Product Description

The research has shown that, in most organizations, the infrastructure of human resources systems and processes is a jumble of unconnected, incomplete, and inconsistent methodologies. Senior executives and human resources practitioners understand the connection between organization excellence and effective people management. But, most organizations do not have a systemized approach for making this linkage - and it's hurting their business. The search for this linkage is over. "The Talent Management Handbook" reveals how to connect organizational excellence to people management by systematically identifying, keeping, developing and promoting the organization's best people.Featuring the contributions of leading executives, human resources practitioners, and consultants, this book presents a comprehensive approach to talent management. You will learn the power of integrating your company's infrastructure of HR assessment, planning, and development tools into a single, cogent system. "The Talent Management Handbook" explains how to align your company's people with the current and future needs of the organization by placing employees in positions that maximize their value. The authors identify three key steps to a human resources strategy that will drive your organization's success: identify, select, and cultivate "Superkeepers" - the employees your organization can not afford to lose; locate and develop highly qualified backups for key positions, which are critical to organizational continuity; and, allocate resources to employees based on actual and/or potential contribution to organizational excellence.The book also explains how to build all your HR disciplines on the "building blocks" of organizational competencies, performance appraisal, and forecast of employee/manager potential. You'll discover how to enhance employee improvement through coaching, mentoring, constructive dialogue, and feedback from many organization levels. You'll also learn about powerful reward systems, that support different talent management strategies. "The Talent Management Handbook" explains how to create a talent management system that dramatically improves your organization's return on its HR investment, while increasing the overall performance and satisfaction of every member of your organization.The key to organization excellence is managing talent. "The Talent Management Handbook" explains how organizations can identify and hold onto their most valued employees, but also how to get the most out of "high-potential people" by developing them and promoting them to key positions. The book explains: three broad measures of organization excellence; six human resources conditions necessary for organization excellence; and, a talent management system that links your employee assessment process to organizational and individual career planning and development activities."The Talent Management Handbook" will help you to design career plans that will boost employee morale, as well as create and sustain excellence in your organization. It is full of simple, efficient, easy-to-follow methods for assessing, planning, and developing high- value people to meet your organization's current and future needs. And it will help you combine your organization's diverse human resources activities into a single, cogent system. Featuring best practices from leading companies as well as contributions from field experts who hold top positions in such leading HR consultancies as AON Consulting, The Hay Group, Hewitt Associates, Right Management Consulting, Sibson Consulting, and Towers Perrin, "The Talent Management Handbook" is the most authoritative resource for creating and maintaining excellence in your organization through people management.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #44434 in Books
• Published on: 2003-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 450 pages

From the Back Cover

The research has shown that, in most organizations, the infrastructure of human resources systems and processes is a jumble of unconnected, incomplete, and inconsistent methodologies. Senior executives and human resources practitioners understand the connection between organization excellence and effective people management. But most organizations, do not have a systemized approach for making this linkage--and it's hurting their business. The search for this linkage is over. The Talent Management Handbook reveals how to connect organizational excellence to people management by systematically identifying, keeping, developing and promoting the organization's best people.

Featuring the contributions of leading executives, human resources practitioners, and consultants, this book presents a comprehensive approach to talent management. You will learn the power of integrating your company's infrastructure of HR assessment, planning, and development tools into a single, cogent system. The Talent Management Handbook explains how to align your company's people with the current and future needs of the organization by placing employees in positions that maximize their value.

The authors identify three key steps to a human resources strategy that will drive your organization's success:

1.

Identify, select, and cultivate "Superkeepers"--the employees your organization can not afford to lose

2.

Locate and develop highly qualified backups for key positions, which are critical to organizational continuity

3.

Allocate resources to employees based on actual and/or potential contribution to organizational excellence

The book also explains how to build all your HR disciplines on the "building blocks" of organizational competencies, performance appraisal, and forecast of employee/manager potential. You'll discover how to enhance employee improvement through coaching, mentoring, constructive dialogue, and feedback from many organization levels. You'll also learn about powerful reward systems, that support different talent management strategies. The Talent Management Handbook explains how to create a talent management system that dramatically improves your organization's return on its HR investment, while increasing the overall performance and satisfaction of every member of your organization.

