In the summer of 2010 a seminar was hosted by Singapore Management University. Professor Peter Cappelli, the Director for the Center of Human Resources at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, spoke of the larger paradigm of management processes as regards talent.
He poignantly reminded us that the essential tools that we use today are over half a century old. Some of what was pointed out that has been changed irretrievably includes the idea that job mobility was once unheard of when our current tools were devised. Of course, this is now a permanent fixture.
Shifts in global economic trends over the same half-century-plus have also lent their own wear and tear; a wholesale redrawing of the map as it were. This is including a handful of bubbles, as well as recessions; and has been expressed in business through cost-cutting, cutbacks and off shoring, etc. Across the 21st century's first decade, the old guard, North America and Europe were found to be heaving at times. The country of Iceland actually went bankrupt. Meanwhile, many countries in Asia demonstrated significantly more flexibility, with Singapore and China leading the way.
Across this time period, the most graphic expression of global business has been to shift of China from being largely ignored and outside the conversation, a country so challenged at the time as to only represent a potential significance, to a rising first-world icon we all must recognize.
A glaring absence in his narrative thus far has been India; which also cannot be ignored. Although China is on track to eclipse India within the twenty tens as the largest English-speaking country on the planet, India has been that global language of business’ largest speaking country across all of this time. Also being the largest democracy on the planet positions India with similar economic rise and less fanfare.
It might also be noted that in the 1980s the late Peter Drucker disabused the notion that there was any longer a ladder to climb. In the late 1990s and into the twenty hundreds it was generally recognized that the United States had lost its manufacturing base. However, old notions die hard. While one often hears that leaves us with a service economy, we are not recognizing that while we always had a service economy, we have in fact replaced manufacturing with a knowledge-based economy. Indeed, there are those who still feel that there may be a corporate letter to climb.
Against this backdrop what becomes of talent management?
Here’s where I stopped. I would have gone on, however, to conjecture: that an entirely new paradigm will evolve and emerge out of the East, that knowledge talent will supersede location and much else and that employee – employer relationships will relax during the working relationship and strengthen afterwards (compared to now, being employees are seen as disposable) so that employers can continue to call upon former employees as they need to. That there are other considerations afoot as well; including talent gaps already showing up in Asia and an evening of pay East and West.
Asia: The Battle for Talent
Is Asia responding to the talent crisis?
Thank you for reading Periscope. For enquiries on this issue, please contact Colin Kinghorn at colin.kinghorn@synovate.com. Colin is the Head of Synovate Business Consulting's Thailand office. Synovate Business Consulting (www.synovate.com/businessconsulting) is the strategic business unit that assists clients globally to enter, evolve and expand in emerging and developed markets through fact-based market analysis.
June 2010
Heidrick & Struggles Asia-Pacific Talent Index 2007-2012
Talent Management: Updating Old and Tired Practices
http://www.cfoinnovation.com/content/emerging-markets-global-players
http://www.cfoinnovation.com/content/emerging-markets-global-players
by Knowledge@SMU, 06 July 2010
About the Author: Knowledge@SMU is an online resource that offers regularly updated business insights, information and research from a variety of sources, including interviews with industry leaders and Singapore Management University faculty. The resource can be accessed at http://knowledge.smu.edu.sg/.
© 2010 Questex Asia Ltd., a Questex Media Group company
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