Introduction to Talent Management

In today‘s challenging business environment of going global and competition becoming intense, organizations have mounting pressure to perform better than before. Over the years, creation and preservation of knowledge has become a key tool in accelerating competitiveness and enhancing organizational capabilities to respond to market changes wherein employees‘skills and personalities are appropriately deployed to optimize performance, is a critical and difficult task. Furthermore, identifying and developing executives who have leadership potential, like every other vital strategic function, is a demanding process that is equal parts of Arts and Science.

Not only Software and BPO Companies, no organization can rest in peace under the assumption that once they have recruited the employee in place, their job is done. The real challenge that is faced by these industries is not hiring the right person for the right job, neither their Performance Management System, nor their Work Climate nor Culture, but in retaining the employee. It is proven beyond argument that it is the people who make or break the organization. Managing the talent of key employees is critical to achieve the success in long-term by any organization. Talent management involves individual and organizational development in response to a changing and complex operating environment. It includes the creation and

Talent in general terms refers to the capabilities, skills or the art, a person possess in a particular field. It also refers to those people who have high potential, scarce knowledge and skill or who can successfully bring about transformation and change in the organization. Such individuals are usually sought after in the market and their contributions to the business add direct value to its strategic or competitive positioning. Coming to the word Talent Management in an Organisation, it refers to those special steps an organization adopts to recruit, develop and retain its pool of top talent. Talent Management also denotes a deliberate approach taken up by an organization to attract, develop and retain people with the aptitude and abilities to meet not only the current requirements but also future organizational needs. In today’s talent-hungry market scenario, one of the greatest challenges that organizations are facing is to successfully attract, assess, train and retain talented employees. Talent Management encompasses in itself the entire process of Planning, Recruiting, Developing, Managing, and Compensating employees throughout the organization.

Organizations have realized the need for talent management and are now focusing to develop and retain the existing talent in their organization rather than trying to acquire a new talent because the cost of identifying, developing and retaining the talent internally is more cost effective instead of replacing the talent which is lost from external market. Though it may appear initially that in the process of retaining talent, we are spending more in terms of increased wages, rewards and recognition, when we practically analyze, the cost of acquiring a new talent is higher. Apart from higher cost of acquiring the new talent it has to additionally face the initial hiccups of this new employee getting along with the organisational goals and strategies. Every business unit is making sure that they can respond and withstand the challenges of talent crisis by developing an effective talent management strategy like identifying the key talented people in the organization, cultivating anddeveloping the skill of their present workforce and retaining highly talented employees by protecting them from competitors

History
Talent management is a term that emerged in the 1990s to incorporate developments in Human Resources Management which placed more of an emphasis on the management of human resources or talent. The term was coined by David Watkins of Softscape published in an article in 1998, and further defined in the book “Talent Management Systems” in 2004 ” however the connection between human resource development and organizational effectiveness has been established since the 1970s. Talent management is part of the Evolution of Talent Measurement Technologies. The issue with many companies today is that their organizations put tremendous effort into attracting employees to their company, but spend little time into retaining and developing talent.

A talent management system must be worked into the business strategy and implemented in daily processes throughout the company as a whole. It cannot be left solely to the human resources department to attract and retain employees, but rather must be practiced at all levels of the organization. The business strategy must include responsibilities for line managers to develop the skills of their immediate subordinates. Divisions within the company should be openly sharing information with other departments in order for employees to gain knowledge of the overall organizational objectives.[7] Companies that focus on developing their talent integrate plans and processes to track and manage their employee talent, including the following: Sourcing, attracting, recruiting and on boarding qualified candidates with competitive backgrounds Managing and defining competitive salaries

Training and development opportunities
Performance management processes
Retention programs
Promotion and transitioning
The talent management strategy may be supported by technology such as HRIS (HR Information Systems) or HRMS (HR Management Systems). Modern techniques also use Competency-based management methodologies to capture and utilize competencies appropriate to strategically drive an organization’s long term plans. Talent Management: Concept

Wide variations exist in how the term ‘talent’ is defined across differing sectors, and organisations may prefer to adopt their own interpretations rather than accepting universal or prescribed definitions. That said, it is helpful to start with a broad definition and, from our research, we have developed a working definition for both ‘talent’ and ‘talent management’: •Talent consists of those individuals who can make a difference to organisational performance either through their immediate contribution or, in the longer-term, by demonstrating the highest levels of potential. •Talent management is the systematic attraction, identification, development, engagement, retention and deployment of those individuals who are of particular value to an organisation, either in view of their ‘high potential’ for the future or because they are fulfilling business/operation-critical roles. These interpretations underline the importance of recognising that it is not sufficient simply to attract individuals with high potential.

Developing, managing and retaining those individuals as part of a planned strategy for talent is equally important, as well as adopting systems to measure the return on this investment. More organisations are also now broadening their definitions, looking at the ‘talents’ of all their staff and working on ways to develop their strengths (see ‘inclusive versus exclusive approaches’ below). At its broadest, then, the term ‘talent’ may be used to encompass the entire workforce of an organisation. Talent is everywhere; the difficulty today lies in identifying the right kind. Talent is a complex chemistry that combines personal history, a great capacity for analysis and contextualization, the ability to listen, respect for others and a perfect knowledge of one’s profession, practices and changes. Previously, talent was easily identifiable. Now we have to find it with tools such as annual reviews, the 360 °, assessment centers, social networks, work groups and all the Web 2.0 tools. However, according to the survey of BCG, 60% of companies have no experience on the subject.

