The world of talent management will undergo massive evolution this year. Some predictions have been collated together. The trend towards part-time work, freelancing or having gigs will expand ever further. Concepts such as the sharing economy and crowd-sourcing have given rise to newer streams of businesses such as Uber and Airbnb that will continue to grow. The employee experience will get increasingly personalized. Performance review or feedback will not be static or one time yearly, but a constant, more transparent process based on quantifiable metrics. HR will also imbibe techniques of business analytics used by marketers to evaluate individual performances and provide relevant solutions. The overall focus for HR managers will largely move towards ensuring employee wellbeing to drive greater engagement and improved performances.

Source:http://www.hcamag.com/hr-news/top-five-talent-management-predictions-for-2017-229074.aspx

Work schedules have moved on from the traditional nine-to-five. Now there is an increasing army of freelancers, part-time workers or those involved in gigs. In such a scenario, there must also be a scheme of phased retirement. Human life span has increased, and people are now fitter for longer due to better healthcare facilities. This has meant that people can work till a much higher age. This is also good for organizations as they are not compelled to lose an experienced brain one fine day. The US government realized that a substantial proportion of its staff was due to retire in 2017, so it incentivized them working longer. Business research conducted by the Sloan Center for Aging and Work in Boston has found out that three-fifths of workers continue to work somewhere even after retiring from their main jobs. Most of those people who retire at once are those from the middle class. Those at the lower spectrum need to continue working due to financial reasons, while those on top want to continue to contribute. Several organizations have now started phased retirement schemes by which they can retain their best employees till longer in their lives.

Source:http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/the-case-for-phased-retirement

As per the US News and World Report (USNWR) rankings, the best rated hospitals in the country are Mayo and Cleveland Clinic. The common factor between these two is that both are run from the very top by physicians themselves and not specialist business professionals. Such general trend can be observed across the industry of the best hospitals being run by doctors. The concept of domain expert leaders is not limited to the healthcare sector but across fields such as universities being led by academicians or sports teams by ex players. The biggest benefit that doctors bring to the table is peer-based credibility. This helps in talent recruitment as the best of fellow doctors wish to associate knowing that the one at the top has gone through the ropes. It also brings credibility with other stake holders such as patients, donors and the pharmaceutical industry. Physicians also foster better innovative an atmosphere. The medical profession by very definition is about individual excellence as opposed to the group dynamics demanded of business leadership. This can be rectified through specific management training as is being provided by the likes of healthcare institutions such as Yale Medicine, Virginia Mason and Hartford Healthcare, or business schools such as Wharton, Harvard and Weatherhead.

Source:https://hbr.org/2016/12/why-the-best-hospitals-are-managed-by-doctors?referral=00563&cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-daily_alert-_-alert_date&utm_source=newsletter_daily_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alert_date&spMailingID=16213556&spUserID=OTY0OTMwNTk5NwS2&spJobID=922436335&spReportId=OTIyNDM2MzM1S0

There is a lot of talk regarding the failure of annual performance reviews and thus several companies are getting rid of them. The Bell Curve to measure employees’ performance has been dropped by a few companies in India while many startups never adopted them in the first place anyway. Yet the comprehensive move away from them is a figment of fiction, as the McLagan Study for 2015 proves. Majority of firms are grappling with best means of talent management, yet completely doing away with performance reviews may not be the solution unless those hours saved by avoiding them, are used by the managers in providing coaching sessions. Instead the process must be rectified. For this the purpose of performance reviews must be set clear, avoiding all ambiguities. The entire talent philosophy and performance evaluation metrics must be aligned towards annual goals. Such measurements must be simple for all to comprehend rather than complex. The process must be transparent and be able to assess the top performers from those who aren’t delivering. Performance reviews must be integrated with broader corporate training plans. Also technology must be used as an enabler, not to burden the existing staff with additional tasks.

Source:http://www.forbesindia.com/blog/business-strategy/fixing-performance-management/

In spite of major changes in the global workforce, talent recruitment and management systems continue to be antiquated. As per a report provided by the Manpower Group, two-fifths of their clients have a mix of fulltime employees as well as freelancers. The traditional HR teams are only concerned with internal employees, while talent procurement teams are concerned with those beyond the organization. Very little policy making is done for the gig employees further exposing the company to risks of data leakages. Thus five lessons have been deduced which will help drive the new approach aligned with modern talent needs. First of all, the workforce must be properly understood. The team leaders must be trained on the importance of having diversified teams. The division explained above regarding HR and procurement needs to be broken down. The workforce strategy must be a single integrated one for the entire organization. The enormous amount of business intelligence now available through analysis of data, must be used for more purposes than just talent acquisition but also retention.

Source:https://hbr.org/2016/12/the-big-disconnect-in-your-talent-strategy-and-how-to-fix-it

It is commonly agreed that the employees are the biggest resource for organizations. However, quantifying their performances becomes very difficult. Traditionally qualitative measures were used up and even when quantitative ones were applied, they have been individual performances which do not reflect on final group goals. Thus the field of talent management and HR overall have a lot to learn from marketing. With the advent of the internet precise business intelligence could be eked out. Thus marketers learnt to graduate from simply tracking ad impressions to actually measuring their impact on sales using the data available. HR personnel similarly need to shift from a cost to value mindset. Also, marketers seek to understand their market beyond local geographies, so similarly HR leaders must also embrace a diverse workforce. The movement of HR as a field to more quantitative a discipline goes on.

Source:http://www.forbes.com/sites/gaudianohunt/2016/10/24/how-do-you-quantify-the-value-of-your-companys-talent/#3cc509fb3a72

At the recently held Fortune Most Powerful Women Next Gen summit in California, it was realized that money is not the only thing that motivates employees. The Chief Culture Officer of We-Work which is heavily staffed by millennials confirmed that non-monetary benefits play a huge role in talent recruitment and retention. This includes perks such as paid time off to engage in volunteering activities. The Chief Product Officer at Glassdoor resonated similar thoughts by stating that rewarding employees for their hard work, pays off. Employees also need to feel more empowered as stated by the EVP of Wal-Mart. When individual contributors feel like employees they produce better results and this personality seeps across the office space.

Source:http://fortune.com/2016/11/30/wework-corporate-culture-millennials/