Sustainability efforts form some of the significant strategies for enhancing the financial, environmental, and social performance of an organisation. Organisations cannot build sustainable brand portfolios without the aid of innovative and talented workforce (Huselid & Becker, 2011, p.422). McDonnell, Lamare, Gunnigle, and Lavelle (2010) support this argument by further asserting, “Talent management is arguably the single most important HR activity in a sustainable organisation” (p.150).
This paper follows the strategy for talent management described in assignment 3 to analyse the key concepts related to talent pools and talent review processes followed by the development of appropriate talent management objectives to measure functional expertise. It then progresses to measure the vital aspects of international talent management as they stand out at TriStar Logistics before recommending a process that optimises a sustainable talent management process.
Performance Management Process employed to measure Employees’ Talent
Assignment 3 established the need to facilitate internal promotions as part of succession plans driven by the existing talent potential within TriStar Logistics. Diverse sections of the organisation need diverse talents.
Since the goal of TriStar Logistics is to become one of the leading employing organisations, it implies that people selected and recruited internally within the organisation must possess outstanding credentials that ensure optimal performance at the positions they are appointed or promoted to serve. Hence, some performance management processes for measuring talents of employees are important.
An effective performance process for measuring the talent of employees at TriStar Logistics starts with planning. Planning is necessary in helping to determine various strategies together with goals for different work units especially when measuring talent potential for employees (Levenson, 2011, p.35).
Once goals and strategies are established, search is conducted to determine the employees who fit in these units to enhance the realisation of the goals of various units. This goal is accomplished through alignment of unit goals with employees’ capabilities (McCauley & Wakefield, 2006, p.40). Performance levels in various unit tasks are then conducted to determine the fits between employees and work unit performance expectations.
After successful completion of the planning phase, the next step for implementation of a performance management process for measuring employees’ talents is assessment. Assessment requires performance dialogue accompanied by continuous garnering of feedback from employees to determine the degree of achievement of work unit anticipations.
Opposed to the traditional approaches of measuring the performance of employees, which are claimed as ineffective by Lewis and Heckman (2006) and Levenson (2011), performance dialogue at TriStar Logistics can yield success since employees are provided with adequate information on what they are expected to do within some time limits.
The feedback, which is used to make decisions on the appropriateness of a given employee to fit in a position, is based on the ability of the employee to achieve these work unit requirements. This capacity reflects the talent potential of employees.
This approach of measuring the talent of employees is based on the realisation of specific preset expectations of the demands a given job without any specified criteria for accomplishing them. This means that it is upon the employees to look for innovative ways of executing their duties to achieve the expected results within minimal time and/or with optimal resource utilisation.
Key Concepts related to Talent Pools and the Talent Review Process
At TriStar Logistics, several concepts have been articulated to the talents pools and talent review processes. The first concept is talent identification. This aspect is done to assess the existing organisational employees’ potential so that their capabilities can be developed to yield organisational competitiveness. For TriStar Logistics, every manager assesses the capacity of an employee to perform high-level tasks relative to his or her current grades.
This assessment is based on the demonstrated individual knowledge, skills, and creativity in the execution of leadership roles. In case the results of these assessments show that those employees are capable of performing tasks that are done by people in two or more higher grades, they are considered highly talented.
Readiness assessment is an important aspect for talent assessment. Persons identified as highly talented must be prepared to succeed in various incumbents (Lewis, & Heckman, 2006, p.151). This assessment is important for various high-ranking managers while preparing their annual talent review plans that reflect leadership gaps and other managerial metrics.
The second concept is feeder role identification. At TriStar Logistics, building sustainable and a robust leadership pipeline requires the existence of various positions to be filled by persons who are identified as talented for similar positions.
It is the obligation of talent development managers to identify the various positions existing below the highest leadership teams and/or label them as feeder roles. These roles need to have broad opportunities to facilitate growth of experiences and talents showcased by employees as they progress from fundamental to senior positions. A follow-up of feeder roles is crucial for performance assessment reason and capacity re-examination.
