This link has been bookmarked by 4 people . It was first bookmarked on 18 Mar 2009, by Marc Buyens.
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20 Mar 09
Bertrand DuperrinEven these questions indicate a dated view of where talent is and how to get the most out of it. Sure, no one disputes the importance of talent, even in a recession. But, as a Deloitte report contends (.pdf link), companies spend entirely too much time focused on attracting and retaining talent. Moreover, as they do, they often lose sight of what appeals to and keeps hold of talent in the first place. (See John's perspectives on the report and on the mindsets that limit firms.)
talents talentmanagement attraction retention humanresources networks talentnetworks pull
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Talented workers join companies and stay there because they believe they'll learn faster and better than they would at other employers.
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Talented workers develop instead by:
- Trying new things.
- Experimenting with what they do in their jobs and how they do it.
- Tackling real problems with talented people who have different backgrounds and skills.
- Participating in talent networks, the largely invisible matrix structures that run within firms and, with increasing frequency, between and across them. - 1 more annotations...
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Pull platforms are essential to fostering learning on the job since they can make it easier to access unexpected resources in unexpected ways and thereby encourage participants to try new approaches that simply would not be feasible in more rigid push programs.
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19 Mar 09
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But how, exactly, does talent get better faster? Formal training programs, we
would argue, are increasingly marginal to the talent race. And they're expensive
in a
recession.Talented workers develop instead by:
- Trying new things.
- Experimenting with what they do in their jobs and
how they do it.
- Tackling real problems with talented people who have
different backgrounds and skills.
- Participating in talent
networks, the largely invisible matrix structures that run within firms and,
with increasing frequency, between and across them. -
Because talent works at every level of the corporation, the changes necessary to
develop talent extend into nearly every aspect of the firm's activities.
Operations, organization, and strategy must all be reconceived through
the talent lens. They must be re-thought as part of pull platforms that
treat all workers as capable creators who are continuously improvising in
response to unanticipated situations. In this view, talent isn't just the highly
trained and deeply skilled knowledge workers one typically thinks of as talent:
they're just about everybody. - 2 more annotations...
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In what remains of this post we'll discuss the pull-based operational changes
necessary to create the talent-driven firm. In subsequent posts we'll look at
the implications for strategy, organization, and technology.As we argued before, many big companies have been built
around the concept of "pushing" resources into the areas of greatest anticipated
need. Whether it's the shelves of a retail store, the activities of a
manufacturing plant, or the people of a services firm, push approaches try to
forecast demand and then deploy the right resources to the right place at the
right time.Push programs have enabled scalable, cost-effective operations. But they've
come at a steep price: the rigid standardization and specification of activities
and tasks they require. What if instead companies were to create more flexible
pull platforms to help employees access resources whenever and wherever they are
needed? What if, rather than treating exception handling as a nuisance to be
eliminated, companies welcomed these problems as opportunities for participants
to tinker and experiment? -
Pull platforms are essential to fostering learning on the job since they can
make it easier to access unexpected resources in unexpected ways and thereby
encourage participants to try new approaches that simply would not be feasible
in more rigid push programs.
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18 Mar 09
Marc BuyensIt might seem a peculiar time to talk about talent. Aren't most people these days happy just to have their jobs? Aren't employers more concerned about outplacement than recruiting? And what company has the budget to fund expensive training programs?
Even these questions indicate a dated view of where talent is and how to get the most out of it. Sure, no one disputes the importance of talent, even in a recession. But, as a Deloitte report contends (.pdf link), companies spend entirely too much time focused on attracting and retaining talent. Moreover, as they do, they often lose sight of what appeals to and keeps hold of talent in the first place. (See John's perspectives on the report and on the mindsets that limit firms.)
Compensation and benefit packages are surely important. But the opportunity for professional development consistently outranks money in surveys of employee satisfaction. Only by helping employees build their skills and capabilities can companies hope to attract and retain them. Talented workers join companies and stay there because they believe they'll learn faster and better than they would at other employers.
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