This is a new challenge that lies before us in the training and skills management business to help companies with the identification process. They can benefit from benchmarking done with the help of our knowledge on this topic. Talent management as part of skills management has become a key element for business performance. It is a source of individual recognition, which is a key factor for internal mobility and generates change for innovation. Identifying talent is finding the people that will transform business knowledge by sharing it around them and transforming it into tools, goods or services that can create future wealth for the company. Talent management refers to the anticipation of required human capital the organization needs at the time then setting a plan to meet those needs. Talent management in this context does not refer to the management of entertainers. Companies engaging in a talent management strategy shift the responsibility of employees from the human resources department to all managers throughout the organization.

The process of attracting and retaining profitable employees, as it is increasingly more competitive between firms and of strategic importance, has come to be known as “the war for talent.” Talent management is also known as HCM (Human Capital Management). The term “talent management” means different things to different organizations. To some it is about the management of high-worth individuals or “the talented” whilst to others it is about how talent is managed generally – i.e. on the assumption that all people have talent which should be identified and liberated. Talent Management in organisations is not just limited to attracting the best people from the industry but it is a continuous process that involves sourcing, hiring, developing, retaining and promoting them while meeting the organisations requirements simultaneously. For instance, if an organisation wants the best talent of its competitor to work with it, it needs to attract that person and offer him something that is far beyond his imagination to come and join and then stick to the organisation. Only hiring him does not solve the purpose but getting the things done from him is the main task.

Therefore, it can be said that talent management is a fully fledged process that not only controls an entry of an employ but also his or her exit. To achieve success in business, the most important thing is to recognize the talent that can accompany one in achieving his goal. Attracting them to work for and strategically fitting them at a right place in the organisation is the next step. It is to be remembered that placing a candidate at a wrong place can multiply the problems regardless of the qualifications, skills, abilities and competence of that person. How brilliant he or she may be, but placing them at a wrong place defeats the whole purpose.

The process of talent management is incomplete if you are unable to fit the best talent of the industry at the place where he or she should be. Some organizations may find the whole process very unethical especially who are at the giving end (who loses their high-worth employee). But in this cut-throat competition where survival is a big question mark, the whole concept sounds fair. Every organization requires the best talent to survive and remain ahead in competition. Talent is the most important factor that drives an organization and takes it to a higher level, and therefore, cannot be compromised at all. It won’t be exaggerating saying talent management as a never-ending war for talent!

Talent Management: Process and Importance
Process
People are, undoubtedly the best resources of an organization. Sourcing the best people from the industry has become the top most priority of the organizations today. In such a competitive scenario, talent management has become the key strategy to identify and filling the skill gap in a company by recruiting the high-worth individuals from the industry. It is a never-ending process that starts from targeting people. The process regulates the entry and exit of talented people in an organization. To sustain and stay ahead in business, talent management cannot be ignored. In order to understand the concept better, let us discuss the stages included in talent management process: ● Understanding the Requirement: It is the preparatory stage and plays a crucial role in success of the whole process. The main objective is to determine the requirement of talent. The main activities of this stage are developing job description and job specifications. ●Sourcing the Talent: This is the second stage of talent management process that involves targeting the best talent of the industry. Searching for people according to the requirement is the main activity.

●Attracting the Talent: it is important to attract the talented people to work with you as the whole process revolves around this only. After all the main aim of talent management process is to hire the best people from the industry. ●Recruiting the Talent: The actual process of hiring starts from here. This is the stage when people are invited to join the organization. ●Selecting the Talent: This involves meeting with different people having same or different qualifications and skill sets as mentioned in job description. Candidates who qualify this round are invited to join the organization. ●Training and Development: After recruiting the best people, they are trained and developed to get the desired output. ●Retention: Certainly, it is the sole purpose of talent management process. Hiring them does not serve the purpose completely. Retention depends on various factors such as pay package, job specification, challenges involved in a job, designation, personal development of an employee, recognition, culture and the fit between job and talent.

●Promotion: No one can work in an organization at the same designation with same job responsibilities. Job enrichment plays an important role. ●Competency Mapping: Assessing employees’ skills, development, ability and competency is the next step. If required, also focus on behaviour, attitude, knowledge and future possibilities of improvement. It gives you a brief idea if the person is fir for promoting further. ●Performance Appraisal: Measuring the actual performance of an employee is necessary to identify his or her true potential. It is to check whether the person can be loaded with extra responsibilities or not.

●Career Planning: If the individual can handle the work pressure and extra responsibilities well, the management needs to plan his or her career so that he or she feels rewarded. It is good to recognize their efforts to retain them for a longer period of time. ●Succession Planning: Succession planning is all about who will replace whom in near future. The employee who has given his best to the organization and has been serving it for a very long time definitely deserves to hold the top position. Management needs to plan about when and how succession will take place. ●Exit: The process ends when an individual gets retired or is no more a part of the organization. Talent Management process is very complex and is therefore, very difficult to handle. The sole purpose of the whole process is to place the right person at the right place at the right time. The main issue of concern is to establish a right fit between the job and the individual.

