With the outburst of the economic development in the preceding century, the companies, especially those operating on the regional and international scales, started looking for ways of improving performance. As years passed by, they found that resourcing talent within organizations is one of the best methods of increasing the effectiveness of economic activities.
Resourcing talent in organizations inevitably leads to workforce diversity. From the economic perspective attracting and retaining a diverse workforce has some organizational benefits (Nelson & Quick, 2012). First of all, it leads to employing the most talented and skilled people that undoubtedly positively affect the organizations’ performance. Second, if a company attracts and retains a diverse workforce, it entails diversification of marketing strategies because of bringing people with different historical, cultural, and ethnical backgrounds allowing for deepening the understanding of the market in different countries.
Third, bringing together employees from all over the world, the company becomes more creative and innovative in its activities because the most talented of them always contribute to creating the strategies for further development in the global arena. Fourth, together with helping understand the market needs of people from different countries and adding to the company’s innovativeness and creativity, those with diverse backgrounds help improve the problem-solving mechanism by sharing their experience. And finally, attracting and retaining a diverse workforce transforms the organization into a robust, flexible machine operating on the continuous evolution of approaches towards effective and innovative development and gaining leadership at the scale of carrying out economic activities.
Even though organizations employ the most talented people and their workforce is diverse, they should have an efficient management strategy in attracting and retaining the most skilled staff. There are some primary factors that have an impact on the approach towards recruiting senior managers, specialists, and high potential graduates. This approach is known as talent management, and it is affected by internal and external factors (Rog, 2008).
Speaking of internal factors that influence the organization’s approach towards attracting talent, these are the factors that have an impact from the inside of the organization. Among such internal factors, one can name, first of all, talent planning in particular and workforce planning as the whole that means that employing skilled people is affected by the company’s objectives and strategy. Second, what effects talent management is the size and the cost of the company that determines whether the organization can afford to employ the most talented staff. Third, the organizations’ plans to expand and grow as well play a significant role in attracting talent.
Together with the internal factors influencing the company’s approach towards talent management, there are also external ones that cannot be controlled by the organization because they deal with the overall developments of the economic environment. First of all, market conditions have a direct impact on talent management. The company decides whom to employ based on such data as supply and demand on the market, the unemployment rate, the socio-economic and legal environment, etc. Second, talent managing is strongly influenced by the competitors’ talent attracting policies because they may initiate the shifts in the labor market.
Third, mergers and acquisitions can be one more factor having an impact on the company’s approach towards attracting talents because these processes reflect the internationalization and globalization of the world economy and the need for particular skills (Rog, 2008). Finally, talent management is also affected by global expansion plans because they shape diversity in the backgrounds of the workforce and the market conditions at the international level.
Besides the factors influencing attracting and retaining a talented workforce, there are also factors that have an impact on organization’s approach to selection and recruitment. They can also be classified as internal and external and, in general, are the same as the factors that have an impact on the company’s approach towards attracting talent. The only thing that should be taken into consideration is that in the case of recruitment and selection of common employers, they are broader than in the case of attracting senior managers, specialists, and high potential graduates. That said, among internal factors, one can name an overall workforce planning strategy and the atmosphere in the workplace as well as the scales of the organization’s activities while, among external factors, there are the economic and market conditions mentioned above.
Moreover, there are various recruitment methods that companies used to attract talented and skilled staff. Recruitment, in general terms, is a set of tools that the organizations practice to get the attention of the potential employees and let them know about the existing vacant positions. There are many recruitment methods used nowadays in the management strategies of the companies, namely
- corporate websites as well as
- professional networks;
- the newest information and communication technologies like carrying out interviews with the candidates in different forms (via telephone conversation, video-conferencing and traditionally face-to-face) and
- traditional ones as newspapers and journals,
- the assistance of external agencies in the items regarding recruitment, and
- previous workers (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, 2015).
Each of the recruitment methods mentioned above has its peculiar benefits. For example, the use of corporate websites is considered to be the most effective recruitment method. Together with turning for help to the external agencies, the organizations grant their potential employees the possibility to obtain the most accurate information about the available vacant positions. Moreover, external agencies, i.e., recruitment and search consultants, help the companies to formulate clearly their requirements and find the appropriate candidates. As of the various forms of interviews, the primary benefit of this method is the possibility to answer all the questions regarding the vacant positions that may interest the potential employee. As of the use of the newest information and communication technologies, as in any other sphere of social interactions, it helps share the most accurate information at the fantastic speed.
When the company has used the recruitment methods, it should turn to use the methods of selection, i.e., choosing the candidate that best fits the available position. Among the selection methods, there are
- different forms of interviews following
- CV contests carried out either online or face-to-face;
- various tests, e.g., tests for detecting specific skills needed for the vacant position or the level of general knowledge,
- group exercises focusing on finding out the candidates’ ability to effectively cooperate with a team; a so-called
- gamification used to test the problem-solving potential;
- and analytical algorithms designed to find the skills matching the requirements.
As well as in the case of recruitment methods, every selection method has particular benefits. For example, CV contests help choose the candidates that will participate in the further selection while interviews, various tests, whether it be online or any other form mentioned above, gamification and group exercises are used to detect whether the skills mentioned in the CV are true. Analytical algorithms help save time spent on the CV contests, thus helping detect those candidates that best fit the position.
So, resourcing talent within the organization is one of the most effective tools used to improve the company’s performance. To my mind, the most effective method of talent management is bearing in mind the internal and external factors mentioned above together with developing a system of recruitment and selection methods, so that the company attracts and retains only the most talented and skillful candidates.
References
Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. (2015). Survey report 2015: Resourcing and talent planning. Web.
Nelson, D. L., & Quick, J. C. (2012). Organizational behavior: Science, the real world, and you (8th ed.). Chula Vista, CA: South-Western College Pub. Web.
Rog, J. (2008). Talent management: A strategy for improving employee recruitment, retention and engagement within hospitality organizations. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 20(7), 743-757. Web.