HP Black Book

Talent Management & Talent Acquisition
PROJECT REPORT ON
TALENT MANAGEMENT
&
TALENT ACQUISITION
IN
THE RYGGRAD CONSULTING.
SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT

OF
MASTER OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES
BY
HARSHAL SURESH PHAND
ROLL NO 2017112
MMS-II (SEM III)
YEAR 2017- 2019
LALA LAJPATRAI INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT

MAHALAXMI, MUMBAI - 400034
SUMMER INTERNSHIP PROJECT
ON
TALENT MANAGEMENT
&
TALENT ACQUISITION
SUBMITTED BY
ROLL NO 2017112
MMS-II (SEM III)
YEAR 2016- 2018
Certificate
This is to certify that the project work titled Talent Acquisition & Talent
Management is a summer internship work carried out by Ms. Harshal
Suresh Phand. The project was completed for Ryggrad Consulting under
the guidance of Ms. Padmini Dixit.
I further certify that the said work has not been submitted in the part or in full, to
any other University.
Date: 31st August, 2018
______________ ____________
Dr. Arati Kale Dr V.B. Angadi

Project Guide Director
DECLARATION
I, Ms.Harshal Phand, student of Lala Lajpatrai Institute of Management

of MMS II (Semester III) hereby declare that I have completed the summer
internship project on Talent Acquisition & Talent Management with
The Ryggrad Consulting in the Academic year 2017 - 2019. The
information submitted is true & original to the best of my knowledge.
______________________

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
At the outset of this project, I would like to express my profound thanks to

a few people without whose help, completion of this project would not have
been possible.
First and foremost, I would like to express sincere thanks to Ryggrad
Consulting For giving me this opportunity to work with them.
The list is endless but to name a few special people, I would like to thank Ms.
Dhanashri gosavi from the Human Resources Department for being
extremely supportive and guiding me throughout my internship and giving me
constant motivation and expert advice.
I would also like to thank the entire Human Resources Department for
providing me their precious time and making this internship a successful
learning experience.
I am very grateful to Dr. Angadi, DirectorofLala Lajpat Rai Institute of
Management, for giving me the opportunity to do this project in The Ryggrad
Consulting
I would also like to thank Dr. Arati Kale for being an excellent mentor and
helping me whenever I approached her.
Last but not the least; I take pride in thanking my mother Mr. Suresh & Mrs.
Suwarna Phand, siblings and friends for their much valued support.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
RYGGRAD is the trusted advisor and counsellor to some of the most influential businesses and
institutions. We are an emerging business enabling consulting firm assisting organizations achieve
their goals by means of proper strategies and execution. Ryggrad has been one of the fastest growing
firms in India. It is our diligent team and work strategy that sets us apart from other business consulting
firms.
Talent Management is managing the ability, competency and power of employees within an
organization. Understanding the various ways of how employee engagement is done at The Ryggrad
Consulting and suggesting few activities of how it can be carried on further. The procedures followed,
plan of action, its benefits for the employees and training initiatives taken up by The Ryggrad
Consulting. Throughout my internship I was not restricted to one specific line of work and my profile
was divided into two parts, Talent management & Talent Acquisition therefore I was able to gain a
well-rounded perspective on how each of these profile work. The company conducts a few employee
engagement activities for its employees such as birthday celebrations every month and some CSR
activity. As a part of my project, I gave a few recommendations regarding the same, some of which
were even taken into consideration such as
Talent Acquisition, The talent acquisition team within a company is responsible for finding, acquiring,
assessing, and hiring candidates to fill roles that are required to meet company goals and fill project
requirements. The Ryggrad Consulting believes that the right people will take the organisation in the
right direction. To accomplish their goals, they are always looking out for talented, creative, ambitious
individuals driven by challenges and passionate about excellence.
There was no proper induction programme planned for the interns, unprofessionalism amongst the
employees, senior management was not at all supportive. The unskilled employees and
communication was not upto the mark.So I gave certain recommendation for the organization amongst
which some of them were taken into consideration like planned induction programme for the interns,
face to face for the new interns, company’s presence on social media, proper planed training for the
employees.
INDEX
SR.NO TOPIC PG.NO
1 INTRODUCTION
2 TALENT MANAGEMENT
3 TALENT ACQUISITION
4 COMPANY PROFILE
5 WORK AS INTERN
6 CONCLUSION
7 RECOMMENDATION
8 BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. INTRODUCTION
Talent Acquisition
To fulfil your organization’s business needs, you need to attract and hire skilled employees.
Talent acquisition is the process through which you attract and hire these professionals.
Talent acquisition is in charge of:
• Strategically sourcing potential hires from diverse backgrounds.
• Maintaining relationships for future opportunities with past candidates.
• Proactively building candidate pipelines to meet the company’s immediate and future
business needs.
• Building a reputable employer brand thus making sure that the company attracts the
right candidates.
Talent acquisition is all about making sure that only the candidates with the right skills and
have the potential to grow at your company are hired. Talent acquisition comes first, then
talent management. Having the right employees gives your business a competitive
advantage, make sure that you do.
Talent Management
Talent management follows talent acquisition. It’s what happens after an