Importance
Talent Management is on HR professionals‘minds these days, as HR works to obtain, retain and develop manpower. For talent management to be effective, what is important is to hire employees who seem to be the best fit in the organization. Organizations are taking steps to manage talent most effectively and also to develop their own employer brand. These brands simplify decision-making and communicate the value they create for their customers. Likewise, employees also identify themselves with certain organizations especially in the light of forecasted labour shortage. Organizations that formally decide to “manage their talent” undertake a strategic analysis of their current HR processes. This is to ensure that a co-ordinated, performance oriented approach is adopted. Quite often, of late organizations are adopting a Talent Management approach and are focusing on co-coordinating and integrating various aspects, such as:

Recruitment, Retention, Employee development, Leadership and “high potential employee” development, Performance management, Workforce planning and Culture. The Researcher found from the present study that, there is a tremendous change in human resources in the past decades. The reasons behind are the changes in technology and global economic environment. Even though organizations are aware of the need for human talent they were neglecting it all these years without giving comprehensive outlook. The novel Economy is a different place from the aged one and requires a shift in value systems to become accustomed. To deal with this changing world the present age bracket needs to be aware of its contributions, developments and ability to manage both the present and Talent management is gaining increased attention. Talent management (TM) brings together a number of important human resources (HR) and management initiatives.

Organisations that formally decide to “manage their talent” undertake a strategic analysis of their current HR processes. This is to ensure that a co-ordinated, performance oriented approach is adopted.

Quite often, organisations adopting a TM approach will focus on co-ordinating and integrating: •Recruitment – ensuring the right people are attracted to the organisation. •Retention – developing and implementing practices that reward and support employees. •Employee development – ensuring continuous informal and formal learning and development. •Leadership and “high potential employee” development – specific development programs for existing and future leaders. •Performance management – specific processes that nurture and support performance, including feedback/measurement.

•Workforce planning – planning for business and general changes, including the older workforce and current/future skills shortages. •Culture – development of a positive, progressive and high performance “way of operating”. An important step is to identify the staff or employees (people and positions) that are critical to the organisation. They do not necessarily have to be senior staff members. Many organisations lost a lot of “organisational knowledge” in the downsizing exercises of a few years ago. The impact of the loss was not immediately apparent. However, it did not take long for many companies to realise their mistake when they did not have people with the knowledge and skills to either anticipate or solve problems that arose.

The current discussions about skill shortages and the ageing population are also helping organisations to focus on the talent management issue. It may not be possible to simply go out and recruit new people to meet operational needs. Many leading companies have decided to develop their own people, rather than trying to hire fully skilled workers.

Talent Management: Benefits and Financial Benefits
Benefits of Talent Management
Talent management can be a discipline as big as the HR function itself or a small bunch of initiatives aimed at people and organization development. Different organizations utilize talent management for their benefits. This is as per the size of the organization and their belief in the practice. It could just include a simple interview of all employees conducted yearly, discussing their strengths and developmental needs. This could be utilized for mapping people against the future initiatives of the company and for succession planning. There are more benefits that are wide ranged than the ones discussed above. The benefits are: ●Right Person in the right Job: Through a proper ascertainment of people skills and strengths, people decisions gain a strategic agenda. The skill or competency mapping allows you to take stock of skill inventories lying with the organization. This is especially important both from the perspective of the organization as well as the employee because the right person is deployed in the right position and employee productivity is increased. Also since there is a better alignment between an individual’s interests and his job profile the job satisfaction is increased.

●Retaining the top talent: Despite changes in the global economy, attrition remains a major concern of organizations. Retaining top talent is important to leadership and growth in the marketplace. Organisations that fail to retain their top talent are at the risk of losing out to competitors. The focus is now on charting employee retention programs and strategies to recruit, develop, retain and engage quality people. Employee growth in a career has to be taken care of, while succession planning is being performed those who are on the radar need to be kept in loop so that they know their performance is being rewarded. ●Better Hiring: The quality of an organization is the quality of workforce it possesses. The best way to have talent at the top is have talent at the bottom. No wonder then talent management programs and trainings, hiring assessments have become an integral aspect of HR processes nowadays. ●Understanding Employees Better: Employee assessments give deep insights to the management about their employees.

Their development needs, career aspirations, strengths and weaknesses, abilities, likes and dislikes. It is easier therefore to determine what motivates whom and this helps a lot Job enrichment process. ●Better professional development decisions: When an organization gets to know who its high potential is, it becomes easier to invest in their professional development. Since development calls for investment decisions towards learning, training and development of the individual either for growth, succession planning, performance management etc, an organization remains bothered where to make this investment and talent management just make this easier for them. Apart from this having a strong talent management culture also determines how organization rate their organizations as work places. In addition if employees are positive about the talent management practices of the organization, they are more likely to have confidence in the future of their organization. The resultant is a workforce that is more committed and engaged determined to outperform their competitors and ensure a leadership position in the market for their organization.

Financial Benefits
There are pros and cons of every management philosophy and the associated processes. Talent management is no exception to it. While many organizations simply decline to have it under their umbrella because it costs the exchequer, still others approve of it equally strongly as an effective people management process.

