Tuesday, March 13, 2007

The Talent Trap Quandary

Tagging Talent Trap--The Cost of Development by Niladri Roy,
I have to say the following
I somehow think that the only way to manage and develop Talent in any industry, especially the knowledge based ones, is to improve their employability.I will always look for 'what's in it for me' if I have to decide whether am growing or not.Monetary incentive as we all know is a base motive added is the wage bill burden, so it is a loss-loss proposition for both the sides.

Organisations in the knowledge economy (read especially KPOs) space might look at the following options:
i)Develop opportunities for learning on the job (both role related as well as e-learning) so that man-hours (maybe billable for such organisations) are not eaten up.
ii)Look at introducing sponsored higher studies (most old economy and services companies already do this one)
iii)Develop systems and cost structures keeping in mind high attrition figures. There will be a constant churn of people leaving to pursue higher studies while freshers arrive to take their place.This one is not directly related to Roy's talent trap point of view. However it has implications on the ability of companies to support talent management programs
iv)Look at introducing re-employment opportunities once people come back with higher qualification.
For all these programs, serious consideration needs to go in while selecting nominees.

At the end of it, we must appreciate that India is a destination for knowledge process outsourcing given the overhead cost advantages. [atleast under-graduates hope to land themselves plum jobs which was unthinkable even half a decade back.] If we cannot service that, then it will anyway not serve the economy as long as we do not move up the value chain in outsourcing. Some behemoths like GM,GE,DuPont have started outsourcing high-end research but given our infrastructure we have a long way to go. it is easier for them to suck specialised talent to their age old research centres.

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