applicant has been interviewed and given the job. Talent management is all about
developing and retaining these skilled hires. Professionals charged with talent
management are charged with the following tasks:
• Mentorship, rewarding, and the promotion of deserving employees.
• Building hiring and succession plans.
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• The delivery of employee training programs.
• Coaching high potential hires.
Talent acquisition is the process that attracts and hires qualified employees.
Talent acquisition is the process that attracts and hires qualified employees. Talent
management develops and helps you retain these quality hires. You can’t have one
without the other. If you give too much focus on one while neglecting the other, you
won’t be able to unleash the full potential of your employees. You need to invest in the
development of the talent you attract and hire or you will not be able to retain it.
Additionally, you need to recruit skilled hires who are able to learn and develop
if you want to create a training culture and mold successful careers. Therefore, the best
HR strategy is to use both talent acquisition and talent management when hiring and
developing your employee base. Companies can use digital recruitment technologies
such as Digi-Me and their video job ads to spread their job openings and gain access to
a greater pool of talent.
Proper talent acquisition can help your business build a workplace with skilled
workers who can drive your company to success. It’s one of the most important roles
of the HR department in an organization. A company with good talent acquisition can:
• Recruit people who have the ability to grow their skills beyond the roles they are
charged with.
• Source candidates from various backgrounds and recruit a diverse set of employees.
• Develop a candidate pipeline for future staffing needs.
• Transform your business from an as needed recruitment basis to a proactive hiring

strategy.
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A business needs to be able to hire employees who have the capability to excel
at their jobs for the organization to be successful. Go for people who have been top
performers in similar roles and have the results to prove it. Viewing video job ads on
top recruitment platforms such as Digi-Me can go a long way towards helping you pick
out such individuals.
After your talent acquisition professionals ensure that the best available talent
is sourced and hired, you don’t stop there. As a company, you need to ensure that the
talent you attract is nurtured and developed to ensure continuity. Talent management
helps prevent turnover and keep the employees engaged. Here’s what a successful talent
management strategy can do for your company.
• Train and develop employees to help them achieve their full potential.
• Keep employees motivated and boost their morale.
• Career pathing to increase employee retention rates.
• Come up with most qualified internal candidates to fill key positions.
The talent management team schedules training programs and conducts skills
gap analyses, on boards new hires, and ensures that the new employees align with the
company’s overall goals and organizational structure. Talent management is a function
of the organization’s HR department. Therefore, the effectiveness of the company’s
talent management strategy is contingent on the strength of the HR department.
The talent management vs talent acquisition debate on which one is more

important than the other is unnecessary. The HR team should use both for optimum
results. That way, the organization will be able to harness the collective skills and
experience of the employees and stay competitive in the market.
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OBJECTIVES
1. To identify and understand the recruitment process at THE RYGGRAD CONSULTNG.
2. To find out various effectiveness criteria of recruitment, talent acquisition and talent
management methods.
3. To analyse if the existing training functions is achieving its objectives,
4. To evaluate the Training system for further development.
SCOPE OF THE STUDY
 My project mainly deals with the present method of talent management and
acquisition given at THE RYGGRAD CONSULTING.
 This project covers TALENT MANAGEMENT AND ACQUISIOTION