Before we discuss the financial benefits of talent management the following may be of our interest and worth a thought:

Most of the organizations are short sighted, when it comes to people management. People management may not go well with pure capitalists.
Organizations and industries are growing at a fast pace, faster than the rate at which talent is produced. There is dearth of talented and skilled professionals both at the top as well as bottom. Due to cut throat competition and a consequent lack of talented professionals the attrition rates have increased across all industries, especially so in services industry. Poaching has become common place; employee retention has become the Achilles heel of corporations. All the above mentioned statements clearly indicate that the talent is unable to keep pace with the growing industry and also that the industry has failed to breed the pool of talented individuals as per its requirements.

A fast industry growth meant that there would be a need for talented professionals for upcoming avenues and unfortunately corporate seemed to miss out on this. Business houses nowadays have diversified interests in different industries, employment opportunities are fast coming up but unfortunately the talent is pool is shrinking. This tells upon the finances of an organization in a big way. Less attrition means lesser expenditure on hiring: BPO’s and start ups, for example where the attrition rate is the highest remain occupied in searching for people every now and then. Now this incurs financial losses to the organization. An organization not only pays an employee for his/her work but also spends a considerable amount on their training and development. There is transfer of skill and expertise and when the same employee leaves after a brief stint with the organization, it costs the latter.

The problem gets even worse when such a scenario occurs at the top level. An unoccupied executive position can cost an organization dearly. The solution – a proper talent management in place can solve this problem. The following facts become worth consideration here:

New employees cost the company 30-60 % more than the existing employee in terms of compensation only. There is an additional cost incurred on training and developing the new individual. The process of recruitments itself costs an organization in a big way, right from advertising a post, to attracting talent and finally short listing and hiring someone for the job. Often there is a compromise in hiring when the need is urgent. Organizations clearly need to look inside for solutions and design and develop better employee retention, rewards and recognition strategy. Performance management needs to be taken care of.

Talent Management: Principles and Challenges
Principles
There are no hard and fast rules for succeeding in execution of management practices, if you ask me. What may work wonders for one organization may ruin another one! For convenience sake however there are certain principles of Talent Management that one should follow or keep in mind.

Principle 1 – Avoid Mismatch Costs
In planning for future manpower requirements, most of the HR professionals prepare a deep bench of candidates or manpower inventory. Many of the people who remain in this bracket start searching for other options and move when they are not raised to a certain position and profile. In such a scenario it is better to keep the bench strength low and hire from outside from time to time to fill gaps. This in no way means only to hire from outside, which leads to a skill deficit and affects the organizational culture. Principle 2 – Reduce the Risk of Being Wrong

In manpower anticipations for future an organization can ill afford to be wrong. It’s hard to forecast talent demands for future business needs because of the uncertainty involved. It is therefore very important to attune the career plans with the business plans. A 5 year career plan looks ridiculous along with a 2 year business plan. Principle 3 – Recoup Talent Investments

Developing talent internally pays in the longer run. The best way to recover investments made in talent management is to reduce upfront costs by finding alternative and cheaper talent delivery options. Organizations also require a rethink on their talent retention strategy to improve employee retention. Another way that has emerged of late in many organizations is sharing development costs with the employees. Many of TATA companies for example sponsor their employees’ children education. Similarly lots of organizations use ‘promote then develop’ programs for their employees where the cost of training and development is shared between the two. One important way to recoup talent investments is spotting the talent early, this reduces the risk. More importantly this identified lot of people needs to be given opportunities before they get it elsewhere. Principle 4 – Balancing Employee Interests

How much authority should the employees’ haves over their own development? There are different models that have been adopted by various corporations globally. There is ‘the chess master model’, but the flipside in this is that talented employees search for options. Organizations can also make use of the internal mobility programs which are a regular feature of almost all the top organizations. These principles are just broader guidelines; their application varies across industries and organizational cultures.

Challenges
There is no dearth of professionals but there is an acute shortage of talented professionals globally. Every year b-schools globally churn out management professionals in huge numbers but how many of are actually employable remains questionable! This is true for other professions also.

The scenario is worse even in developing economies of south East Asia. Countries like U.S and many European countries have their own set of problems. The problem is of aging populations resulting in talent gaps at the top. The developing countries of south East Asia are a young population but quality of education system as a whole breeds a lot of talent problems. They possess plenty of laborers – skilled and unskilled and a huge man force of educated unemployable professionals. These are the opportunities and challenges that the talent management in organizations has to face today – dealing with demographic talent problems. It faces the following opportunities and challenges:

Recruiting talent
Training and Developing talent
Retaining talent
Developing Leadership talent
Creating talented ethical culture

Recruiting Talent
The recent economic downturn saw job cuts globally. Those who were most important to organizations in their understanding were retained, other were sacked. Similarly huge shuffles happened at the top leadership positions. They were seen as crisis managers unlike those who were deemed responsible for throwing organizations into troubled waters. It is the jurisdiction of talent management to get such people on onboard, who are enterprising but ensure that an organization does not suffer for the same.