Talent Management Objectives to measure Functional Expertise
Talent management in TriStar Logistics is done to ensure that the expertise of employees improves over time as they gain experience while working in the organisation. This outcome is achieved by developing accurate staffing models followed by the identification of vital skills while acknowledging the role of proper harnessing of the competences of employees in enhancing organisational success.
This strategy helps to improve the functional expertise of the organisation by aiding it to arrive at decisions, which are informed by the existing talent potentials (McCauley & Wakefield, 2006, p.41). TriStar Logistics is also able to react more effectively to situations emerging from changing the operational environment that requires the improvement of an organisation in terms of innovation and creativity.
Successful organisations object to improve the functional areas of their expertise through identification of areas of their strength with the help of competences, which are required to execute specific tasks. This outcome is measured through employees’ assessments together with performance ratings (Lewis, & Heckman, 2006, p.152).
Hence, within TriStar Logistics, leaders in talent management need to deploy talent management objectives in measuring functional expertise areas that are driven by objective data. This helps to engage employees in talent development conversations that are tied within the facets of attaining the anticipated functional outcomes of an organisation.
Such conservation strategies are pivotal in ensuring that organisations are capable of identifying accurately the required talents that should be obtained from departments or business functional units. Conversation also aids in the identification of skills, which are required to support future strategies of TriStar Logistics.
Vital Aspects of Global Talent Management at TriStar Logistics
TriStar Logistics Company has several talent management approaches, which are consistent with the global approaches to talent management. In TriStar Logistics, capturing the top talent is not the only concern. The organisation focuses on the development of talents that are already in existence especially in the events of hard economic times.
This strategy is consistent with the global approaches to talent management, which focus on making organisations people-centric (McDonnell, Lamare, Gunnigle & Lavelle, 2010, p.153). This means that people feel they are part of the organisational growth when they are given an opportunity to grow their talent potentials.
TriStar Logistics creates internal talent development programs that are aligned to the interests of employees. By creating a job position filled internally, it implies that on global platforms the organisation has the capacity to retain the top talent, which is critical in enhancing competitive advantage (McCauley & Wakefield, 2006, p.39).
The value of employees who are given an opportunity to identify their own specific competency development areas is then merged with the career paths existing internally within TriStar Logistics. This value is also given a major priority.
Recommendation for a Process that optimises a Sustainable Talent Management Process
Sustainability in the talent management process of an organisation is an important aspect of the organisation that plans to base its long-term success on people it employs. TriStar Logistics is one of such organisations. It is recommended for TriStar Logistics to increase its strategic efforts on self-engagement of employees and/or add emphasis on the development of people together with increasing their performance in their business unit tasks.
For optimisation of a sustainable talent management process, it is important for talent to be measured, with its assessment criteria remaining fair, transparent, and involving all staff members. It should be flexible and efficient in terms of talent identification and development.
Such a process also needs to proactively support all on-going initiatives for succession management, enumerate various organisational goals, and/or measure employees’ performance in the context of realisation of such goals. The process also needs to provide ample room for supervisors of talent development to give concise and reliable feedback on the extent of employees’ talent development.
For TriStar Logistics, the process also needs to take into consideration past performance of employees while also paying attention to the anticipated opportunities for talent growth in relation to work units, individual, and TriStar Logistics’ goals and objectives.
Reference List
Huselid, M., & Becker, E. (2011). Bridging Micro and Macro Domains: Workforce Differentiation and Strategic Human Resource Management. Journal of Management, 37(2), 421-428.
Levenson, A. (2011). Using Targeted Analytics to Improve Talent Decisions. People & Strategy, 34(2), 34-43.
Lewis, R., & Heckman, J. (2006). Talent management: A critical review. Human Resource Management Review, 16(2), 139-151.
McCauley, C., & Wakefield, M. (2006). Talent Management in the 21st Century: Help Your Company Find, Develop, and Keep its Strongest Workers. The Journal for Quality and Participation, 29(4), 39-47.
McDonnell, A., Lamare, R., Gunnigle, P., & Lavelle, J. (2010). Developing tomorrow’s leaders—Evidence of global talent management in multinational enterprises. Journal of World Business, 45(2), 150-160.