includes all other human resources activities conducted before and after
training.
The scope of the report was to get a real life exposure. It gave me an elaborate
knowledge about the talent management and acquisition at RYGGRAD. I have got the
opportunity to observe what is actually happening at RYGGRAD and how they are using
the talent management and acquisuition tools.
By studying the talent management and acquisition system of RYGGRAD the depth of my
knowledge has increased to a different level by relating the theories with practical life
experiences.
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2. Talent Management
Talent Management, as the name itself suggests is managing the ability,
competency and power of employees within an organization.
The concept is not restricted to recruiting the right candidate at the right time but it
extends to exploring the hidden and unusual qualities of your employees and developing
and nurturing them to get the desired results.
Talent management is an organization's ability to recruit, retain, and produce the
most talented employees available in the job market. Talent consistently uncovers benefits
in these critical economic areas: revenue, customer satisfaction, quality, productivity, cost,
cycle time, and market capitalization.Having good talent management is when one has good
skills, knowledge, cognitive abilities, and the potential to do well.
Talent management is also an important and necessary skill for people in the
workforce to acquire. Finding good and talented people is not a hard thing to do, but making
sure that they want to stay working for the same business is the challenge.
If someone has so much talent and they are good at what they do, businesses will
want them to stay and work there forever. However, most of those people are either satisfied
with the job they have, or they go out and look for better opportunities.
Talent Management in organizations is not just limited to attracting the best people
from the industry but it is a continuous process that involves sourcing, hiring, developing,
retaining and promoting them while meeting the organization’s requirements
simultaneously.
Only hiring him does not solve the purpose but getting the things done from him is
the main task. Therefore, it can be said that talent management is a full-fledged process that
not only controls the entry of an employee but also his or her exit. Talent management is
a never-ending war for talent!
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History
The term was coined byMcKinsey & Company following a 1997 study. It was later
the title of a book by Ed Michaels, Helen Handfield-Jones, and Bet Axelrod however the
connection between human resource development and organizational effectiveness has
been established since the 1970s.
The profession that supports talent management became increasingly formalized in

the early 2000s. While some authors defined the field as including nearly everything
associated with human resources, the NTMN defined the boundaries of the field
throughsurveys of those in corporate talent management departments in 2009–2011. Those
surveys indicated that activities within talent management included succession planning,
assessment, development and high potential management.
Activities such as performance management and talent acquisition (recruiting) were
less frequently included in the remit of corporate talent management practitioners.
Compensation was not a function associated with talent management. The issue with many
companies today is that their organizations put tremendous effort into attracting employees
to their company, but spend little time into retaining and developing talent.
A talent management system must be worked into the business strategy and
implemented in daily processes throughout the company as a whole.It cannot be left solely
to the human resources department to attract and retain employees, but rather must be
practiced at all levels of the organization.
The business strategy must include responsibilities for line managers to develop the
skills of their immediate subordinates. Divisions within the company should be openly
sharing information with other departments in order for employees to gain knowledge of
the overall organizational objectives.
The talent management strategy may be supported by technology such asHRIS (HR
Information Systems) orHRMS (HR Management Systems).
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Implementation
A talent management system is suggested to be used in business strategy and

