Battle for talent, the 'fourth world war'<\/p>\n
K. Basrie, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta<\/p>\n
Helen Handfield-Jones, coauthor of The War for Talent, made a
\nstop in Jakarta on her tour of five major cities in Southeast
\nAsia to promote the 200-page book, published by Harvard Business
\nSchool Press last year.<\/p>\n
The book is based on research with 200 senior managers from 77
\ncompanies in 1997 and 56 companies in 2000, all of which were
\nbased in North America. The study was conducted by Canada-based
\nMcKinsey & Company, where Handfield-Jones and the other two
\nwriters, Ed Michaels and Beth Axelrod, work.<\/p>\n
Even though the characteristics of the companies and the
\npeople surveyed for the study might have significant differences
\nfrom those in Indonesia, the book will help broaden our
\nperspectives about what the battle for competency and success is
\nall about: Preventing the most talented workers from bailing out.<\/p>\n
With the help of PT McKinsey Indonesia, we sat down with
\nHandfield-Jones to discuss what it takes to be a talent in
\ntoday's workplace.<\/p>\n
What do your really mean by talents in the book?<\/p>\n
It's really very old and inclusive about someone's capability
\nto do their job, it includes their inherent abilities, like
\nintelligence and personality. But also their skills, knowledge,
\ntheir values, all of those things.<\/p>\n
We're talking about a highly talented person. She could be a
\nhighly talented baseball player, and a terrible soccer player
\n(laughing). Or it could be terrific business leader and a
\nterrible journalist. So, when we're speaking about highly
\ntalented persons, it means they've got a total set of skills,
\nabilities, values and mind-set. For a pharmaceutical company,
\nthat means a great scientist, for a soccer company, it means a
\ngreat planner, for most other businesses it means the most senior
\nleadership.<\/p>\n
Then, how do you precisely describe the war for talents,
\nparticularly in the global arena nowadays?<\/p>\n
Talents have become more important and more difficult for
\ncompanies, with four forces driving that. The first force is the
\nincrease for knowledge workers generally -- computer programmers,
\nmedical technicians, business people, journalists, and all of the
\npeople who work with their mind -- instead of with their hands.<\/p>\n
As the world shifts to an information-based economy from a
\nmanufacturing based one, a large percentage of the jobs are now
\nknowledge-worker jobs. In 1900 in the U.S., for example, 17
\npercent of all the jobs were considered to be knowledge jobs. But
\nnow, it's over 60 percent and it's increasing. Overall, there's
\nan ongoing demand for educated people.<\/p>\n
(Christian Van Schoote from McKinsey Indonesia said that his
\noffice had not yet carried out a study on the same issue in
\nIndonesia. But he firmly believed that big cities all across the
\nglobe were obviously facing the same problem.)<\/p>\n
The second force is that the jobs of senior managers all over
\nthe world are more challenging than they were 10 or 15 years ago.
\nMany forces are requiring companies to be more innovative, higher
\nperforming and faster to respond to change in the global economy.<\/p>\n
And I think in the Asian context or any developing nations
\nwhere you have companies facing tighter competition than ever
\nbefore, privatization, deregulation, and the wonderful advances
\nof science and technology, many companies in Asia are also
\nthirsty for more and better business management talent.<\/p>\n
The third is that talented businesspeople are more mobile,
\nmore able to change companies. This is very true in the United
\nStates. So if I don't like the company I am working for now, I
\ncould change to another company. Plus, there's mobility across
\ncountries. People could leave Indonesia and go to the U.S. or,
\nmore usually, to Singapore. And European, American and Japanese
\ncompanies are looking for talents. They come in to find talents
\nin places like Indonesia.<\/p>\n
And, finally, the fourth force, there's a difference here in
\nthat some countries have demographic problems -- which you don't
\nhave here but we do in North America -- in the form of an aging
\npopulation, where people under 45 are actually decreasing in
\nnumber. The pool for the next generation leaders is smaller and
\nsmaller.<\/p>\n
You don't have that problem here but your challenge here is
\nthat in term of supply of business management talent you don't
\nhave a very deep pool of managerial talents who have been exposed
\nto competition and best practices.<\/p>\n
Do the Asian cultures, values and so on play a certain role in
\nthe war?<\/p>\n
Certainly they do. Cultural differences influence what
\napproaches are appropriate. Most of the principles in this book
\nare globally implacable but apply differently because of
\ndifferent cultures. Let's take several examples. In Asian
\ncultures and also European cultures too there's a reluctance to
\nbe frank and honest about performance, right?<\/p>\n
What about family-owned businesses that are so common here?<\/p>\n
That poses a challenge because again it becomes more difficult
\nto be honest about people. We certainly see family-owned
\nbusinesses that have overcome the problem after being objective
\nabout performance and recruiting the most qualified people. But
\nin some family-owned businesses, that's difficult to do.
