Diseño de la propuesta

One of the ways Locgov managed its external pressures was by initiating their Step up to Leadership development program and identifying talent for this program who could become successors to the exiting senior leaders of Locgov. Locgov also incorporated a policy of inclusion and diversity in its talent identification process to ensure that the talent pool was diverse and representative demonstrating corporate citizenship and social responsible organisation. These initiatives were symbolic for achieving competitive advantage and making it one of the best councils outside London in line with its corporate vision.

129

6.9.2 Internal Pressures

6.9.2.1 Management of Poor leadership

For leading change, Locgov appointed managers who understood the vision of the TM policy and what Locgov was trying to achieve by it to promote its message to other management teams rather than having the HR team do this. The expectation was that having likeminded employees communicating the message would have more impact. In addition, the ODM stated that she had a ‘PR’ campaign where she met directly with several directorates for briefings about the leadership program and many of the talent pool members voiced

credibility in the program because they felt she was authentic in her approach in addition to having the CEO’s backing. Also, the inclusion of a well written publication on the leadership program for all applicants which conveyed details of the selection processes, development, procedure for assessments, its expectations and boundaries as well as expected leadership behaviours and finally a description of Locgov’s values defining everyone and managerial roles in achieving this sent a clear message of fairness and transparency in Locgov’s approach to TM even though this message could only be seen by employees that were nominated in the targeted job grades. To manage challenges of biases regarding favouritism in the identification process, the ODM said the selection process was done outside Locgov in combination with independent assessors for more reliability.

6.9.2.2 Performance Management and Building Capability

Locgov managed this problem innovatively by firstly creating an Early Leavers Incentive’ (ELI) program which encouraged senior leaders wishing to exit the organisation to indicate their intentions formally and enable proper planning for their exit. This program involved the development of formal and informal methods of capturing knowledge from senior leaders exiting the organisation by staggering timing of exit for retirees to allow time for knowledge transfer in essence capturing tacit knowledge i.e. ‘talent’. Through this proactive program they were able to avoid a ‘talent crash’ which would have had a negative impact on organisational performance that could have led to crisis management.

Secondly, Locgov developed an infrastructure to support long-term succession and workforce planning by initiating activities to support formal performance appraisals and career conversations, sharing information and data about the workforce profile and ELI with HRBPs and line managers, aligning workforce planning to budgeting tools and service reviews to facilitate the identification of future roles. They also developed HR personnel specifically to run the development centres and provide feedback to the organisation and

130 individuals. Recognising the need for diverse workforce comprising both young and mature staff, Locgov initiated a graduate scheme which has also enhanced performance as

reflected in the interview except below:

“We started a graduate program two years ago and so the graduates are employed in a two year fixed contract program but my expectation is that well before the end of that they would have gotten a promotion....But it has made other people sit up and take notice. And that has added another dimension to the TM program but it is bringing young people in who are energetic and hungry for quick promotion which is adding a different bit to it”.

6.9.2.3 Management of organisational culture

One of the plans for managing Locgov’s culture was through educating talent pool members about Locgov values and expected behaviours as described in each application package given to potential talent pool members in the targeted grade. Training and development for talent pool members also focused on these values and behaviours for creating awareness and to enable communication to their teams. The concern with this approach however relates to the level of impact on the organisation since information is only exclusive to this group of people rather than to the whole organisation. Visibility of the CEO and senior leaders was another approach for driving cultural change as they constantly engaged with employees about the leadership development program and decision makers to drive credibility in the programs and this also communicated assurance of stability. Referencing the importance of this last point, one talent pool member who was also a manager,

expressed that most employees only wanted to be sure that their jobs were stable due to numerous similar changes that have happened in the recent past that achieved nothing and as a result were not interested in participating in any new initiatives. Recent studies (Stahl et al., 2007, 2012) highlight the importance of multiple owners not just HR but also CEO and managers for ensuring successful TM systems.

6.9.2.4 Management of other challenges.

Though there were no comments as to how Locgov managed the challenges of a lack of transparency, digitisation and also inconsistencies in recognising talent, the importance of having effective technology for efficiency in employee engagement, records management and decision making cannot be overemphasized in organisations. Supporting this view, Chugh & Bhatnagar (2006) contend that having a functional technology system in place enables effective and efficient decision making. This is because the data allows tracking and monitoring of an organisation’s talent and their capability and promotes opportunity for thier

131 development and support. Another possible reason accounting for inadequate management of the challenges of inconsistencies in the make up of the talent pool, talent retention and turnover were as a result of governmental pressures through budget cuts which hindered progression of talented employees in certain departments whose services were at risk as indicated in the quote below:

“I think there is a lack of opportunity at the moment because there is a financial cut back. So there is a lack of progression. There might still be lots more opportunity to go into senior roles in the council but in the field that I am in, we provide services to people and it’s likely that going forward that the council might relinquish those services and it could be that we might end up working as a co-operative or a social firm or we could be placed in the voluntary sector. Maybe if I was in Legal or if I was in commissioning or something like that, then that might not be the case” (talent pool member, 0075). However, Locgov displayed transparency in its management of talent retention and turnover through proactive management of talented employees’ expectations by formally clarifying to applicants that being chosen for talent development programs did not automatically

guarantee promotion to senior roles in its leadership development application package.