Training and Developing Talent
The downturn also opened the eyes of organizations to newer models of employment – part time or temporary workers. This is a new challenge to talent management, training and developing people who work on a contractual or project basis. What’s more big a challenge is increasing the stake of these people in their work.

Retaining Talent
While organizations focus on reducing employee overheads and sacking those who are unessential in the shorter run, it also spreads a wave of de motivation among those who are retained. An uncertainty about the firing axe looms in their mind. It is essential to maintain a psychological contract with employees those who have been fired as well as those who have been retained. Investing on people development in crisis is the best thing an organization can do to retain its top talent.

Developing Leadership Talent
Leadership in action means an ability to take out of crisis situation, extract certainty out of uncertainty, set goals and driving change to ensure that the momentum is not lost. Identifying people from within the organization who should be invested upon is a critical talent management challenge.

Creating Talented Ethical Culture
Setting standards for ethical behavior, increasing transparency, reducing complexities and developing a culture of reward and appreciation are still more challenges and opportunities for talent management.

Management Strategy
The human resource professionals are the cornerstone of any organizations. They not only solve business problems today but also participate in strategic aspects of the organization; talent management is one of them. Formulation of a talent management strategy is the responsibility of the HR function. This is often done in consultation with the business function. Be it talent mapping and planning or performance, recruitment and retention the human resource professionals of the day are seeking out ways to streamline and integrate their functions with the broader business functions. people are empowered very early in their careers to give them more responsibilities and build more competencies in employees. This enables to develop high potential personnel. The organization runs an internal programme ID venture where they promote entrepreneurship. You have an idea; you come forward, share and develop a comprehensive business plan. The best plan receives a support from the organization! Some strategies followed are:

Aligning Business strategies with the HR strategies: Business HR is one function that is developing fast as part of the human resource department. The person is responsible for ensuring a smooth relationship between business and HR functions. They work with business heads to develop people strategies to support both short term and long term business objectives. Performance Planning and Evaluation: An integrated HR approach means that are uniform and standard procedures for employee performance evaluation and compensation, up and down the organization. Performance is linked to growth and the process adds value for employees to evaluate their work on their own. Indian digital disk giant Moser Baer employs such process.

Strategic Manpower Planning: HR and Business function are interrelated. None can exist without the other. HR functions need to work in collaboration to assess current and future manpower requirements are plan for the same. They need to strategize on the approximate manpower requirements, the relevant skills and educational qualification, compensation and the like. This has to happen well in advance. Recruitment itself means a host of other activities like training and development, compensation, induction and orientation etc. Mapping your Talent: An ever increasing emphasis is being laid on identifying the top performing and talented employees to think of ways to develop, nurture and retain them. Further organizations also like to keep skill inventories for contingencies. As organizations realize the skills and abilities of individuals, they can then be more focused on devising means and strategies to attract, develop and retain these people.

INFOSYS
Background
In the globalized business environment, historical sources of advantage have diminished in value to the point that they are now fast becoming irrelevant. Research indicates that sustainable competitive advantage in the future will come through investing in people to build organizational capabilities. Infosys believes in the progressive reality that HR is much more than a support function. A fact of economic life, HR needs to be used as a springboard to drive business. No more about merely dealing with HR issues, it has a strategic role that requires dealing with business issues – truly elevated to a “seat at the table”. The challenges thrown up by this fast-changing business environment have also opened a window to a plethora of opportunities like dramatic shift in costs through global talent sourcing and de-risking through global task distribution, achieving global operational excellence through a judicious mix of technology and service delivery models, etc. Solving the talent paradox is not an impossible task.

But it requires an integrated, strategic approach to talent management, from planning and sourcing to training, development, and retention. Insightful, integrated talent-management practices can not only help an organization overcome a talent shortage, but also deliver financial results that will win the approval of all stakeholders. HR is headed towards and offers insights into some key strategies to capitalize on the consequent opportunities – from the combined perspective of Infosys as a practitioner and a consultant. “Workforces Gone Global – 77% respondents say globalization factors are making a difference in their talent management strategies” – Talent Management Trend Survey 2007 by BPM Forum, Success Factors & Human Capital Institute INFOSYS- TALENT EDGE

Infosys unveiled Infosys TalentEdge, a comprehensive talent management platform that deepens employee engagement. Infosys TalentEdge addresses the entire HR lifecycle helping companies streamline their HR processes and reduce operational costs. The platform is built on state-of-the-art technology and is delivered in the Cloud on an outcome-based pricing model. Leading global enterprises, across industries, are already on their talent management journey with Infosys TalentEdge. In the May 2011 report ‘The Talent Management Suite Market Emerges’ James Holincheck, research vice president at Gartner, observed, “Customers are increasingly using more talent management capabilities from a single vendor. Thus, a talent management suite market has emerged.” Infosys TalentEdge deepens employee interaction through rich social engagement and interactive self-service capabilities. The social collaboration features of the platform helps companies improve access to organization-wide expertise, generate ideas, and accelerate innovation.

