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Enterprises worldwide face problems selecting, staffing, developing, compensating, motivating, and sustaining their key talent. Building a sustainable Talent pipeline is quite strenuous even for large multinationals.
Replicating best practices from somewhere and applying them alone isn’t sufficient for organizations to build a Talent pipeline and achieve Competitive Advantage. This warrants overcoming arduous challenges associated with this digital age, including:
- Adjusting to varying dynamics in global markets
- Handling the expectations of varied customer segments in different geographies
- Managing the preferences of key Talent
- Acquiring new technologies
- Building novel capabilities
- Achieving Operational Excellence by streamlining operations and improving processes
- Exploring new markets
- Devising strategies to attract, select, develop, assess, and reward top Talent.
Developing Talent Management practices helps the organizations build and retain talented people available in the job market. The term was first used by McKinsey & Company in 1997, and it pertains to planning and managing strategic Human Capital through activities, i.e. attracting, selecting, developing, evaluating, rewarding, and retaining key people.
Executives use diverse Talent Management strategies and career pathways based on various departments, levels, and roles in their Talent pool. Multi-year research on Talent Management practices conducted by an international team of researchers from INSEAD, Cornell, Cambridge, and Tillburg universities studied 33 multi-national corporations, headquartered in 11 countries. The study revealed that successful Human Capital practitioners and workforce planners adopted 6 core principles. These principles act as the 6 pillars to effective Talent Management implementation:
- Alignment with Corporate Strategy
- Consistency of Talent Management Practices
- Integration with Corporate Culture
- Involvement of Leadership
- Global Strategy with Localization
- Branding and Differentiation
Let’s discuss the first 3 pillars in detail, for now.
Alignment with Corporate Strategy
Integrating Talent Management with Corporate Strategy is imperative as the need for future Talent depends on the company’s long-term strategy. Corporate Strategy should guide the identification of Talent required to accomplish organizational goals, since it’s the right Talent that drives the key strategic initiatives rather than strategic planning.
For example, GE’s Talent Management practices have been a great assistance in implementing their strategic initiatives. The organization regards its Talent Management system as their most potent execution tool and has integrated TM processes into their strategic planning process. To sustain its image as an innovation leader, GE targets technical skills as a priority in its annual Strategic Planning sessions. Individual business units lay out their business as well as the Human Capital objectives in GE’s annual strategic planning sessions. Significant time is spent on reviewing its Innovation pipeline, its engineering function’s structure, and Talent requirements. To achieve its vision, GE promotes more engineers in its senior management than its rivals.
Consistency of Talent Management Practices
Talent Management practices must be consistent and synchronous with each other. It is critical not only to invest in advancing the careers of key Talent but also to invest in processes to empower, compensate, and retain them. Human Capital practitioners utilize various tools to ensure consistency of Talent Management practices, including Human Resources satisfaction surveys and qualitative and quantitative data on TM practices implementation.
For example, the success of Siemens is based on consistent monitoring of its systems, processes, and key performance metrics across its subsidiaries. Every element of Human Capital Management is connected, continuously assessed, and linked to rewards. This goes from recruitment of graduates each year, to their orientation, to mentoring and development, to performance evaluation and management, and compensation and benefits.
Integration with Corporate Culture
Corporate culture is regarded as important as vision and mission by renowned global organizations. These companies hold their core values and behavioral standards very high and promote them among their employees through coaching and mentoring. They strive to embed this into their hiring, leadership development, performance management, remuneration, and reward processes / programs. So much so that they consider cultural adaptability a crucial element of their recruitment process—as personality traits and mindsets are hard to develop than technical skills—and evaluate applicants’ behaviors and values rigorously.
For example, among other leading companies, IBM has a special emphasis on values while selecting and promoting people. To ensure consistent values across the board, it organizes regular values jam sessions and employee health index surveys. These sessions encourage open communication and debate on values and organizational culture and their importance among employees.
Interested in learning more about the other pillars of Talent Management, the various approaches to TM? You can download an editable PowerPoint on 6 Pillars of Talent Management here on the Flevy documents marketplace.
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Organizations are continually searching for innovative ways of enhancing competitiveness. This is brought about by evolving external factors 
such as changing demographics, globalization, and technology. Because of changing dynamics, it has required managers to rapidly rethink and retool their organizational management strategies.
Coming up with the appropriate strategies calls for an increasing need for organizational diagnosis in developing and maintaining a competitive advantage. Researchers believe that in conducting organizational diagnosis, organizational effectiveness must be viewed from a systems perspective using a multidimensional approach in assessing the factors affecting enterprise performance management.
At this point wherein the role of organizational climate in business performance has become significant, there is a need for a business model that is most influential. To date, the Burke-Litwin Change Model is the best known and most influential model suitable when it comes to organizational climate.
A Quick Look at Burke-Litwin Change Model
The Burke-Litwin Change Model is seen as a conceptual framework that can best describe the relationships between different features of the organization, as well as its context and effectiveness.
According to Burke and Litwin (1992), Change Management models are not meant to be prescriptive. They are meant to provide a means to diagnose, plan, and manage change. Using the Burke-Litwin Change Model will provide organizations an effective diagnostic tool to improve overall organizational performance. It is a useful model for understanding the organizational change process.
The Burke-Litwin Change Model, as a change management tool, assumes 12 organizational elements that determine a change within an organization.
