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Currently, the economy is entering phase three of a three-phase
evolution that began in the eighties and nineties with downsizing
and restructuring. Companies are leaner now, and management is
working hard to hold onto valuable employees. Gone are the days
when jobs were the equivalent to a lifetime of security. We are
now in a market-driven economy in which talented people are becoming
more aware of their power and influence. They know they can change
jobs at any time and do not hang around long if they’re not
appropriately challenged or compensated.
And so, managers are finding themselves in a position where they
have to negotiate with employees in ways similar to outside vendors.
They can no longer lure talent with the promise of security.
Who
wins in the Talent Wars? Why talent, of course. What is Talent?
According to Ed Michaels, Helen Handfield Jones and Beth Axelrod,
authors of The War For Talent, the word talent means, “the
sum of a person’s abilities - intrinsic gifts, skills,
knowledge, experience, intelligence, judgment, attitude, character
and drive.
Also, the ability to learn and grow.” They assert, “Great
talent management isn’t about great HR processes, but about
beliefs.”
Historically talent was actual currency. The ancient Greeks and
Romans called a talent a unit of weight. It was literally “through
exchanges of metals (precious) of that weight, it became a monetary
value. What is today a key source of value creation was thousands
of years ago, money.”
The Old Testament tells the Parable of the Talents, in
which three servants are given talents, the first servant is given
five, the
second is given two and the last is given one. The first two
servants doubled their talents while the third was lazy and buried
his
talent in the ground. The first two servants were rewarded and
the third
was banished for burying his talent in the ground. In the 16th
century, Martin Luther interpreted this parable to mean that
the will of God was that talents were not be wasted and thus we
have what
is known today as the protestant work ethic. This definition has come full circle in the twenty-first century.
Now, talent is the means by which individuals market themselves
and pursue a living. And talented individuals know that their abilities
are worth something in this information-based marketplace.
Welcome to the Talent Wars
In his book, Winning the Talent Wars Bruce Tulgan outlines
strategies for acquiring and keeping top talent. This book should
be mandatory
reading for all managers. Tulgan begins by asking if there is
indeed a war on talent, “are you a general, a manager,
or a foot soldier?”
Tulgan goes on to argue that in this
new post-downsized economy, “The
most valuable talent will have the most negotiating power", and
"every employment relationship will last exactly as long as the
terms
are agreeable to all the parties".
Every leader and manager wants solutions that are already field-tested,
and these are some of the strategies Tulgan has outlined for
a successful “war on talent”:
- Talent is the show.
- Staff the work not the jobs.
- Pay for performance, nothing else.
- Turn managers into coaches.
- Train for the mission, not the long haul.
- Create as many career paths as you have people.
Born in the Information Age
McKinsey and Company, a consulting group responsible for a groundbreaking
study of corporate performance, coined the term ‘Talent
Wars’ in 1997. They assert that talent wars are far from
over and that they will persist for at least another two decades.
In The War for Talent, the authors address the shift from the
industrial age to the information age, and offer the following
guidelines:
| The Old Way |
The New Way |
HR is responsible for people management.
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All managers, starting with the CEO, are accountable for
strengthening their talent pools. |
| We provide good pay and benefits. |
We shape our company, our jobs, even our strategy, to appeal
to talented people. |
| Recruiting is like purchasing. |
Recruiting is like marketing. |
| We think development happens in training programs. |
We fuel development primarily through stretch jobs, coaching
and mentoring. |
| We treat everyone the same and like to think that everyone
is equally capable. |
We affirm all our people, but invest
differentially in A, B and C players.
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Tulgan believes that in order to win the talent wars, managers
must welcome these new changes. While companies will always have
a certain number of long-term employees, they will also have a
core group that works on short-term projects. Lifetime employment
will live longer in an environment that is flexible, and companies
will be rewarded if their mangers invest time and encourage their
talent. As in the parable, talent will only multiply in an
inspired organization.
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