The platform also allows employees to access HR functionalities “on-the-go” through mobile and smart devices thereby enabling an always-connected workforce. Infosys TalentEdge simplifies the entire Hire-to-retire lifecycle of the HR function. The platform brings together preconfigured, best-in-class industry processes that helps enterprises streamline HR operations and free up time spent on transactional HR activities such as payroll, attendance, benefits processing, etc. The Infosys TalentEdge platform is built on Oracle’s industry-leading PeopleSoft Human Capital Management (HCM) Suite. Delivered in the Cloud on an outcome-based pricing model, Infosys TalentEdge optimizes costs and delivers better spend predictability to the HR organization.

This frees up significant capital expenditure typically locked into HR technology and process investments, allowing the HR function to be a strategic enabler of an organization’s business objectives. Infosys TalentEdge provides companies with the convenience of single point of accountability by taking complete ownership from technology to business operations. Samson David, Vice President and Global Head – Business Platforms, Infosys said, “Infosys Edge business platforms in the cloud, is focused on accelerating business innovation for our clients across functions. Today HR organizations spend over 60% of their time on transactional HR activities leaving little time to focus on talent engagement. With Infosys TalentEdge, companies can focus more on deepening talent engagement while simplifying transactional HR processes.”

About Infosys Edge
Infosys Edge, business platforms in the cloud empowers organizations to accelerate business innovation by driving deeper engagement with consumers and employees, powering new engines of growth and simplifying business operations. Leading Global 1000 clients, across industries, have partnered with Infosys Edge to accelerate business innovation across functions. Infosys Safe Harbor

Certain statements in this release concerning our future growth prospects are forward-looking statements, which involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties relating to these statements include, but are not limited to, risks and uncertainties regarding fluctuations in earnings, fluctuations in foreign exchange rates, our ability to manage growth, intense competition in IT services including those factors which may affect our cost advantage, wage increases in India, our ability to attract and retain highly skilled professionals, time and cost overruns on fixed-price, fixed-time frame contracts, client concentration, restrictions on immigration, industry segment concentration, our ability to manage our international operations, reduced demand for technology in our key focus areas, disruptions in telecommunication networks or system failures, our ability to successfully complete and integrate potential acquisitions, liability for damages on our service contracts, the success of the companies in which Infosys has made strategic investments, withdrawal or expiration of governmental fiscal incentives, political instability and regional conflicts, legal restrictions on raising capital or acquiring companies outside India, and unauthorized use of our intellectual property and general economic conditions affecting our industry.

Additional risks that could affect our future operating results are more fully described in our United States Securities and Exchange Commission filings including our Annual Report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2011 and on Form 6-K for the quarters ended September 30, 2010 and December 31, 2010 and June 30, 2011.These filings are available at www.sec.gov. Infosys may, from time to time, make additional written and oral forward-looking statements, including statements contained in the company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and our reports to shareholders. The company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements that may be made from time to time by or on behalf of the company Highlights of TalentEdge

•Employee On-boarding: The on-boarding solution leverages “SmartHire” feature provided by Oracle PeopleSoft. The offering includes a set of pre-configured employee-hire templates that can be fine-tuned based on client requirements. This template-driven hiring approach accelerates employee on-boarding process •Administer Personal and Job Data: At the core of the HR solution is an enterprise-wide human resources database that supports a multitude of HR processes and serves as the single source of personal and job data •Manager Self-Service: This web-deployed solution enables managers to initiate and approve job data to their direct/ indirect reports, including promotions, transfers, terminations, and other status changes and requests •Employee Self-Service: The solution enables employees to access and control their personal information including name, address, phone number, and marital status through an intuitive and user friendly interface thereby reducing administrative costs and hassles •Monitor Health and Safety:

The solution facilitates tracking of workplace incidents, injuries, illnesses, first aid and medical treatment, management of accident investigations, corrective actions, and tracking of compensation claims •Reporting/ Regulatory Compliance: The solution includes a whole host of delivered HR metrics and reports that aid decision making and ensure better regulatory compliance. Some of the reports include Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO), Employee Turnover Analysis, Salary Structure Reporting, New Hire Details, and Pending I-9 submissions •Managing Organization Structure: The solution supports setting-up of organizational structure, department trees and creation of organization charts. It provides managers with easy-to-comprehend visual representation of the organization structure •Record Issues/ Grievances: Employee issues and grievances can be tracked and monitored right from the time they are raised to up until they are resolved Benefits of TalentEdge

•Reduces employee on-boarding time by paper-less and error-free processes •Empowers employees and managers by providing self-service access. It results in reduced administrative costs and drives employee satisfaction •Drives informed decision making by providing timely and relevant information through metrics/ reports •Reduces time and effort spent on administrative activities resulting in employee retention, effective people management and sharper focus on core business activities •Integrates seamlessly with other modules to form a single source for all HR data thereby reducing data inconsistencies significantly •Improves employee productivity through simplified and unified interfaces TalentEdge Recruitment

Infosys TalentEdge’s Recruitment module is an integrated, cost-effective talent acquisition solution that enables organizations to manage their workforce by searching and hiring the right talent. It integrates job-boards, job postings, applicant searches, background checks, résumé extractions, and test centers and provides an efficient, productive and enriching online recruitment experience. The Highlights are as follows:

•360 Degree View Dashboard: Provides the recruiter with alerts on overall recruitment status that includes details about new applicants, job openings, unconfirmed interviews, unevaluated answers, online job offers, quick search, and auto-match results. •Integrated Interview Management: Provides bi-directional integration with MS Outlook 2007 to schedule interviews and enables the recruitment team to allocate resources needed to conduct interviews. •Profile Utilization: Imports person profiles and creates new job openings, thereby saving the effort of creating jobs from scratch. •Robust Multi-tiered Auto-screening: Automates screening to filter out applicants in the online application process. Screening consists of mandatory questions for applicants, with points assigned to them.