The Burke-Litwin Change Model 12 Drivers
The 12 key drivers of the Burke-Litwin Change Model interact with and affect each other. The change in the 12 key drivers brings about a series of changes in the structure, practices, and the system of the organization.
The 12 key drivers have been organized based on their specific roles within the organization.
Input.
- External Environment. The External Environment is the external influences important fo organizational changes. These are the economy, customer behavior, competition, politics, and legislation.
Throughput: Transformational Drivers. Transformational Drivers are those that make up the fundamental structure of an organization. It relates to the organization as a whole. There are 3 Transformational Drivers.
The 3 key drivers have over-riding importance of dealing with a change that is intended to share up “the way things are done around here.”
Throughput: Transactional Drivers
Transactional drivers are drivers that are more easily changed, but rarely have the same kind of impact on organization-wide performance. This concerns daily activities that take place in organizations and their mutual cohesion. There are 7 Transactional Drivers.
- Structure
- Systems
- Management Practices
- Work Climate
- Task and Individual Skills
- Individual Needs and Values
- Motivation.
The Transactional Drivers can affect performance. However, performance can only be long-lasting if these key drivers are aligned. The 7 key drivers are critical in their role of supporting the change process.
Output
Individual and Organizational Performance is the 12th key driver. It is the outcome of the change.
The 12th Key Driver: The Individual and Organizational Performance
The only thing that is constant is change. As output changes, so does the input and the factors of change. Individual and Organizational Performance is the measure of the effectiveness of the change. It measures the performance levels of both the individual employee and on the departmental and organizational level.
Individual and Organizational Performance can be measured on the basis of turnover, productivity, quality requirements, efficiency, and customer satisfaction. This is the key driver that impacts on the external environment.
Interested in gaining more understanding of the Burke-Litwin Change Model? You can learn more and download an editable PowerPoint about the Burke-Litwin Change Model here on the Flevy documents marketplace.
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You can download this and hundreds of other consulting frameworks and consulting training guides from the FlevyPro library.
Most companies have ethics and compliance policies that get reviewed and signed annually by all employees. A company policy states that 
“Employees are charged with conducting their business affairs in accordance with the highest ethical standards.” “Morals, as well as legal obligations, will be fulfilled in a manner which will reflect pride on the Company’s name.” These all come from a company’s policy. Yet, to sustain a truly ethical organization, it takes more than a compliance policy or Values Statement.
“Corporate ethical failures have become painfully common, and they are not cheap.”
Billions of dollars have been paid in fines by companies charged with ethical breaches. Despite good intentions, organizations set themselves up for ethical catastrophes. In this age of corporate mistrust, creating an ethical workplace takes more than compliance programs.
Unraveling the Ethical Organization Paradox
According to the National Business Ethics Survey, leaders make concerted efforts to pay holistic attention to their organization’s systems. Yet, despite progress, a number has failed.
- 41% of workers reported seeing ethical misconduct in the previous 12 months
- 10% felt organizational pressure to compromise ethical standards
- $185 M in fines imposed on Wells Fargo as 5300 employees opened up more than a million fraudulent account.
Despite good intentions, organizations set themselves up for ethical catastrophes. The paradox is, without realizing it, organizations tend to create an environment in which people feel forced to make choices they could never have imagined.
Preventing ethical catastrophes can be done. Organizations just need to create that environment where people are encouraged to make ethical choices. There are 5 critical ways organizations can boost ethical decision making.
Boosting Ethical Decision Making in 5 Effective Ways
Boosting ethical decision making is important. This can be achieved when done using the most effective ways.
- Foster a Speak Up Culture. This is best applied when the courage needed to raise ethical concerns are inhibited. The corporate culture will dictate how people within the organization behave.
- Create Realistic Performance Targets. The second way of boosting ethical decision focus on ensuring that people do not make compromising choices to reach targets.
- Ensure Goals Are Fair and Non-conflicting. The culture of fairness in the organization is the main focus here. This is best applied when there are conflicting goals in pursuit of growth.
- Infuse Ethics into Regular Activities. This approach is the most challenging but life-changing. Often, leaders talk about business ethics only when there is a scandal or as part of the organization’s compliance program. Infusing ethics into regular activities ensure that ethics becomes an everyday part of the organization and its DNA. It becomes embedded in the way people relate with each other, work with each other, and even in the application of its processes and systems. Here, ethics become your organization’s everyday life.
- Set a Positive Example. Leaders play a vital role in setting higher standards when it comes to ethics. Essentially, they must be able to put themselves in the shoes of those they lead to see what unintended meaning they are sending. This can be seen in how they react to stressful situations or event confront poor performance. Leaders need to become extra vigilant as others may interpret their actions or behavior otherwise.
Organizations don’t want to find themselves in a front-page scandal. Hence, they must scrutinize their actions to far greater degrees than they may have realized. The 5 Ways of Boosting Ethical Decision Making can just be the organization’s steppingstone towards transforming into an Ethical Organization and sustaining it.
Interested in gaining more understanding of how Ethical Organizations improve Ethical Decision Making? You can learn more and download an editable PowerPoint about Ethical Organization: Improving Ethical Decision Making here on the Flevy documents marketplace.
Are you a management consultant?
You can download this and hundreds of other consulting frameworks and consulting training guides from the FlevyPro library.
