The Value Of Talent Case Study

Book Outline
'The Value of Talent' by Janice Caplan explores a new strategic and inclusive approach to talent management which gives a competitive advantage to the organisations in this dynamic and unpredictable business world. The author sets out different strategies and ways to leverage the capabilities of the individuals for current as well as the future needs of the organisation. The author explores various facets of talent management and provides guidance for developing talent strategies for an organization. The Integrated talent management framework suggested by the author has four components: Assess, Develop, Deploy and Engage. The author also links various functionalities within HR like recruitment, learning and development, performance
The nuances of this changing business scenario and its effect on talent management have been beautifully captured by the author who builds a solid business case to highlight the need of effective talent management in organizations. Author terms this as 'knowledge revolution', where not just the change but also the speed of change is crucial. Organizations should be flexible enough to change themselves with changing circumstances. This requires restructuring of the hierarchies and redesigning of policies to empower the employees to learn quickly and respond to the current organizational demands effectively. HBR case study on HUL depicts how the organization brought about changes in existing organization methods to reclaim its title of 'Employer of Choice'. We can also see this through the lens of the Knowledge workers, who are indispensible for an organization. In today's world where employee mobility is high, organizations have to provide the employees with challenging assignments and also provide suitable resources for accomplishing the assignments as well as self- development. Flatter organization supplements this to a large
So, the author brings employee engagement into picture. According to her, employee engagement and talent management have many factors in common. We agree with this as top organizations have very high engagement scores. Author focuses mainly on the role of leadership, career and training and development in creating engagement. We would like to present some other perspectives to this. In the article 'Fostering Employee Involvement and Engagement through Compensation and Benefits' in 'Talent Management Handbook', Ledford argues that engagement can be achieved by 'Employee Involvement' which can be in the form of suggestion, job or high level involvement. High Involvement, which includes power sharing, knowledge sharing, skill building and rewards is required of the knowledge workers. Suggestion Involvement, in our opinion, can be implemented at all levels and job involvement is important for high performers with low potential (Performance vs Potential matrix). According to Harvard Business Review, the employee engagement can be mapped into a matrix of perceptions, i.e. how people perceive their jobs and how people behave at work. The perceptions of the employees were gauged on various factors like culture, advancement, job function, management, total rewards and company leadership. Author also emphasizes the importance of shared values in the achieving engagement. According to