implemented in daily processes throughout the company as a whole. It cannot be left solely
to the human resources department to attract and retain employees, but rather be practiced
in all levels of an organization.
The business strategy must include responsibilities for line managers to develop the
skills of their immediate subordinates. Divisions within the company should be openly
sharing information with other departments in order for employees to gain knowledge of
the overall organizational objectives.
The issue with many companies and the military today is that their organizations
put tremendous effort into attracting employees to their company, but spend little time into
retaining and developing talent. The talent management strategy may be supported by
technology such as HRIS (HR Information Systems) or HRMS (HR Management Systems).
Competencies
This term "talent management" is usually associated withcompetency-based
management.Talent management decisions are often driven by a set of organizational core
competencies as well as position-specific competencies.
The competency set may include knowledge, skills, experience, and personal traits
(demonstrated through defined behaviors). Oldercompetency models might also contain
attributes that rarely predict success (e.g. education, tenure, and diversity factors that are
illegal to consider in relation tojob performance in many countries and unethical within
organizations).
New techniques involve creating acompetency architecture for the organization that
includes acompetency dictionary to hold the competencies in order to build job
descriptions. Companies like Southwest Airlines, Microsoft and General Electric all use
talent management.
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Essential Tools of Talent Management

The shift from an ad hoc to a strategic talent management program can greatly aid
a company in the achievement of its business objectives.
And while there is no one-size-fits-all solution for talent optimization, leaders
should consider implementing elements such as:
1. Objective metrics: The need for metrics seems obvious. However, amid high-growth, job
descriptions are often in flux, as is the nature of the associated opportunities. But regardless
of these challenges, no company will ever be able to get the most out of its workforce
without clearly defining roles and goals as well as addressing issues such as incentive
compensation and advancement.
2. Strategic alignment: Talent, too often, is treated as an afterthought. According to the

survey conducted forThe Talent Imperative,fewer than one in ten executives from midsized
private company say their talent strategies are intimately aligned with overall strategic
planning. This can be a critical mistake, as any strategic plan must be executed by people.
So incorporating the views of HR – injecting talent into strategic planning – becomes an
essential and relatively easy to use tool for optimizing overall performance.
3. Targeted training and development: As talent and strategy become more closely aligned,
companies will begin to get a better handle on their specific talent challenges. Often topping
the to-do list: enhancing training and development another costeffective means of training
and development is to partner with local schools to develop – or merely refine existing –
courses to meet the needs of the employer. Companies can also encourage more
experienced workers to develop training videos.
4. Keytalent identification/retention: Going hand-in-hand with talent training and

development, fast-growing companies need to make sure that their most valuable
employees are engaged and satisfied: with work/life balance, compensation, strategic
direction and a host of related variables. Once dissatisfied, it is often too late to turn
things around. Companies need to make a concerted effort to proactively identify and
work to satisfy the needs of their most critical talent.
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5. Career-pathing: As talent processes mature, companies can begin to add elements that
can lead to anything from performance improvement to breakthrough. Providing each
worker – particularly their most valuable employees – with a clear job description and
performance metrics is only a start. The most enlightened companies take matters a step (or
two) further. That is, they engage with each employee to get a sense of personal abilities,
aspirations and needs to develop a growth and development plan within the organization.
6. Talent mapping: Talent mapping is a formalized process of linking the talent on hand to
the talent that will be needed to support growth in order to assess shortfalls or gaps. As
companies pursue greater alignment between talent management and strategic planning,
they begin to see increasingly greater value in talent mapping.
7. Prioritizing efforts: A sophisticated, comprehensive and value-generating talent function

will not arise overnight. Rather, as talent and strategic and operational planning become
more entwined, the most pressing opportunities become more visible. Start with those areas
determined to be of the most critical importance, and build overall talent capabilities over
time. Again, the biggest mistake being made is ignoring talent altogether. Once genuine
awareness sets in, the talent equation will begin to optimize itself.
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Talent Management v/s Employee Engagement
In the world of HR, the phrases “talent management” and “employee engagement” are
often used in the same paragraphs, if not the same sentences. In theory, the better you manage
your talent and the more engaged your employees are, the healthier your bottom line will be.
While both terms are certainly related, they are definitely not the same thing. But before we
take a deeper dive to explore the differences between talent management and employee
engagement, let’s first define the two terms:
• Talent management includes everything an organization does to recruit, retain, develop,

