A move in the right direction: a talent management perspective

‘No prophet is accepted in his own country.’ –Luke 4:24

‘Is it not gentlemanly not to be upset when others do not recognize your abilities?’ –Analects, 1.1

The travel through professional life presents as many challenges as opportunities, and these are what provide experience. Through experience, learning happens, and this causes growth when that learning is followed up by adjustments to practice. Hence, the professional development experience, which is neither inevitable nor linear. In short, leaving one job and moving to another is an opportunity to practice the growth from previous employment. Although many may see a move from one workplace to another as a kind of escape (escape from career plateau, demanding work conditions, or even unpleasant colleagues/bosses), it is better when it is a move in the (up and to the) right direction, irrespective of any one factor that may or may not be negative.

One may ask, what are the deciding factors in moving to a new job? Tangible and intangible reasons present themselves when looked at carefully. It may be that the factors are so overwhelming, a decision appears simple. For example, a significant promotion or better location can make a job more immediately attractive. However, what happens when a move is lateral or marginally (up and to the) right? Factors such as organisational culture, professional development opportunities, and a term this article coins, ‘job fatigue handoff’, can all play a role in the decision to move jobs. These are all aside from the caveat of personal reasons, such as needing to be local to a sick relative, which can trump professional reasons.

Organisational culture: spending freezes impact quality

Organisational culture plays a significant role in job satisfaction and in turn has a profound effect on ‘voluntary turnover’: ‘…employees are the custodians of a voluntary movement of turnover, whilst involuntary turnover involves processes initiated by organisations to terminate the service of employees’ (Ibid., p. 5). Talent management literature is flourishing in part due to the shortage of skilled workers in Western states, especially in the Industry 4.0 industry milieu (Li, 2022). In short, employers are struggling to recruit and maintain the talent that they need to increase the bottom line.

While recruitment is a fertile area of discussion, the question of this essay is what kind of organisational culture can retain talent? Mainly, it is when a company’s bottom line is not aligned enough with the talents of the employees that the organisation loses money and talent. If an organisational culture becomes so intent on saving money, they may forgot that customers who pay premium rates expect a premium service commensurate with their investment and nothing less than the customers who came before them; degrading departmental capability, canceling quality enhancement initiatives, and limiting professional progression may serve to save money across the organisation, but at the expense of employee and customer morale.

In effect, by cutting the quality of a program, this sacrifices the long-term strategy of talent retention; recruitment is an often expensive and capricious process, so retaining talent is of utmost importance (Muduli and Trivedi, 2020). The phrase ‘never compromise quality’ is the mantra of DSDM Agile, a project management framework that enhances project outcomes through quality focus. Cutting investment in staff and benefits to customers will weaken the organisation’s quality capability; it is a strategy of surrender, i.e., poor leadership, when quality is a bargaining chip.

Professional development: did attending that meeting really make you smarter?

Professional development does not fit well into a factory mentality. Although professional qualification requires demonstrable evidence of learning and practice, each person’s professional development journey is different. When professional development becomes too prescriptive, however, this can prevent an individual from organically making change toward one’s goals and aspirations which will benefit the organisation’s bottom line. A paper qualification is not itself the practice. One must demonstrate one’s bona fide abilities which may or may not be recognised by an external agent. Therefore, vocational and professional qualifications are necessary for professional development. Vocational experience is lived; professional experience may be just yet another Teams meeting in which criticality becomes secondary to conformity, i.e., professional development becomes more about learning the ‘policies’ of the organisation rather than transferable skills (Muduli and Trivedi, 2020).

That being said, a person needs paper qualifications, job title enhancements, and increased pay to coincide with the increased benefits to the organisation. Sectors do matter. In a factory, cutting the jobs of so-called low-skilled workers may be deemed acceptable; however, in industries such as HE, it is imperative that staff are internally developed to retain their talent. Strong efforts should be made to do so. Frank conversations between managers and their team should happen regularly. A mere mention at a meeting for employees not to seek outside employment is not enough. Meetings should happen between managers and individuals to actively retain their talent. When talent is recognised, an organisation should have the capability to quickly promote this person to disseminate their knowledge and practice. However, the impediment to this is when people act politically in cliques to uphold their ‘tribe’s’ influence and power (Haldorai et al., 2020). The conflict of interests in organisations when it comes to professional development opportunities is complicated. The ability to put talent in front of the organisation’s tribal influence is key to long-term success.

Job fatigue handoff

When an employee is at an organisation for x years, a certain number of legacy projects continue throughout the program. However, the problem is that no lifecycle is assigned to these projects so they cannot begin and end in any rational way. As a Director, responsibilities seem only to increase. Streamlining is just double-speak for piling more responsibilities on existing workhorses. This strategy is unsustainable because the workhorse can at any time realise their actual value, that the tangible and existential requirements of the job are not commensurate with the pay package. Job fatigue handoff occurs when an employee voluntarily leaves the organisation due in part to the overwhelming ‘ongoing responsibilities’ which are time-intensive and detract from activities which are higher level, i.e., strategic, in nature.

Job fatigue handoff occurs when the employee moves to another organisation and delegates the employee’s workload to others, feeling relieved that the feeling of always being behind is gone. It is not so much to abandon responsibility as much as it is an opportunity to reset one’s mindset toward accepting only achievable/feasible goals in the future. A novel approach to talent retention would therefore allow a Director to vacate responsibilities for a fixed period to reset deadlines and expectations. Implicit in this recommendation is that the management structure is Agile. If an organisation relies too much on individual talent without supporting it, then it is vulnerable to expensive patchwork tactics which cost several people time they could be using to increase the bottom line. Perhaps four times a year, Directors should have the opportunity to reset with past work neither delayed nor failed, as other staff can seamlessly take it on and build on existing work.

In closing, this essay is not intended as a closed argument, but rather a reflection on moving in the (up and to the) right direction. After all, no organisation benefits from employees hoping to leave at the earliest opportunity. What is needed is a way to retain talent by promoting and encouraging talent at every stage, by challenging and rewarding leadership. Identifying individuals who need this type of management presents its own challenge, but for now, it is enough to say that talent will gravitate toward resources and recognition. If an organisation is to survive long-term, it must invest in both qualities in its staff.