The application can be configured with multiple levels of screening options such as preliminary levels to final, which sorts applicants at various stages of recruitment. •Online Job Offer: Enables applicants to review, accept, and reject job offers online via their career portal page. Online features include attachments such as offer letters, benefit details and corporate policy documents. •Approval Delegation: Authorizes proxy users to temporarily act on behalf of administrators to approve job openings and offers. •Search: Notifies registered candidates when a matching job opportunity opens up. •Employee Referrals: By using the employee referral option, applicants can mention names of employees who have referred them to the job opening.

Benefits if TalentEdge Recruitment are as follows:
•Highly configurable and flexible features to meet business needs accurately •End-to-end integrated solution, from searching for the right candidates to hiring the best talent •Easy integration of job-boards, job posting, and background checks by third party vendors •Reduced effort and time by template based hiring

•Reduction of paperwork with enhanced online actions and workflow-driven processes •Applicant-job combination searches enabled by robust search capabilities •Easy use and generation of custom reports

Benefits to employees of TalentEgde
Infosys TalentEdge’s Benefits Administration module enables implementation of a full spectrum of benefits including health, insurance, saving, spending, and additional non-standard plans. The solution is designed to define various types of benefit events including open enrollment; employment changes such as hire and termination; family status changes such as birth and marriage; passive events based on employees and dependents age; and Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) qualifying events. The events can be configured to automatically determine the benefit plans that need to change accordingly. The effective-dated employee data including employee address, benefit elections, 401(k) options, dependent and beneficiary details changed through open enrollment, and benefit change events are maintained in a centralized database enabling comprehensive reporting. Highlights of Administrative Benefits

•Employee Self Service: Internet-based self-service module enables employees to update personal, dependent and beneficiary information, initiate life events such as marriage and birth, and to enroll for various benefits •Evidence of Insurability (EOI) administration: Life and disabilities are covered by transfer of electronic files to vendor and making enrollment changes after high coverage vendor approval. •Documentation Proofs: The solution tracks documentation proofs required for life events such as birth and marriage and follows up with employees for the same •Unpaid leave billing: It enables billing for unpaid leave, COBRA and pay for retired employees by generating monthly invoices •Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA):

It processes Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) in compliance with federal and state requirements, by generating notification/ warning letters and leave packets •COBRA and HIPAA Administration: It creates certificates of creditable coverage and COBRA initial letters based on qualifying life events and enrollment changes •Vendor Compatibility: It Interfaces with vendors by dispatching eligibility and enrollment information electronically in the industry-standard ANSI 834 format or in custom format •Change Notification: It notifies employees about the changes in benefit enrollments along with costs triggered by a benefit event via e-mail – for instance, changes resulting from a life event, such as marriage or birth •Administrative Help: The solution enables administrators to resolve life event issues by providing real-time summary of life events status Benefits:

•Employees can view, compare or make enrollment changes themselves through the self-service module. This results in reduced operation costs. It also reduces printing costs for Enrollment and Confirmation worksheets. Employee satisfaction increases as they are in full control of their data. •The solution sends approval notifications to personnel administrator, as and when employees initiate life events. Employees are allowed to process life events and make enrollment changes only after they receive the administrator’s approval. •The solution provides one-stop help desk with a toll-free number for employees to make enrollments, initiate life events, receive confirmation statements and get clarifications for benefit queries related to eligibility and costs •It automates open enrollment and event maintenance processing which reduces manual errors and premium overpayments •FSA Administration tracks pledges, processes claims, disburses money, and prints checks •Unifies interfaces and provides consistent data through seamless, real-time integration with all system components such as payroll and core HR •Monitors changes in policies that affect eligibility

Performance Management at TalentEdge
Performance Management is a basic and critical element of an enterprises’ talent management strategy. Infosys TalentEdge’s Performance Management module manages performance by setting certain parameters like performance goals, aligning individual’s goals with corporate objectives, progress monitoring, periodic performance rating, identifying development needs, and rewarding performers. Highlights of Performance Management

•Configurability in Goal Setting Phase: Various parameters including goal status, percentage completion, start date, end date, employee measurement, and adding and deletion of goals can be configured. Users can choose to either display participant evaluator information or maintain anonymity. •Writing Tools: The platform leverages HR writing tools such as Results Writer, Performance Notes, Language Checker, Spell Checker, and Development Tips. oBoth the employee and the manager can record private, free-format notes at any time during the review period and store them along with their performance documents

oThe Language Sensitivity Checker reduces the risk of inappropriate language in performance assessments oManagers can access Results Writer that aids in writing constructive feedback based on employee performance rating oManagers can access Development Tips to identify ways in which an employee can attain a certain competency or goal oUsage of Spell Checker increases professionalism and accuracy of performance reviews •Goal Cascading and Goal alignment: This feature enables cascading of goals through defined hierarchy – from corporate goals to individual goals. For instance, it enables manager performance goals to be passed on to an employee performance document. •Electronic Document Sign-off: Users can electronically sign-off performance documents, without generating paper copies. •Simplified Processes Initiation: Document creation process is made flexible for employees, managers and HR administrators. •360 Degree Evaluation: Apart from the manager and employee, peers and team members also participate in evaluation process. It offers flexibility in configuring participant evaluation.