reward, and encourage its employees to become best workers they can be.
• Employee engagement explores how willing an employee is to invest time, skills, ideas,
creativity, energy, and knowledge into their organization.
It shouldn’t be hard to see why the two terms are symbiotic. The better an organization is at
managing talent — i.e., attracting the best and brightest to apply, encouraging the strongest
candidates to accept job offers, and motivating those individuals to work as hard as they can
and continue to develop — the more likely it will be to have engaged employees.
Think about it: imagine you just landed a new gig. Within a few weeks, you figure out that your
boss is in over their head, and virtually all of your coworkers are lazy slackers who don’t seem
to be doing much of anything.
Employee Engagement Starts With Talent Management
All managers should strive to keep their employees engaged. In addition to being
more productive, engaged employees are also happier and healthier and they’re less likely to
look for other work.
If you’re looking to improve employee engagement at your organization, consider

launching the three following talent management initiatives:
1. Form better relationships with your employees.
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2. Don’t micromanage your team.
3. Let your workers use their skills.
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INNOVATION: An Integral Part Of “Talent Management”
There are three defining characteristics of innovative corporate cultures, said Bob Carr,
senior vice president of membership, marketing and external affairs at the Society for Human
Resource Management (SHRM), during the April 14 opening keynote address of SHRM’s
2013 Talent Management Conference & Exposition, which runs through April 17. And there
are innovative companies that embed these characteristics in their human resources and talent
management strategies—and then there are all the rest.
Innovative companies “dare their employees to dream,” said Carr. They also “permit
[their employees] to fail,” since “failure, after all, is the cost of doing business.” Finally, Carr
said, innovative companies keep their organizational structures flat because “new ideas must
percolate to the top of the organization fast.”
“HR plays a critical role in unleashing innovation in companies, and [it] is in the best
position to create innovative corporate cultures, starting with the hiring process,” Carr said,
noting that in the current talent management environment “we have a lot to be optimistic about,
but we also have a lot of work ahead of us.”
PepsiCo’s Mobile Strategy
Nowhere is this assessment more true, perhaps, than at PepsiCo, where developing a
mobile recruiting strategy that meets job seekers’ needs and expectations has been a key
priority and focus for the past three years.
The years 2010, 2011 and 2012 were all dubbed “the year of mobile,” quipped Chris
Hoyt, PepsiCo’s talent-engagement and marketing leader, in his session, “PepsiCo’s Mobile
Recruiting Journey.” But these years were false starts for many—though not all—companies.
“2013 is actually the year to build your mobile strategy because your competitors
already did,” Hoyt said to an audience that, through a show of hands, revealed few had a mobile
recruitment strategy in place. He shared PepsiCo’s now three-year implementation of its mobile
recruitment strategy and the lessons the company learned along the way.
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“We’re living in an on-demand culture,” he said, “so [mobile recruitment] is all about
connectivity on demand, when and where job seekers want it.” Hoyt explained that this type of
recruitment focuses on community and the job candidate’s experience. PepsiCo is eager to
create a mobile “Apply” connection for its application process and applicant tracking system.
The company began its mobile recruitment journey in 2010, launching a simple mobile
app called possibilities, which provided users with basic company information from its website
as well as videos, tweets and blogs. Before PepsiCo launched the mobile app, the company’s
top three pages—Careers, Job Search and an FAQ—drew 6 percent, 2 percent and 3 percent of
traffic, respectively. Considering these percentages, Hoyt said,
“The timing wasn’t right for developing an m-site [mobile site].” So, the cola giant
started small. “Apps are cheap, and we needed a way to show [where our employment site]
traffic was coming from to make a case for building a mobile recruitment strategy,” Hoyt said.
“Ninety-nine percent of the content is pulled from RSS feeds and xml streams produced by
corporate media and marketing teams, as well as outside sources. And there’s an ‘email this
job to me’ button,’ in lieu of an actual ‘Apply’ option.”
“It looks live all the time because we’re leveraging content from other departments,”
he said. And the company’s recruiters are in charge of engagement, ensuring a 24hour response
rate to inquiries.
PepsiCo also started using QR codes in 2011, which, Hoyt observed, saw an 800 percent
increase in adoption and usage that year, surpassing bar codes. “We put them on business cards.
When scanned, they gave access to our job-search function.
