Talent Management

Starting a talent management company can have its troubles… for instance, while you’re starting out you have yet to have made a name for yourself of any important repute, so you’ve got no good name yet to fall back on when you might make the slightest mistake or fall short of any potential client’s high expectations of achieving the stardom they feel the world owes them. If such a client becomes lightly disappointed in your services, word of this will be spread around from typed messages on their and their friends’ cell phones until it has spread like wildfire. In this way, your reputation could be doomed before you’ve had a chance to make a good one for yourself.

You’ll need to find out where all of the pitfalls are before you begin starting a talent management company, and that only can come from years of being in this field beforehand. So how can you possibly have a chance if you’re only beginning to start out in this line of work? This is one of the biggest paradoxical situations to overcome in this industry, and the best way to work around this little puzzle is to seek mentoring from someone who has learned and known all of the ropes for many years.

The masters to seek out here when starting a talent management company are those who have had many years, perhaps decades of this work under their belts and have after retirement decided to take on the task of guiding and tutoring others who are just starting out in this part of the entertainment industry. Read the rest of this entry »

Companies with high employee turnover rates are losing valuable resources in addition to money. It costs a good bit of money to advertise to fill positions; interview potential employees; and train new employees. This can be particularly expensive if the high turnover rate is for middle or high level positions. Many companies and organizations are embracing HR talent management programs that evaluate the issues of employee retention.

There are some simple steps that companies can take to help retain the employees they have. Employee retention is also an attractive quality to new prospects looking for positions. Here are a few tips and scenarios that could help keep employees happy, productive and working:

* Offer employees performance based bonuses. It’s been found that employees view bonuses more favorably than they do raises. It gives employees extra incentive to work for something tangible.
* Provide employees with good bosses and mentors. In an article published in Forbes – 85% of bosses thought that employees that left the company was due to wanting more money; but in the exit interviews 80% of the employees stated that they left for reasons due to poor management or dysfunctional company culture.
* Set up goals and expectations. The main reason why new employees – from all levels – often fail within the first six months of being hired is – they have not been told what is expected of them.
* Challenge employees. Boredom can send employees running for the door. Giving employee’s work that is challenging also shows them that they are a valued part of the company.
* Showing sincere interest in the well-being of the employees. Senior management should be involved with the employees. Attention should be paid to the individual needs of the employees.
* Employee career development. If an employee feels that he or she can work toward their career goals within the company they are more likely to remain part of the company. Read the rest of this entry »

When three leading magazines (Harvard Business Review, Business Week, and Training & Development) all have cover stories about talent management the same month, it is safe to say you are looking at a hot topic.

Talent management (the recruiting, training, and retaining of good workers) has had many names over the years, but it is certainly not new. While the topic is not new, how we think about it has evolved over time.

As early as the late 19th century, business organizations turned to universities for help developing their employees. In 1881, Joseph Wharton (co-founder of Bethlehem Steel) persuaded the University of Pennsylvania to create an undergraduate business education program. Soon after, Dartmouth and Harvard followed Wharton’s lead.

In the mid-twentieth century, universities shifted their focus from factory workers to executives. As the importance of manual labor declined, universities abandoned the “hard issues” for the theoretical.

As university programs became more irrelevant, business organizations responded with corporate universities (CUs). CUs (beginning with GE’s in Crotonville, NY) offered company-specific training that was relevant to their companies’ real-world practice.

Training of managers and executives outside of the university setting has become quite sophisticated. In addition to executive MBA programs, both executive coaching and action learning are now widely available. Executive coaching offers one-on-one guidance on many of the emotional intelligence or “soft” skills. Action learning is designed to allow managers and executives to work on real problems and to learn simultaneously.

So what’s the problem Mike? If organizational learning has become more sophisticated, aren’t companies more profitable? Not necessarily. These sophisticated training programs are expensive. Do we know the ROI (return on investment) for these massive investments of time and money?

Also, many companies neglect the fact that training is only part of effective talent management. Talent management also includes recruiting and retention. Read the rest of this entry »