Locating and Nurturing Good Talent

 Author: Shyaam Sundar,

             CKO &VP, Ramco Systems Ltd

The functions of locating and nurturing good employees are enabled by the running of exceptionally good Talent Management processes. We are familiar with the scope of global recruitment or succession planning processes. These should be tuned to targeted business requirements and local/cultural demand.

In Talent Management, one of the challenges is to have ready a set talent pools; sets of peoples with grouped by capabilities and performance. The idea is that when a key position falls open, talent from these pools may be analyzed for their fit into the position in question. In practical execution, organizations look at the experience profile and other typical HR parameters such educational qualifications etc before making the decision. There is always the possibility that the answer to this succession is not in black and white. This may be because the candidates in consideration may be too close in terms of performance and profile.

Extra data points are needed to make such a decision. The following additional questions may have to be answered. If the position in question has been measured by native parameters such as position size etc. That is, positions are measured by the target they carry or the number of people reporting into it. We submit it must be measured further by environmental factors such as cultural and social parameters.

Cultural Parameters are paramount in succession decisions; especially in the higher level positions as these positions affect many others in the organization. For instance, senior project directors must have demonstrated “outcome orientation”. Granular referencing to budget and time parameters of projects may be yield more important information than typical KPIs and performance records. A second level parameter could be “people orientation” – this can be valued from attrition numbers and key words from exit interviews. While outcome orientation helps us understand how the successor performed in project delivery, people orientation measures the ability to lead the team as they fight their way through delivery pressures.

Social Parameters are indicated by the number of connections into interest groups that feed the domain of job in question, the number of tweets, followers, etc.

And these are not going to add up to one whole in as in financial statement. They will sit as measures in multiple dimensions, leaving the importance of these dimensions and therefore the need to reckon with the measures to be determined by the planners. Growing organizations may place emphasis on social parameters – connections that the successor brings in. Mature organizations look at the culture of execution and outcome orientation. 

Whatever may be the case, decision making is by making an exception – choosing the best fit candidate to a context and not to a position. What is the demand of the position in the current business environment? What sort of social and cultural leadership is needed in order for the successor to meet the targets assigned to the position?