Talent, Time and Place

This year, how are you going to fill the bill for your organization to provide  innovative products and services, high performing work teams and higher profitability? Today, market demands are changing at a head-spinning rate. This requires your organization to have greater flexibility. Stakeholders are looking for greater ROI, the need for talent with specialized skills and employees who want meaningful work are examples of other changes affecting businesses. Is your organization keeping pace? Are the right people in the right positions to meet the needs of conducting, leading and implementing the strategic changes needed to beat the competition?

The Right Place at the Right Time

Organizations need to have the right talent in the right place at the right time in order to make the right strategic changes necessary for positive results.

Is your sales staff assertive, yet are they individuals who take the time to understand your customers’ buying style? Are they bottom line oriented, customer focused and accurate when it comes to paper work? Thinking ahead in terms of succession planning, do these same individuals have a desire for continuous learning? Do they have good leadership abilities? Do they possess futuristic thinking and good decision-making skills? This is the right time to have such individuals on your team.. Do such individuals exist? Indeed they do. However, it takes scientific hiring tools to help ferret out such individuals from the masses available in today’s flooded talent market.

Analyzing every position for a good match is a good idea. Clearly if you have a CFO who is overly assertive and aggressive, who doesn’t care about accuracy, who is not bottom line oriented and who has low personal accountability, you may need to rethink this individual’s place in your business.

Leadership is not being “buds” with one’s staff. Leadership is not being afraid of enforcing rules, regulations, policies and procedures. Leaders do not lack a vision for the future. A good leader does not ignore the bottom line. Unfortunately, just such individuals are leading a number of organizations. Is your company one of these? This is indeed the right time to have the people with the right talent in the right place. The organization’s commitment to those with the right talent is just as important.

 Putting Your Money Where Your Staff Is

Many organizations keep talent on the payroll even after they lose their productivity. This has nothing to do with age, but everything to do with staying on the cutting edge of technology, customer demands and being in alignment with organizational strategies. Still other organizations don’t take the time during the hiring process to ensure that talent is the right match for the job.  Other organizations fail to invest in their human capital.

New studies illustrate that motivation from the organization is a key factor in high performing service teams. One study argues, “the potential value of human capital can be fully realized only with the cooperation of the person” (Jackson & Schuler, 1995, p. 241). How can human capital be motivated by or committed to an organization that does not invest in them? Investing in human capital is investing in productivity along with future profits. A study by Lepak and Hong (2009) suggest that when an organization invests in its human capital in the form of training, development, rewards, promotions and salary increases, the employees are then motivated to reciprocate by providing productivity, commitment and better customer service. A basic rule of business is maintaining long-term customers. These highly valued customers take less time to service, do not jump ship at the first sign of a price increase and they spread the word to friends and family thereby generating new business at no cost to the organization.

 Summary

Keeping pace with market demands, hiring the right talent and valuing employees are strategies that will bring customer loyalty, employee commitment and increased profits.

References
Jackson, S.E. & Schuler, R.S. (1995). Understanding human resource management in the context of organizations and their environments.
Kepak, D.P. & Hong, Y. (2009) Do they see eye to eye? Management and employee perspectives of high-performance work systems and influence processes on service quality