I keep bumping into people who are completely uncool. I swear there are some who have not realized that our function is not called Human Resources anymore. We are about Talent Management. You do not hire fellows anymore. And you get a minus 5 if you think that it is the folks in Staffing or Recruitment that give you jobs. That department is now called Talent Acquisition.
My friend Prof Madhukar Shukla says that the term "Human Resources" tends to dehumanize people and views the employees as one of the factors of production at par with land, capital or enterprise. I explained to him that for a while the trendy things was to refer to good ol' employees as Human Capital or Intellectual Capital. That must have made communication difficult. Imagine someone saying, "I will join you for lunch at the Human Capital's Cafeteria". Just now as we speak the new term of endearment at the workplace is "Talent". Even those employees who can best be described as possessing only enthusiasm unfettered by talent are also now walking in the workplace with a swagger. Everyone is behaving like the little monarch who needs constant attention and fussing only so that they stay on your payroll and do not walk away for a 40% pay hike. Now that there are no more employees left in the workplace, just raw "talent", the rules of the game are changing.
Talent is defined as an "endowment or ability of a superior quality". It is an innate ability to accomplish stuff that is beyond the ken of an average person. The person in charge of Talent Acquisition is impacting your business way beyond what you realize. Hire the wrong people and that not only impacts morale, but also impacts your firm's competitive edge. Hence the task of the interviewer is to spot such talent and lasso them in to the organization. This is not a job for the faint hearted. When a sports coach goes from village to village to spot children play street football, they see a large range of players and then spot that exceptional person who goes on to become the next God of Soccer. You need to have that soccer coach in your organization who can sift through a million resumes and
sit through numerous interview meetings until they find the person who has that ability of a superior quality.
This is a vital job. So do not leave it to an ape who hires your next CFO by asking deep probing and dumb questions like, "If you were an animal which one would you be?" These questions may be cute conversation starters if you are trying to make a quick impression at the office party, but do not use it for choosing talent. Make sure that the person entrusted to spot talent is trained to look for gems amidst millions of badly written resumes. Talent Spotter has to be able to look for the right fit without getting distracted by glib talk. So before you look for more employees ... er... talent to hire, make sure you have the right person in charge of Talent Acquisition.
See you for coffee at the Talents' Cafeteria of our office.
My friend Prof Madhukar Shukla says that the term "Human Resources" tends to dehumanize people and views the employees as one of the factors of production at par with land, capital or enterprise. I explained to him that for a while the trendy things was to refer to good ol' employees as Human Capital or Intellectual Capital. That must have made communication difficult. Imagine someone saying, "I will join you for lunch at the Human Capital's Cafeteria". Just now as we speak the new term of endearment at the workplace is "Talent". Even those employees who can best be described as possessing only enthusiasm unfettered by talent are also now walking in the workplace with a swagger. Everyone is behaving like the little monarch who needs constant attention and fussing only so that they stay on your payroll and do not walk away for a 40% pay hike. Now that there are no more employees left in the workplace, just raw "talent", the rules of the game are changing.
Talent is defined as an "endowment or ability of a superior quality". It is an innate ability to accomplish stuff that is beyond the ken of an average person. The person in charge of Talent Acquisition is impacting your business way beyond what you realize. Hire the wrong people and that not only impacts morale, but also impacts your firm's competitive edge. Hence the task of the interviewer is to spot such talent and lasso them in to the organization. This is not a job for the faint hearted. When a sports coach goes from village to village to spot children play street football, they see a large range of players and then spot that exceptional person who goes on to become the next God of Soccer. You need to have that soccer coach in your organization who can sift through a million resumes and
sit through numerous interview meetings until they find the person who has that ability of a superior quality.This is a vital job. So do not leave it to an ape who hires your next CFO by asking deep probing and dumb questions like, "If you were an animal which one would you be?" These questions may be cute conversation starters if you are trying to make a quick impression at the office party, but do not use it for choosing talent. Make sure that the person entrusted to spot talent is trained to look for gems amidst millions of badly written resumes. Talent Spotter has to be able to look for the right fit without getting distracted by glib talk. So before you look for more employees ... er... talent to hire, make sure you have the right person in charge of Talent Acquisition.
See you for coffee at the Talents' Cafeteria of our office.
7 comments:
On a different tangent (i.e. nomenclature), I do not like it when public relations professionals are called / termed as public relations officers. But then, I keep the anger to myself, since I read it a PRO.
But how do you get the 'right fit'?Talent spotter can merely talk and on a higher level may conduct a few psychometric tests.Ultimately very little can be known about the person in an interview till he joins the organization.What is that spark that makes an interviewer feel that yes he is the 'right fit'?
Please advise.
Meanwhile keep blogging :)
Hi PRO-Moksh (well who wouldn't want to be?)- I guess nomenclature is a challenge for all.
Hi Garima, I never said that hiring talent was going to be easy. More than what any psychometric test tells you, there is valuable info about a person from the previous employer. A reference check tells you more than any interview or test ever will. Ask the person's boss and subordinates or peers - Voila, the truth is out. Thanks for stopping by
Excellent post , however having worked in the area of Talent Development for almost a decade now , I beleive Indian organizations have started to mature only in the last few years , and we have a long way to go to deliver robust processes and thereafter outcomes
Thanks Niladri for your comment. Evolution is still a long way off
Hi Abbey,
Your idea about Talent Acquisition reminds me of an Hindi proverb that shares the same spirit of spotting the right fit expressed as ‘Bagulon mein Hans dhundna’.
Allow me to share the other side of the story, which I find equally interesting. Talent Management to the employers is the ‘Employability’ to the employee .Just as the employers keep defining the ‘Talent Factor’, the employee re-affirms the ‘employability factor’. In addition to this, the Town Hall Awards from the existing employer or the recent offer made by a new employer provides the reality check. The final nail to the coffin is the hike coupled with the appraisal rating.
The TM Matrix guides us to spot the Stars and Loose Cannons. Gary Hamel, Harvard Business Review cites, “The Bottleneck Is at the Top of the Bottle”.” Where are you likely to find people with the least diversity of experience, the largest investment in the past, and the greatest reverence for industry dogma: At the top!”
So what are we necessarily arriving at? Are we driving home that the formula for striking that gold brings in parity. The bottleneck is by design. Hence, is our process of spinning the right fit driving away the diversity of talent? You rightly cite that the rules of the game are changing, hence the parameters to measure Potential or Talent needs to be changed, so that we can match the right fit. I agree with Niladri as he cites that the evolution is definitely on its way. In the mean time, I am sure if I take this question to a practicing TM expert, pat would be the reply, ‘Water, water every where, but not a drop to drink.’
Thanks for writing on this topic, will look forward to this process of evolution in TM.
Regards
Nabomita
Thanks Nabomita for your response. The first challenge of Talent Management is to widen the funnel from which to find the right talent. So the wider the definition of the talent the more is the choice the organization will have. So diversity is the name of the game.
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