For some years now it has become commonplace to refer to the labor resource of companies as Human Talent. It is one of the innovations of the administration with greater transcendence and of better reception in the last five years, since it is not only a semantic differentiation, but it is a new perception that does more justice to this important business resource.
In the twilight of the last century, the labor markets of developed countries were over-demanded markets for talents, which is why excellent resources were very valuable and scarce, and a company was considered to generate competitive advantages when creating attractiveness to the company in the search for its executives, made a correct selection of them, and developed loyalty of those incorporated into it. "You had to find, hire and retain the good guys." In recent years, that over-demand has been reversing.
And in our developing economies, the labor market situation, characterized by an oversupply of talents, generated not only less attention to this interesting and profitable postulate, but also, the appearance of new economic crises, generated a profitable practice in the short term, but catastrophic in the medium and long term: adjustments Organizational strategies focused on reducing costs and expenses, which in terms of human resources translated into leaving the "expensive" and linking the "cheap". A gross mistake, since deep down, minimal benefits were obtained in the short term, but the experience and talent of those who had developed the companies for years were lost. And this, in the medium term, has a significant, non-recoverable cost, which is none other than the development of experience curves, necessary to make companies more competitive.
Likewise, many processes of change, reengineering, and resizing, that did not adequately focus on human talent, or that simply looked at the short-term economic and financial result, ended up in indiscriminate processes of downsizing.
Now, how much of the executives' attention is directed to talent management? In the current companies, the main, and sometimes only, concern is the creation of value, which has representativeness in the financial results: Cash Flow, Profits and Losses, and better share value in the market. Management dynamics and shareholder demands, within economies as vulnerable as today, demand this type of results from their executives. But the medium and long-term perspective has been diluted, terms within which, the generation of value depends largely on human talent and their ability and experience, towards the management of different types of environments, and especially situations crisis. Some top-level executives will also argue,that people are so variable, unpredictable, permanently dissatisfied, that many of them prefer to deal with problems of money, machines, marketing, etc., than with the problems of personnel management, human talent management. Or that of "for now there are other priorities." Valid arguments, but worrisome from the proposed perspective.
Experience has shown that you can never implement a new strategy, or make a real change, until you get people, that difficult component, to change. Only when people are made to want, and talent is committed to change, can a new strategy be developed, and a new goal achieved. And as strategies, plans, programs and goals are aimed at customer satisfaction (external and / or internal), increasing the creation of long-term value, the successful non-short-term executive must take into account:
- Identify and unify (align) the interests and objectives of clients with those of shareholders, managers, executives and other elements of human business talent. Improve clearly and significantly in business communication schemes. Everyone must know where we are, where we are going, what is being done to reach the proposed goal (s), how each can commit and contribute to the expected achievements, and what benefit each will receive in obtaining the achievement (joint and / or or individual) proposed.
Entrepreneur friend: I invite you to reflect on the proposed strategic approach, as a starting point for a healthy, adequate, dynamic, and profitable administration of human talent. And remember these four basic concepts:
People alignment and strategies.
Individual and group commitment.
Achievement measurement.
Recognition of value-creating results.
The change is not of the people but with the people.