Benefits of Performance Management:
•Easy-to-use, one stop solution: Streamlines performance management for employees, managers and HR administrator. •Increases Employee Performance: Defines clear performance targets collaboratively at the beginning of the performance period. It includes feedback from peers, managers, or other parties to foster development. Managers can provide interactive feedback, coaching, and development to employees throughout the performance period. •Drives Business Results: Links individual goals and rewards to business objectives by communicating employee contributions. Ensures adequate support of key initiatives and tracks progress. •Improves Talent Management: Identifies high performers and team members in need of performance improvement. •Improves Feedback to Employees: Enables managers to construct high-quality feedback to employees with the help of writing tools that aid in appropriate language usage. •Embedded Analytics and Normalization Reports: Managers and administrators can access reports that show performance review summary status, reviews owned by the manager, reports of late or missing review documents, goal alignment details, goal completion progress, and online graphs of review rating distributions for defined groups of employees. •Integration with other solutions:

oEnables cultivation of pay for performance culture by integrating it with compensation solution oProvides profile and competency data flow
oDetermines and adds to learning of an employee by integrating with learning solutions oAchieves integrated talent management by integrating Performance Management solution with Core HR, Successions and learning solution. It enables use of critical information about talent across business functions by providing deep insight into workforce, thereby aiding in informed talent management decisions

Conclusion
one of the biggest risks facing many organisations is having the right talent to enable them to compete in the future.

The reality for many business today is that a large majority of its key executives will probably retire in the next 5-10 years. While this may not have been an issues 10 or 15 years ago, pressure have been such that businesses have had to reorganise and resize themselves to a point where the talent pool that would have been ready to step up into key roles are either not ready or not there. companies need to integrate their talent and succession planning with their strategic business plans and view talent management as a long-term, continuous process. 1. Think strategically. Talent management requires a strategic perspective. What are the things that might impact your organisation in the future? Will it grow and acquire other businesses, or is the market shrinking and therefore a different leadership approach may be needed? What ‘type’ of managers and business leaders will be needed in the future?

2. Understand key roles. Which functions and roles in the organisation drive the majority of the business’s value? Think broadly, and not just about traditional leadership roles, specialist technical roles such as product development may be as equally important. Once this is complete it is a straightforward task to examine the age profiles of those currently in the key roles. How many of these could retire in the next 5-10 years? How many of these roles have ‘ready now’ successors?

3. Identify the requirements of the key roles. Effective talent management requires clarity on technical and behavioural requirements for the roles as well as specific experience, such as international or specific market experience. All key roles should have the necessary components and characteristics for superior performance clearly defined. These requirements can then be used as a basis to assess people, either internally via a promotion or externally via recruitment.

4. Understand who your talent is. Use assessment centres to identify talent internally.

5. Agree your succession strategy. Once the organisation knows who is likely to retire, and who the potential talent is, objective decisions can be made about how the key roles will be filled in the future. Does the business need to actively recruit and bring in new blood or can all the key roles be filled from within? Should the strategy be a balance of recruiting externally as well as promoting internally?

6. Define career paths for internal promotions Once your succession strategy is clear, establishing career paths and the ability to describe the requirements for pursuing the path becomes easier. Creating effective career paths requires two components, knowing the requirements for the next level and creating clear plan of how to gain the necessary skills, behaviours and experience.

7. Link talent management with performance management. Talent management and succession planning should become a part of the organisation’s performance management and career development processes. Regular performance discussions are important to collect evidence of how potential successors have performed. In addition, the discussions also provide the opportunity for managers to coach talent to ensure ongoing development and readiness.

8. Provide ongoing development. Managers need to support the ongoing development of their talent to ensure that make the necessary progress.

9. Monitor readiness and prepare a succession plan. Senior managers should meet at least annually to initially agree who the potential successors are for the key roles and to subsequently monitor their progress. Who is ready now to move to their next role? Is their evidence to suggest that any of the successors will not ‘make the grade’? If not what needs to be done?

10. Ensure ownership . Succession planning needs to be owned by line managers and needs to be actively led by the Chief Executive or owner of the business for it to be successful.

Bibliography

http://derekstockley.com.au/newsletters-05/020-talent-management.html http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/2419/8/08_chapter%201.pdf http://www.taleo.com/researcharticle/what-talent-management

http://www.cipd.co.uk/hr-resources/factsheets/talent-management-overview.aspx
http://sandylearningblog.wordpress.com/2008/09/02/introduction-talent-management/ http://www.scribd.com/doc/15499035/Talent-Management-Scope-and-Process http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talent_management

http://www.gov.ns.ca/psc/pdf/hrCentre/resources/talentManagement/TM_Process_Guide.pdf http://www.managementstudyguide.com/talent-management.htm
http://www.infosys.com/talentedge/Pages/index.aspx