Cultural Dimensions of Talent Management

[MUSIC]

Hello, everybody.

It's great that you are all here again to learn more about another fascinating topic

in intercultural human resource management.

Today it's intercultural talent management.

My name is Marion Festing.

And I'm not only a professor of human resource management and

intercultural leadership at the ESCP Europe.

But I am also the Academic Director of ESCP Europe's Talent Management Institute.

The discussion about talent management began in the late 1990's

when McKinsey consultants introduced the expression war for talent.

The reason was that there was an increased demand for

talented employees caused by the change to the knowledge economy

in which human capital is the main source of competitive advantage.

To date, it is one of the most important challenges for companies worldwide and

capabilities to cope with the talent shortage seem to be in short supply.

The situation of talent scarcity can be found

in many industrialized countries such as Germany.

And it makes it difficult for organizations to attract and

retain the best employees, which is the major goal of talent management.

USCP Europe wants to contribute to the state of the art

in talent management on a global level.

And so it has created the first European talent management institute.

Within this unit you will get to know some of our work

from various regions of the world.

The learning objective here is to learn about

the intercultural dimensions of talent, of the talent definition.

And gain the latest insights into Global Talent Management.

Furthermore, we provide you with intercultural examples from our recent

research in India, in Russia, Italy, and Germany.

There is no generally accepted definition for the term talent.

Here, we have to ask many questions.

What is a talent?

Do you have a talent?

Are you a talent or will you become a talent?

What happens if someone does not have a talent?

We can describe a talent for example through knowledge, competencies,

skills, the ability to learn and to grow, and other things.

However, each firm has to define it's own understanding according to it's needs.

There is no one size fits all approach, but

two approaches to dominate the discussion.

The universalist approach suggests that talent management activities

focus on all employees.

Following the assumption that everybody has a talent.

On the contrary, the elite approach focuses on a small number of highly

skilled employees and managers.

Also refered to high performers, high potentials.

And key talents,

which are those employees in key positions who are pivotal to the organization.

In an intercultural environment in both approaches

there can be different assessments of talent based on culture.

This means that the characteristics of talent can also be culture bound.

For example in China, [FOREIGN] a person and network of relationships

can be an important feature of a talent, on the contrary,

in the US, the individual track record of the employee might be more important.

Mighty National Enterprise has to consider this when taking a global approach

to talent management.

Global talent management includes attracting, selecting, developing, and

retaining the best employees in the most strategic roles on a global scale.

So called, best practices, have been identified in all of these areas.

However, these practices need to be properly aligned

with a company's business strategy and

deeply embedded in the corporate culture in order to be successful.

Furthermore, they have to fit with the local culture environment.

Thus once again, we have to design a balance between global standardization.

And local adaptation as introduced at the beginning by my colleague, Kristen Alphus.

Although, this time the balance concerns talent management.

Now I will let my colleagues from the ESCP Talent Management Institution give

some examples of our fascinating research on intercultural talent management.

Lin Schafer the head of our talent management institute has spent some time

in order to research the Indian particularities of talent management.

[SOUND] >> During my research project on diversity

and talent management in the Indian IT sector in Bangalore.

I learned several things.

First, the female labor participation rate in India with 29% is rather low.

However in the IT industry, there are 30-40% women in the workforce.

Which demonstrates that technology plays a major role in increasing female labor

participation.

Such as working from home, telecommuting and video conferencing.

Second, I found one IT company that had won multiple awards for

its diversity and inclusion initiatives.

And the interesting thing was that in order to make sure women had

equal opportunities to compete, they stressed a culture of meritocracy.

This transparency of performance ratings was highly appreciated by all employees.

And third, after conducting exit interviews with

thousands of women employees, they combined the learnings

in the life stage approach to talent management at this company.

The first stage involved giving early career stages and

top performers exposure and visibility.

The second stage was about offering flexibility to mid-career managers

by allowing, for instance, extended maternity leaves, transfers, etc.

And a third stage then involved empowering those in advanced career

positions by encouraging entrepreneurs, offering mentoring programs and

placements such as top positions.

So to sum up, this example is clearly not representative for

talent management in India as the IT sector is very special.

It can also serve as an inspiration for western companies though.

However, health, security and

educational issues need to be equally addressed in India.

>> Now we go to another emerging country.

In this case, it's Russia.

Maral Muratbekova my colleague and

professor of Human Resource Management at the Paris campus of ESCP Europe.

We give you some insights into the management of young talents in Russia.

>> Together with Marion Festing from ESCP Europe and

Veronika from High School of Economics in Russia, we

conducted a study on the particularities of talent management in Russian companies.

One of our key findings is that young talents

are becoming an attractive target group for talent management programs in Russia.

Why?

First, young talents cost much less than the senior talents.

Training contracts with young talents are exempt from social insurance payments.

In addition, given the current economic situation it is difficult for

companies to offer sufficiently competitive compensation to attract

senior talents from external labor market.

Second, even in the best universities in Russia,

internships are considered as a formality.

Thus, young talents start their career

during their studies to gain business knowledge and Inexperience.

Their principle job values are learning and development and not high income and

job security.

Companies develop and maintain close relationships with added universities to

recruit and select the best students, and the inclusion in their town

pool is based on a assessment of future potential and adherence to company values.

The companies then provide working students with flexible schedules and

offer sophisticated training and development in order to retain them.

>> The last example is a comparative study which deals with the differences In talent

attraction in Germany and Italy, and focuses on soft skills.

Sochi, a professor of human resource management

at the Turin campus of ESCP Europe.

And Michel associate researcher of the Talent Management Institute, and

head of the Career Service of the Berlin campus Represent this part.

[SOUND] >> Hi, I am Michaela Wieandt and

working as affiliate researcher in the Talent Management Institute.

Within the framework of the Talent Management Institute,

we launch research project about the perception of soft skills,

importance and the corporate environment.

>> In fact, we observed that multinational companies are struggling to develop

leaders and employees able to operate in a fast moving, liquid, and complex scenario.

Obviously, changes in the job market require the development of new skills.

The challenge in talent attraction is to define the right criteria for

identifying the right talent.

Which talents are needed?

Which are the most important soft skills for the job market?

We decided to enroll for our Italian and German HR communities

in the discussion as well as our students at their first working experiences.

In some we involved around 1,500 people and

collected a total number of 400 responses.

Companies considered that the most important soft skills were team working

skills, being committed to work and communication skills.

For students the most important skills included communication skills and

we find commitment to work and analytical skills in the second and third positions.

Hi, I am Chiara Succi, it has been very interesting to compare answers for

Italian and German samples.

The Italians stressed the importance also being professional

etiquette in the first place.

Why the Germans focus on their adaptability to changes.

In addition students perceived that different sectors

required different skills.

In digital and telecom companies,

they found it crucial to be able to tolerate stress.

While in finance and consulting,

the ability to learn was perceived as one of the most required competencies.

There is more for you.

You will find the full report of the research project on this website

of the Talent Management Institute.

It will be published very soon.

Stay tuned.

The presentations of four researchers

from the ESCP Europe Talent Management Institute

have shown the fascinating cultural dimension of talent management.

For more insights into this topic, please see our website.

However, we are not done with intercultural human resource management.

The next part will be intercultural rewards, a very important

field which shapes the motivation and performance of international management.

I am looking forward to seeing you again for this unit.

[MUSIC]

Intercultural Management

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