Talent Management – Meaning and Important Concepts

What if you could attract your competitor’s best employee for few extra bucks? Sounds easier than done! Attracting high-worth individuals from the competitors is not everyone’s cup of tea. Targeting them and finally hiring them is the test of your competencies experience, personal traits and brain application. This is where the strategic approach plays an important role. A full-fledged department, precisely Talent Management (a part of HRD), especially dedicated to the purpose is required to recognize, source and poach them. However the process doesn’t finish here. It is a never-ending course of action that requires continuous effort. Let’s read further to explore and understand the concept.

Talent Management, as the name itself suggests is managing the ability, competency and power of employees within an organization. The concept is not restricted to recruiting the right candidate at the right time but it extends to exploring the hidden and unusual qualities of your employees and developing and nurturing them to get the desired results. Hiring the best talent from the industry may be a big concern for the organizations today but retaining them and most importantly, transitioning them according to the culture of the organization and getting the best out of them is a much bigger concern.

Talent Management in organizations is not just limited to attracting the best people from the industry but it is a continuous process that involves sourcing, hiring, developing, retaining and promoting them while meeting the organization’s requirements simultaneously. For instance, if an organization wants the best talent of its competitor to work with it, it needs to attract that person and offer him something that is far beyond his imagination to come and join and then stick to the organization. Only hiring him does not solve the purpose but getting the things done from him is the main task. Therefore, it can be said that talent management is a full-fledged process that not only controls the entry of an employee but also his or her exit.

We all know that it’s people who take the organization to the next level. To achieve success in business, the most important thing is to recognize the talent that can accompany you in achieving your goal. Attracting them to work for you and strategically fitting them at a right place in your organization is the next step. It is to be remembered that placing a candidate at a wrong place can multiply your problems regardless of the qualifications, skills, abilities and competency of that person. How brilliant he or she may be, but placing them at a wrong place defeats your sole purpose. The process of talent management is incomplete if you’re unable to fit the best talent of the industry at the place where he or she should be.

Some organizations may find the whole process very unethical especially who are at the giving end (who loses their high-worth employee). But in this cut-throat competition where survival is a big question mark, the whole concept sounds fair. Every organization requires the best talent to survive and remain ahead in competition. Talent is the most important factor that drives an organization and takes it to a higher level, and therefore, can not be compromised at all. It won’t be exaggerating saying talent management as a never-ending war for talent!