\n So, what's your suggestion to such companies we have here?<\/p>\n
I would say to adopt the mind-set that we need capable people
\nto run the company and that some of them can be family members
\nand others not. But let's assess and promote people based on
\ntheir overall performance.<\/p>\n
How much we can trust them certainly is a factor but also how
\ncapable they are and how effective they are at leading the
\norganization. It's more about capability rather than
\nrelationships.
\n Do you think that headhunters, for instance, would help solve
\nthe problem?<\/p>\n
They are playing important roles in North America. Many big
\ncompanies are looking for them. It's a good thing for the talent
\nmarket to become more transparent, where buyers and sellers can
\nmatch up to select the right people. The increase in headhunter-
\nand Internet-recruiting also fuels the mobility of people moving
\nfrom one company to another. It makes the best use of talent and
\nthe mechanism helps talented people to find ways for the best
\nopportunities. It's a little bit like a free market.
\n In such a war, what are the best weapons for companies here in
\nIndonesia to avoid the nightmare of losing their gifted
\nemployees?<\/p>\n
I don't agree with the word nightmare, I don't (laughing).
\nThose kind of people moving is a trend that won't stop. What a
\ncompany should do to respond is, first, be very good in retaining
\nyour best people so know who your very best people are and make
\nsure you are giving them proper promotion and compensation.<\/p>\n
Give your people as much as you can. And in general, it's good
\nfor companies to compete for talent. Companies should have two
\nthings, one is that they have to realize that it's going to
\nhappen.<\/p>\n
(According to Van Schoote, companies willing to achieve their
\ngoals should do all their best to retain their best employees.
\nBut many firms don't do that and let the best go and keep the
\npoorer performers, who are less likely to move on.)
\n Any tips for employees planning to make a change?<\/p>\n
We should look at our proper value preposition: what are the
\nother organizations offering you, can you really change it, what
\ndo your talent competitors have that you don't? That's a very
\nstrategic approach.<\/p>\n
Is that what you call EVP (employee value preposition) in the
\nbook?<\/p>\n
Yes. That's the place at which we start.<\/p>\n
What about the tactics for employers?<\/p>\n
They should know who their best people are and find out the
\nreasons why the best leave. Why have we failed to retain them? So
\nit needs a kind of very personal and individual tactic to keep
\nhold of these people.<\/p>\n
(McKinsey's research in the U.S. shows that the opportunities
\navailable in their current offices lead talented individuals to
\nstay, added Van Schoote.)
\n Here in Indonesia the "pull" factors for people leaving their
\ncurrent companies are varied, such as the weakening of the local
\ncurrency, the lack of career opportunities, a poor relationship
\nwith the boss and the poor working environment. Your comments?<\/p>\n
(Van Schoote, who was given the chance to reply first to the
\nquestion, insisted that although McKinsey had not done any
\nresearch here, they believed that a rupiah-based salary was not
\nthe most determining factor. In the end, he went on, people
\nmoving abroad will also face the same relative living cost. What
\nMcKinsey thinks most about the critical factors are the culture
\nand opportunities, not the compensation.)<\/p>\n
You cannot make a great value preposition with compensation
\nalone. Also you cannot attract people with money alone. But, like
\na car, if you can buy one at half the price or far less than the
\nprice it's a different story. So compensation matters but if the
\ndifference how does this sentence end?<\/p>\n
In many industries a decade or two ago, the difference between
\nthe most profitable company and a not very profitable company was
\nstructural. It could have been physical assets and plant,
\nstructural barriers or hard, tangible assets. Now in the
\ninformation era, it's the intangible things that differentiate
\nbetween companies, such as brains, innovation and relationships.
\nThe other thing is the supply-demand imbalance. Companies have
\nbeen looking for talent but the global supply is not enough. It
\nwasn't the case a decade or two ago.
\n But, why have you stayed with McKinsey for 11 years while you,
\nof course, had great chances to change?<\/p>\n
I love working with clients, I like doing research, I helped
\nbuild the talent management practice at McKinsey, and McKinsey
\ngave me the opportunities to build it.<\/p>\n
The War for Talent is available at major bookstores, including
\nQB World Books (Rp 358,000).<\/p>",
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