20 holding leadership roles. The organization can be classified as a large company with a significantly extensive production process. Developing an efficient talent management strategy would offer a golden opportunity for the organization to solve many challenges.

An effective strategy can be defined as an ongoing systematic process that involves critical identification, assessment, and development of talents in preparation for vital roles that ensure maximum organization performance and continuity. In the current competitive business world, HR has the responsibility to add value to organizations. The best way to achieve this objective is by being directly involved in improving business performance from within the organizations. An improvement in this aspect can be attained through talent management, initiating change management, and influencing a strategy that can significantly promote effectiveness. Hence, when planning an organization's future talent management strategy, one of the essential factors to consider is the means to achieve the set goals and objectives. Also, the contribution of employees in this process is vital: this is because talent management is itself a strategy and must be incorporated in all workers-related activities within a company.

In formulating an effective talent management strategy, Albeit Company's management must critically evaluate the cost of the strategy, gaps in skills, and the ability of the plan to support corporate objectives. For better results, the organization needs to conduct surveys, employees' assessment, and reviewing organizational skill record which includes competence, education background, and performance. When the organization pays special attention to the aforementioned factors, it will establish a strong foundation for designing a talent management plan. Besides, it will reduce the impact of economic changes by promoting corporate objectives and strategies. Once Albeit Company establishes a clear vision and develops a clear understanding of the current workforce abilities, and the existing gaps in the company skills, it stands in a better position to focus on primary issues. A talent management strategy that correlates with organizational objectives provides results that directly influence corporate revenues and customer satisfaction.

Key components of talent management

In this company, talent management will be more about HR strategic planning because its significant areas of concern include identifying, selecting, training, assessing, and retaining talented employees. Talent management comprises six components, which include performance management, strategic work planning, talent acquisition and retention, skills development, succession planning, and career development.

Performance management is a critical factor in talent management planning. At the Albeit Company, the main objective of this component will be to roles given correlate with the organization's goals. It will be utilized in developing goals for success and promoting workers' development in addition to steering the organization's focus on the desired directions. The HR plan will include developing training that will enable the company to recruit the best staff that will fill the skills gaps within the company. When an employee is given the right position and accorded with the necessary resources to execute his duties, it helps to enhance his confidence resulting in better performance. Training will also form an essential part of the effective performance (Tepayakul & Rinthaisong, 2016). For the desired effect to be attained, training programs will incorporate the organization's culture based tasks and behavior-oriented activities.

Workforce strategic planning involves the process of selection, recruitment, and hiring. This component evaluates talents per the organization's objectives and plans. Hence, it aims to steer the set goals and implementation of the plan therefore planning will be essential in determining the critical roles required in the vacant positions: this will follow a systematic action plan that will act to help the recruiting team to establish the best talent based on attitudes, skills, and behavior (Tepayakul & Rinthaisong, 2016).

Furthermore, talent acquisition and retention involve recruiting new employees and helping them to adapt to the organizational culture and the specific roles they are entitled to play. Besides, it promotes retention of skilled labor through motivation, training, and enhancing employee satisfaction. Employees who feel their employers are caring to tend to be loyal and hence takes the opportunity provided to learn and remain in their organizations for longer-term. This component will facilitate the development of an efficient plan that will ensure employees' roles are aligned with the organizational goals (Hafez, AbounelNeel & Elsaid, 2017). To win a competitive battle in the current market, the organization will strive to attract the right talent and utilize their knowledge for the long term.

Career development is related to talent retention in that it advocates promoting and training the existing talent to fill the skill gaps. This component encourages the need to utilize the available human resources to perform emerging roles in an organization. It aims to provide knowledge and experience to employees without recruiting from outside. Career development will be essential for Albeit Company. Recruiting the existing talent to take up advanced positions will enhance loyalty and performance (Hafez, AbounelNeel & Elsaid, 2017). Besides, it will communicate a positive message to junior employees to work hard and remain loyal.

Moreover, succession planning will be an essential factor in formulating the strategy. Employees intended to take up advanced positions will be enrolled in training programs to acquire the necessary knowledge. Some of the employees will be referred to a sister organization to enhance their career development. To enhance succession, the company will initiate a program that will ensure the retiring workforce pass knowledge to the incoming employees.

Talent management process as a strategy for competitive advantage

In the current organizations' relentless effort to attaining competitive advantage, it is evident that all improvement programs and initiatives have a common factor, employees. Achievement of organizational goals depends on employee commitment and the availability of skills required in executing different roles. In the case of Albeit Company, there had been many existing gaps in talent that contributed to the company's failure in its market segment, thus being outdone by its competitors. However, with a working talent management strategy in place, the company has been able to utilize the strategy's effectiveness to enhance competitive advantage.

Through talent this strategy, the company leadership has been able to turn things around hence gaining a significant competitive advantage over the company's competitors: various actions initiated by the management have facilitated this. For instance, the company CEO reviewed talent practices and established critical weaknesses, which made the organization perform poorly. The implementation of a talent management process increased employee performance (Mohammed, 2016). However, to ensure increased competitive advantage for the company, the HR was obliged to performing different roles actions.

The most effective factor involved consideration of the company's corporate culture and used it as a tool for competitive advantage. Albeit, Company management made a relentless effort in assembling core values and business principles into various practices such as leadership development practices, performance management, hiring process, and compensation programs. Hence as the company's competitors concentrated on candidate experience and job-related skills, Albeit Company expanded its selection criteria to involve cultural fit. The hiring team, therefore, evaluates candidates' behavioral traits to establish whether they will fit in the company's culture (Mupepi, 2017). Developing a robust talent management plan has acted as the organization's best tool to treat its employees as the most valuable part of the company.

Moreover, an organization's strength and efficiency are significantly influenced by the quality of the talents available. As a means of building a strong foundation for Albeit Company's future, the organization embarked on coaching, leading, and managing employees to help them develop and gain new skills for the proper execution of different roles (Mupepi, 2017). Besides, to maintain a competitive advantage, the company leadership has sustained focus on employee performance through enhancing the development of technical skills, leadership skills and continuous learning in all its employees.

Talent management change with organization transformation

With the rapid development in technology, the coming five to six years, Albeit Company will have a slightly different environment compared to the current one. For instance, the organization will have different goals and objectives, the structure and size will have expanded, and employees will have more advanced roles than the current. Besides, the company's potential to attract and retain employees will have improved significantly. However, the talent management strategy should not change with other factors but the company will need to enhance it to sustain external forces. The company should develop a means of attracting the best talent available and offer the best treatment to improve employees' loyalty. With the anticipation of growth, the strategy should improve and create room for more transparency and accountability in the future. This will give managers a more relaxed time and enhance their knowledge about employee management (Serrat, 2017). Besides, the strategy should strengthen simplicity in the future for both candidates and the recruitment team to have a clear understanding of the skills needed during hiring. Simplicity will also help to promote efficiency in hiring, skill development and employees' mastery of duties.

Furthermore, company management should evaluate their performance and continuously improve working strategies to optimize revenues. The organization should also develop a talent pool that will ensure that new talents are infused into the corporate culture without prejudice. With the company size almost doubling in size, hiring new executive management will be a hectic activity, which could also risk organizational failure (Rigaud, 2013). Therefore the company should stick to the idea of internal promotion and employee succession to have a kno...