Functional Expertise Talent Management and Benchmarking

Benchmarking

Discuss the importance of aligning human resource processes with business strategy.

HR strategy has to align with business strategy in order to enable the growth of a business. This in turn allows employee performance to improve, lowering the overall cost of doing business. When employee performance is decreased, this may cost the organization more in turnover, absenteeism, and other expenses associated with dissatisfaction or inefficient operations. HR strategy is not just about employee satisfaction however; it is also about aligning employee goals with organizational goals so the employees can feel they are supporting the organization as much as the organization supports them. Aligning HR strategy and business strategy is a complex process that involves communication, collaboration and planning. One of the ways of doing this is by benchmarking, surveying and assessing employee needs, organizational needs, and the needs of the customers, internal and external, that the organization services. Measuring past performance with present performance, and assessing potential future performance can also provide an indication of how well the company may do if changes are implemented.

Discuss how the firm used benchmarking to determine the performance standards for leadership, client-facing and specialty/support functions.

Benchmarking allows a company to compare their practices to other business practices in the industry to determine the best course of action to follow (Boxwell 1994). In this case the company can determine the best performance standards for leadership, client-facing and specialty support functions. With regard to client-facing, the CTO used the result profile as a reference document "driving individual performance planning and review discussions." A goal setting approach was selected so individual role specificity could be provided to enable general performance standards by level (p. 237). This resulted in differentiation of job categories within each leadership level including managing of self or individual contributor level for administrative support positions for example, and the management of others level for supervisors.

In this case, the company also administered a biannual staff climate survey measuring operating culture among thirteen dimensions including categories like "teamwork, organizational culture, strategic planning, leadership, and long-term focus." These measures helped management outline important metrics for assessing the effectiveness of the company at the point of new strategic development and the effectiveness of the human resources management team at the point where strategic interventions were about to be developed. The chief officers of the company can use this information to plan and then go back and see how effective new strategies are when implemented at a later date.

Identify and explain three objectives of the talent management system including one from each category of operations, customer, and financial objectives.

Talent management is typically aimed at enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of individual and organizational performance. This means talent management must align with organizational and individual goals. Thus, a talent manager should be effective at communicating organizational goals with employees so they can streamline processes.

Three objectives of the talent management system included: (1) align with leadership pipeline principles at the level of operations (2) to clarify and prioritize job expectations and structure development discussions on a "more specific, quantifiable work requirements basis for different job levels from a customer-based approach, which differed from the competency based approach; this also embraced the prominent objective of serving and growing clients and cultivating new client prospects which was a prominent part of the operating vocabulary and (3) in the process of streamlining the system and making the performance review available online, improving morale and loyalty, a key engagement measure which will improve the bottom line and improve performance improving the financial results of the company (pp.239-240).

Work is distributed in a vertical manner so that communication and coordination have to occur at all levels of the enterprise; the hierarchical method of business operations is much less emphasized so everyone clearly understands their role. Leadership and management are just as accountable as customers so that specific and measurable objectives can be made clear to employees, so "down-to-earth" and applicable objectives can be made and determined by all.

Discuss how the company would measure each objective.

It is difficult to measure results but results were measured primarily by survey and improvement in Morale and Loyalty which were key engagement measures, Quality "that includes performance communication and management practice," and leadership (p.240). Turnover results were also measured as decreasing standing at almost 0% in the year following the changes. The CTO also tested the formats in several large offices providing pilot testing which enables the introduction of feedback regarding changes to "process instructions and online support content" (p. 239) Managers were given a choice to use the old format or the new one. After the first and second performance cycles of use, the CTO also allowed for complete feedback from managers, staff and the human resource departments so changes could be made in the process to ensure the system was working as optimally as possible for all people involved in the performance management process.

Discuss how the changes made to Porter Novelli's talent management system impact organizational performance.

Organizational performance can be impacted in many ways. Rogers (1998) and Rowe, Morrow, & Finch (1995) note that often the focus of attention on the performance construct "has been almost entirely on financial measure of performance. Organizational performance can be impacted both negatively and positively. Most organizations go through changes when organizational performance needs enhancement. One method of improving performance is by changing the review and evaluation system an organization uses to rate employee performance and reward employee performance.

Typically organizational performance is viewed as value created by the firm compared with the value the owners expect from the firm (Rogers 1998). Organizational performance can be affected from turnover, something addressed in this research, job satisfaction, which is also something affected from performance, and items including quality, service, productivity, and financial accounting outcomes (Rogers, 1998).