The Key to Organization Excellence is Managing Talent

The Talent Management Handbook explains how organizations can identify and hold onto their most valued employees, but also how to get the most out of "high-potential people" by developing them and promoting them to key positions.

The book explains:

• Three broad measures of organization excellence
• Six human resources conditions necessary for organization excellence
• A talent management system that links your employee assessment process to organizational and individual career planning and development activities

The Talent Management Handbook will help you to design career plans that will boost employee morale, as well as create and sustain excellence in your organization. It is full of simple, efficient, easy-to-follow methods for assessing, planning, and developing high- value people to meet your organization's current and future needs. And it will help you combine your organization's diverse human resources activities into a single, cogent system

Featuring best practices from leading companies as well as contributions from field experts who hold top positions in such leading HR consultancies as AON Consulting, The Hay Group, Hewitt Associates, Right Management Consulting, Sibson Consulting, and Towers Perrin, The Talent Management Handbook is the most authoritative resource for creating and maintaining excellence in your organization through people management.

About the Author

Lance A. Berger is a management consultant specializing in talent management, change management and compensation. A former general partner for the largest compensation practice worldwide at The Hay Group, he co-wrote and co-edited The Compensation Handbook. The Change Management Handbook, and Deengineering The Corporation. He has been a featured speaker at the United Nations, The Conference Board, American Management Association, and the American Compensation Association.

Dorothy R. Berger is a consultant in talent management. She co-edited The Compensation Handbook, Fourth Edition, The Change Management Handbook and Deengineering The Corporation. She is the editor for in-house newsletters and publications.

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Customer Reviews

Excellent, apart from Berger's over-promotion
This is a comprehensive guide to talent management with lots of practical examples and case studies.

Contributors are drawn from human capital consultancies such as Right Management, Hay and Towers Perrin and senior practitioners at organisations such as QVC, the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and SBLI Mutual Life.

The first two chapters by Lance Berger, who is also one of the editors, annoyed me a bit because they read like a big advertisement for Berger & Associates own talent management system. The principles are sound but he is clearly using the text as a platform to advertise his services.

One of Berger & Associates core concepts is that of the "Superkeeper" (tm), fairly self-explanatory, which is central to much of the debate about how to manage your talent - especially the cream of the crop. The term is displayed with a trademark notice at its first mention in the preface and is used repeatedly by most authors throughout the book - again, fair enough, it's a valid concept. However, any time it's mentioned, it also appears with its official definition like the other authors were under contract to use Berger terminology. I have no problem with the use of common vocabulary - in fact, it's useful to draw common themes from the various authors' perspectives - but the over-promotion of the term did start to grate as I progressed through the book.

Having said that, this is a very complete guide to talent management, which benefits from the variety of contributors that have been drawn together.

The book is divided into seven parts:

1. Introducing a talent management system
2. Developing the building blocks of talent management (excellent material on competencies, performance management and assessment)
3. Talent planning (succession planning, including a chapter devoted to issues in family businesses)
4. Building diversity (two chapters on building high-potential women and diverse groups)
5. Coaching, training and development (excellent contribution on leadership coaching from Right Management)
6. Using compensation to implement a talent management plan (including linking competencies to performance and pay)
7. Using IT to support a talent management system

Easy to dip into if you're looking for examples of best practice in a particular area, and a good one-stop reference guide for insights into the broader issues.

Introductory, intermediate & advanced - all in one!
This may very well become the standard reference for Talent Management due to its coverage of all diverse threads that contribute to effective talent management in organizations. As an external HR consultant I find myself referring to it again and again and I've recommended it to several clients who also said the same thing.

Berger and Berger have done an excellent job of putting together this comprehensive reference and the introductory chapter written by Lance Berger simplifies the myriad of activities that collectively constitute talent management. In the second chapter, Lance further develops these concepts into an effective action plan that almost any organization can implement.

I was also quite impressed with the chapter on competencies (Chapter 5) and succession planning in family businesses (chapter 24). The chapter on competencies is a simple, straightforward introduction that will appeal to both the novice and the experienced professional. It covers the basic concepts and presents a step-by-step plan for developing and implementing a competency model in an organization. Edwin Hoover in Chapter 24 (Succession Planning in a Family Business) is a brilliant solution to what is, at best, a thorny issue with several excellent pointers and ideas for overcoming these issues.