{"id":521,"date":"2015-03-23T19:59:40","date_gmt":"2015-03-23T19:59:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/man4030-org-leadership\/chapter\/16-4-the-war-for-talent\/"},"modified":"2023-06-07T20:44:04","modified_gmt":"2023-06-07T20:44:04","slug":"16-4-the-war-for-talent","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/man4030-org-leadership\/chapter\/16-4-the-war-for-talent\/","title":{"raw":"The War for Talent","rendered":"The War for Talent"},"content":{"raw":"
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Learning Objectives<\/h3>\r\n
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  1. Define talent management.<\/li>\r\n \t
  2. Attract the right workers to your organization.<\/li>\r\n \t
  3. Understand how to keep your stars.<\/li>\r\n \t
  4. Understand the benefits of good talent management.<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n<\/div>\r\n \r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

    You have likely heard the term, the war for talent which reflects competition among organizations to attract and retain the most able employees. Agencies that track demographic trends have been warning for years that the U.S. workforce will shrink in the second and third decades of the 21st century as the baby boom generation (born 1945\u20131961) reaches retirement age. According to one source, there will be 11.5 million more jobs than workers in the United States by 2010.1<\/sup> Even though many boomers say they want to (or have to) continue working past the traditional age of retirement, those who do retire or who leave decades-long careers to pursue \u201csomething I\u2019ve always wanted to do\u201d will leave employers scrambling to replace well-trained, experienced workers. As workers compete for the most desirable jobs, employers will have to compete even more fiercely to find the right talent.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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    \r\n\r\n\"Uwe<\/a>\r\n

    The war for talent is about attracting, developing, and retaining the most capable employees.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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    Wikimedia Commons - United Kingdom Labour Law<\/a> - CC BY-SA 2.0.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\nWhat Talent Management Means<\/span>\r\n

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    Peter Cappelli of the Wharton School (Cappelli, 2008) defines talent management as anticipating the need for human capital and setting a plan to meet it. It goes hand in hand with succession planning, the process whereby an organization ensures that employees are recruited and developed to fill each key role within the company. Most companies, unfortunately, do not plan ahead for the talent they need, which means that they face shortages of critical skills at some times and surpluses at other times. Other companies use outdated methods of succession planning that don\u2019t accurately forecast the skills they\u2019ll need in the future.<\/p>\r\n

    Interestingly, however, techniques that were developed to achieve productivity breakthroughs in manufacturing can be applied to talent management. For example, it is expensive to develop all talent internally; training people takes a long time and requires accurate predictions about which skill will be needed. Such predictions are increasingly difficult to make in our uncertain world. Therefore, rather than developing everyone internally, companies can hire from the outside when they need to tap specific skills. In manufacturing, this principle is known as \u201cmake or buy.\u201d In HR, the solution is to make and<\/em> buy; that is, to train some people and to hire others from the external marketplace. In this case, \u201cmaking\u201d an employee means hiring a person who doesn\u2019t yet have all the needed skills to fulfill the role, but who can be trained (\u201cmade\u201d) to develop them. The key to a successful \u201cmake\u201d decision is to distinguish between the high-potential employees who don\u2019t yet have the skills but who can learn them from the mediocre employees who merely lack the skills. The \u201cbuy\u201d decision means hiring an employee who has all the necessary skills and experience to fulfill the role from day one. The \u201cbuy\u201d decision is useful when it\u2019s too difficult to predict exactly which skills will be needed in the future (Buhler, 2008).<\/p>\r\n

    Another principle from manufacturing that works well in talent management is to run smaller batch sizes. That is, rather than sending employees to 3-year-long training programs, send them to shorter programs more frequently. With this approach, managers don\u2019t have to make the training decision so far in advance. They can wait to decide exactly which skills employees will learn closer to the time the skill is needed, thus ensuring that employees are trained on the skills they\u2019ll actually use.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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    Attracting the Right Workers to the Organization<\/h2>\r\n

    Winning the war for talent means more than simply attracting workers to your company. It means attracting the right<\/em> workers\u2014the ones who will be enthusiastic about their work. Enthusiasm for the job requires more than having a good attitude about receiving good pay and benefits\u2014it means that an employee\u2019s goals and aspirations also match those of the company. Therefore, it\u2019s important to identify employees\u2019 preferences and mutually assess how well they align with the company\u2019s strategy. To do this, the organization must first be clear about the type of employee it wants. Companies already do this with customers: marketing executives identify specific segments of the universe of buyers to target for selling products. Red Bull, for example, targets college-age consumers, whereas SlimFast goes for adults of all ages who are overweight. Both companies are selling beverages but to completely different consumer segments. Similarly, companies need to develop a profile of the type of workers they want to attract. Do you want entrepreneurial types who seek autonomy and continual learning, or do you want team players who enjoy collaboration, stability, and structure? Neither employee type is inherently \u201cbetter\u201d than another, but an employee who craves autonomy may feel constrained within the very same structure in which a team player would thrive.<\/p>\r\n

    Earlier, we said that it was important to \u201cmutually assess\u201d how well employees\u2019 preferences aligned with the company\u2019s strategy. One-half of \u201cmutual\u201d refers to the company, but the other half refers to the job candidates. They also need to know whether they\u2019ll fit well into the company. One way to help prospective hires make this determination is to describe to them the \u201csignature experience\u201d that sets your company apart. As Tamara Erickson and Lynda Gratton define it, your company\u2019s signature experience is the distinctive practice that shows what it\u2019s really like to work at your company (Erickson & Gratton, 2007).<\/p>\r\n

    For example, here are the signature experiences of two companies, Whole Foods and Goldman Sachs: At Whole Foods, team-based hiring is a signature experience\u2014employees in each department vote on whether a new employee will be retained after a 4-week trial period. This demonstrates to potential hires that Whole Foods is all about collaboration. In contrast, Goldman Sachs\u2019s signature experience is multiple one-on-one interviews. The story often told to prospective hires is of the MBA student who went through 60 interviews before being hired. This story signals to new hires that they need to be comfortable meeting endless new people and building networks across the company. Those who enjoy meeting and being interviewed by so many diverse people are exactly the ones who will fit into Goldman\u2019s culture.<\/p>\r\n

    The added benefit of hiring workers who match your organizational culture and are engaged in their work is that they will be less likely to leave your company just to get a higher salary.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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    Keeping Star Employees<\/h2>\r\n

    The war for talent stems from the approaching shortage of workers. As we mentioned earlier in this chapter, the millions of baby boomers reaching retirement age are leaving a gaping hole in the U.S. workforce. What\u2019s more, workers are job-hopping more frequently than in the past. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average job tenure has dropped from 15 years in 1980 to 4 years in 2007. As a manager, therefore, you need to give your employees reasons to stay with your company. One way to do that is to spend time talking with employees about their career goals. Listen to their likes and dislikes so that you can help them use the skills they like using or develop new ones they wish to acquire (Kaye, 2008).<\/p>\r\n

    Don\u2019t be afraid to \u201cgrow\u201d your employees. Some managers want to keep their employees in their department. They fear that helping employees grow on the job will mean that employees will outgrow their job and leave it (Field, 2008). But, keeping your employees down is a sure way to lose them. What\u2019s more, if you help your employees advance, it\u2019ll be easier for you to move up because your employees will be better able to take on the role you leave behind.<\/p>\r\n

    In some cases, your employees may not be sure what career path they want. As a manager, you can help them identify their goals by asking questions such as:<\/p>\r\n\r\n