Is your talent strategy a unique competitive advantage? As competition for top talent increases, companies must recognize that decisions about talent and its organization can have a significant strategic impact. Beyond HR shows how organizations can uncover distinctive talent contributions, strategically differentiate their HR practices and metrics, and more optimally allocate talent to create value. Illustrations from companies such as Disney, Boeing, and Corning describe a new decision science called Talentship, that reveals opportunities by identifying strategy pivot points and the optimal talent and organization decisions that address them. A unique framework helps readers identify their own distinctive strategic pivot points and connect them to talent decisions, showing how today's "HR" can evolve to fulfill its potential as a source of strategic advantage.
As Featured in the "September Book Summaries" Newsletter
How concerned would you be if your competitor had a copy of your HR strategy? Most organizations wouldn’t worry. Many an HR strategy is copied from other firms or based on popular “best practices” that might or might not truly apply.
But authors John W. Boudreau and Peter M. Ramstad say organizations need distinctive HR strategies that identify the talent that’s essential for their business. Organizations need to “improve decisions about the talents of people” and make better investments in those talents. Boudreau and Ramstad call this improved, strategic decision-making “talentship” and say that it can help organizations be better stewards of their employee resources.
Beyond HR focuses on “pivotal talent,” the talent without which an employer can’t function. For retailers, buyers may be pivotal. For an air freight company, lawyers who negotiate airport takeoff rights may be pivotal, Boudreau and Ramstad note. Their book demonstrates how to figure out where the pivotal talent is within your organization, then how to invest in that talent.
Ideas include:
--Using a detailed framework for making decisions about talent. Learn how to ask seven key questions that can yield ideas on how to compete for talent. These questions cover the characteristics employees must have; the programs and actions it’s essential to implement; the resources you must have and how to allocate them; and more. Use the framework to identify your organization’s pivotal positions.
--Learning to analyze your firm’s business strategy to find what it means for talent. A case study delves into how two large aircraft manufacturers made strategy, resource and talent choices as they competed to produce new commercial planes.
--Translating strategy into management systems and the quality of employees. Look at where the organization can be more effective, how management systems need to align, and where you need more or better employees.
--Linking policies and practices, including HR practices, with decision-making about talent. Examples are drawn from employers as varied as Disney, Corning Inc., and Boeing.
Reprinted from the "Books in Brief" column of the September 2007 issue of HR Magazine.
