Talent Management Strategies: Hire, Retain, and Upskill

A company starts with an idea but grows with talent. As a result, talent management strategies are the foundation upon which several established organizations operate. Human resource professionals face numerous challenges in developing and implementing talent management strategies in the face of constant changes in market conditions, expectations, and unforeseeable events such as the pandemic.

How do you recognize or create an effective talent management strategy? Mr. Ranjan Phadke , Vice President and Global HR Head at Healthcare - EXL dives deep into the subject and shares his wisdom in episode 14 of the #HumansOfHiring series. 

Here are some of the highlights from the webinar.

Q.1) What exactly is a talent management strategy?

Talent management strategies are a broad subject. After the pandemic, the situation has changed drastically as the workforce is now fairly distributed. Strategies would usually be defined by knowing that the people are within a space. Numerous things in terms of strategy are defined on that basis. 

Let's say a strategy is to be designed around catchment areas of hiring. You would simply design them according to where your office is. If you are based out of Bangalore, you would have an office and a recruitment center in Bangalore. You would pull in people that larger organizations always tried to pull in from across the country. 

Medium and small organizations would always prefer to be centered in such locations. Regardless of whether a person is from there or not, they would end up shifting. Even if you hire from elsewhere, the person would be based where your office is. Your recruitment strategy would be around where you are. You would try to also set up offices where you feel that there is a larger catchment area of talent or a larger pool of talent. 

Today all of that has changed significantly. If you think of talent strategy - how we hire people, how we retain individuals, how we help them grow in an organization, how we make them successful, and in turn, how they help make the organization successful, an effective talent strategy involves all of those aspects.

Q.2) How extensive does an organization strategy have to be and what should it ideally cover? 

Multiple elements go through designing a talent strategy. You have to design strategies around attracting talent, retaining them, and making them successful. Ensuring personal skill development and aligning employee aspirations with that of the organization is necessary. 

Strategies are always dependent on your organization. Large organizations need comprehensive strategies where certain aspects of it are standard while some are dynamic. Post-pandemic, organizations are much better equipped to hire. There are very few organizations that hire in person. What used to be in-person interviews are now executed digitally and virtually. The whole recruitment engine is the strategy that organizations are defining and refining. 

The answer to the question “Where do you hire from?” has also changed. We can now hire from anywhere and people can work from anywhere. This aspect of strategy has also changed and that has increased the pool through which organizations can attract talent and acquire talent. The choices for the individual and themselves have increased because of the same.

Q.3) Is it difficult to execute upskilling programs in the face of the pandemic and work from home, or can we rely on employees to complete their upskilling programs?

As people started being distributed, the first thing that shifted was trust. The entire industry has witnessed a shift in its philosophy of how work is done. The IT industry was rarely comfortable working outside the office for two major reasons - compliance and data security. 

Over the last two to three years, almost everyone has worked from home, while ensuring that data security and compliance requirements are met. We now trust our people a lot more to do the right thing. The trust between the organization and the relationship between managers and their teams has increased and we not only trust them to do the right thing, but we also trust them to deliver from wherever they are and they don't need constant monitoring. One portion of the manager role which was having in-person supervision has vanished because we would now expect everyone to be the judge of their time and their effort and what they need to deliver and what people are delivering.

Speaker - Mr. Ranjan Phadke , Vice President & Global HR Head - Healthcare, EXL