Optimizing Talent: HR’s Key Role for Tomorrow

Diana Oreck, Executive Vice President at NetJets, once narrated a story about how a small girl was horrified to find that she had lost her tooth by the pool during her vacation at Ritz Carlton property. Dismayed, she told her parents that she lost her tooth during her vacation and expressed her concern about how the tooth fairy would know this had happened and how she would not be able to leave her a gift. Her parents consoled her saying that things would be okay soon even though they had no idea how! One day, after exploring the city, the small girl and her parents returned to the hotel. To the girl’s surprise, she found a tooth fairy standing with a bag full of Ritz Carlton-quality goodies! This story can be connected with the HR teams’ efforts to keep employees inspired and engaged and as a stellar example of granting their unexpressed wishes and retaining talent.

So the questions one needs to ask are: Are we leveraging the investment skills, experiences, collective knowledge, etc. in talent in the most productive manner? Are we driving and enabling people equity by using the ACE strategy, which is?alignment, capabilities, and engagement? “Today more than ever, it is essential that leadership maximize alignment, capabilities, and engagement,” says Paul Schultz, COO, Jack in the Box, Inc. As we are aware, human resources are among the bigger predictors of success for most organizations.

o??Alignment

Alignment refers to a clear direction, clear goals, business-aligned measures, performance feedback and coaching and accountability and rewards. This provides growing value to organizations.

o??Capabilities

How do you develop capabilities that are aligned to what the customer needs? You need to take into account factors like person-role fit, customer-driven, teamwork, resources, innovation and right information and technology.

o??Engagement

To drive engagement, you should keep in mind employee advocacy, commitment, and satisfies.?Employee support is to empower employees to advocate on behalf of your brand; this can inspire and increase loyalty within an organization.?This can make employees committed to the team, and even enhance their satisfaction.

One should also keep in mind the fact that a “one-size-fits-all” approach is a relic in organizations when it comes to optimizing talent. Organizations should consider conducting increased and regular workforce surveys to gauge the pulse of employees and introduce strategies like transparency, more efficient onboarding, and smarter career development opportunities. Organizations and leadership should consider it as their pivotal role to create a community around shared values, norms and purpose to drive organizational capabilities for innovation. Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group aptly says, “Reinvent the way people live and work to become a force for good.”