3 Obsolete Talent Management Practices

Having had a large part of my career working on Talent Management projects with clients as well as being part of in-house corporate team, I've seen quite a number of questionable talent management practice which in my opinion are obsolete. They might have been the most effective methods in the past but don't seem to yield much results today; yet, management often champions them. Here are 3 common ones:

1 - Fresh Graduates Management Trainee Program

This was made popular by the large multimational organizations in the past. The concept was to go to universities to look for good graduates and develop them across the business to eventually be made at least an Assistant Manager when they're done with the program. There are 2 phenomenon in the past that contributes to the success of such program:

• The economic boom that resulted in organizations growing in a rapid pace.
• The industrial / manufacturing & operations focused economy where there are more manual workers than knowledge workers.

Today's organizations (especially the larger conglomerates) aren't growing at such a rapid pace as before, and university education becoming a norm rather than for the elite few. Thus, Management Trainee Program faces the following challenges:

• Since a large number of employees in the organization are graduates, being a gruaduate today isn't really going to accelerate an employee's path to becoming a manager (or at least not as easy as it used to be).
• How can we make them managers when there's really nobody for them to manage? What's more laughable are companies who subsequently gives them the title "managers" but does work of nothing more than an ordinary executive. It probably still applies if it's a factory where the graduates can manage a pool of manual workers though.
• The designation "Management Trainee" in itself gives a false expectation to graduates that they're going to become managers upon completion, which is often unlikely.
• Because companies aren't growing at the pace it used to be, there's also no new department requiring new "managers" to run them. Even if there are, there will be a line of internal talents already waiting for their turn.
• When the environment changes so fast, spending 2 years as a "management trainee" sometimes derails the progress of an employee compared to those who hit the ground running on some "real work" from day-1. After spending 4 years in a degree program, how many of them still look forward to another "2-year program"?

Recommended Solutions:

• Maybe a name change (not only the name but also the mechanics and the contents) might work. How about having a Graduate Trainee Program instead? This should include structured induction, familiarization & relevant skill training to get them integrated into the organization rapidly. Bear in mind we might not want to overly focus on leadership or management skills during the selection or interview process or we might get a mismatch of expectation.
• "Management Associates" Program for MBA mid-career hire might work? Well, this might work for another couple of years maybe until MBA becomes a norm as well.
• Internal "Management Associates" where we could focus on identifying leadership potential amongst internal employees with few years of experience; and then accelerate their growth to becoming a manager.

2 - Talent Attachment / Exchange

Remember the days where employees are sent to another department for 6 months or a year as a form of "attachment" for them to be exposed to different environment and skillsets? Or Management Trainee Programs that rotates employees to a different department every 3-6 months? Well, that might not work anymore in today's fast pace environment. Why?

• In the industrial age where manufacturing and manual operations occupy a large part of an organization; a manager's role could be to plan, organize and give instruction, and subsequently have the team following the instruction on an "auto-cruise" day-to-day until problem solving is needed. That works with manual workers but not in the knowledge economy today. In the knowledge economy we're managing individuals with different skills and experience, thus business continuity means having a manager working closely with the team on problem solving and decision making on a more frequent basis.
• I agree that we learn best by doing. But when everything moves so fast around us, the luxury to trying everything hands-on may not be too feasible. Imagine how disruptive it is to business when an employee comes for 3-6 months only to leave once he's more knowledgeable about the business.
• Being in the knowledge economy means that a person does not only learn about the processes and operations but also technical knowledge and experience needed to excel. This isn't something that happens in 3-6 months. We're not talking about taking a machine that works with "plug-n-play" but people that got to adapt to learning curves.

Recommended Solutions:

• Stretched project assignment - Have talented employees stretch themselves by taking on side projects from different departments in order to expand their reach rather than abandoning their role to be attached elsewhere. This ensures business continuity and learning happens at the same time. In order for employees not to be over-stretched as a result, a "stretch exchange program" can be considered instead.
• Guest audit program - Allow talents to participate in audit department's operations for a 2 week stint that gets them to learn about another department's function, suggest improvements and cross share insights.
• Talent mobility - Recognize a talents experience from previous department while moving them from one department to another every 2-4 years. Notice this is not an "attachment" as they're transferred and do not go back to their original role. That role needs to be filled in their absence and a temporary backup won't work. The identified talent will then continue moving forward to another role in the next 2-4 yeas without looking back.

3 - Overseas Stint as a Reward

I recalled those days when I admired people going on huge commercial planes and my mum will say to me "if you study hard and do well in the future, your company will put you on that plane". Well, that worked for me then but no longer the case today. I don't deny the fact that travelling for work is still enjoyed but quite a large fraction of corporate executives today, but it's no longer as glamorous as it used to be, and no longer seen as a reward to many. All these thanks to the presence of low-cost airlines - AirAsia, Virgin Air, JetStar ... etc. Now, everyone can fly. Gone were the days where young graduates are eagerly anticipating their first flight overseas. Many of them have enjoyed more overseas holidays than their managers do even before graduation.

Recommended Solutions:

• Ermmm ... Do I need to suggest any solutions for this? Just be mindful of the different impact it has to employees today. Maybe time to think of other rewards instead.

Alright, there are some of those I could think of. Maybe anyone of you who's reading this has something else to share? How come comments from some Gen-Y graduates or young professionals on how would you like the company to develop your career with you?