“And our global recruiting team unintentionally launched a mobile recruiting e-mail
strategy just by adding a link to the app in their e-mails to job candidates,” he added.
Click ‘Apply’—Coming Soon
Hoyt said the company has learned many lessons over the past few years about what
works and what doesn’t in mobile recruiting. For example, he said that PepsiCo missed the
mark when it decided to take a decentralized approach toward implementing its mobile
application in other countries, such as Canada and the United Kingdom.
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There are way too many issues in each country that present obstacles to a decentralized
strategy, he said, noting differences in “legal compliance and languages. Did you know that in
Saudi Arabia, you cannot feature videos with women in them?” By 2011 the beverage and
snack maker retouched the look and feel of its mobile brand.
“PepsiCareers is about 99 percent like the original app, but now the mobile experience
is much like the online experience,” Hoyt said. So PepsiCo’s next moves will be to implement
a single globalized app and focus on honing its brand recognition through search engines.
“Content is good, but search is king,” he noted. “If you can’t find us, then all the rest is
fluff. We underestimated the power of name recognition and search, so we’ll need to make
additional investments in the app to help job seekers find us.”
Hoyt said this year the company is also starting to track apply starts to conversion rates.
“If you’re not tracking conversion rates, [mobile recruiting] is just a hobby.”
As for that elusive “Apply” button, PepsiCo still doesn’t have it worked out yet because
of the challenges that applicant tracking systems present in the mobile environment. He’s
confident, though, that the company will overcome the technical difficulties.
Job candidates are expecting mobile now but not demanding it,” Hoyt concluded. “That
[demand] will come, though. Mobile drives change and innovation, and this is the future of our
business and how we will address the candidate experience.”
But companies must pace themselves, he cautioned. “You’ve got to be able to handle
the response you’ll receive and offer a positive candidate experience.”
Today’s Environment Demands Improved Talent Management
As reported by PMI’s Project Management Talent Gap Report, between 2010 and 2020,
15.7 million new project management roles will be created globally across seven project-
intensive industries. Along with this significant job growth will be a momentous growth in the
economic footprint of the profession, which is slated to grow by US$6.61 trillion. While these
figures are impressive, if organizational leadership fails to equip employees with the skill sets
required to fill future project management roles, US$344.08 billion in GDP will be at risk. As
a result, CEOs are shifting their attention to human capital and talent management
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CEOs agree that human capital is the number one challenge globally 71 percent of
CEOs see human capital as a key source of sustained economic value 77 percent of global
CEOs anticipate making changes to their talent management strategies, with 23 percent
planning major changes Despite the shifted attention to human capital and talent management
by their CEOs, many organizations have already begun to experience the adverse effects of this
talent gap. Inability to fill these positions has led to:
 31% Decreased product or service delivery quality

 29% Difficulty innovating effectively
 27% Cancelled or delayed key strategic initiatives
 25% Inability to achieve growth forecasts
 20% Inability to pursue a market opportunity
Three critical project management skill sets needed for successful projects are technical
project management skills, leadership skills, and strategic and business management skills.
Two in three organizations (66 percent) found the greatest difficulty in finding resources with
adequate technical project management skills. However, many organizations (over 90 percent)
believe that technical project management skills and strategic and business management skills
are teachable, and as such, are likely to search for talent with good leadership skills whose
technical project management and strategic and business management skills can be honed
through training.
How Talent Management Affects Organizational Success
Increased success = Reduced Risk The level of talent management alignment to

organizational strategy has a clear impact on the success of projects meeting their original goals
and business intent. Organizations in which talent management is aligned to organizational
strategy have an average project success rate of 72 percent, while organizations in which talent
management is not effectively aligned to organizational strategy have an average project
success rate of 58 percent. The difference of 14 percentage points in project success rates
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equates to risking 50 percent more project dollars when talent management is not effectively
aligned with strategy
The way forward

Despite the job growth in the project management profession, a gap still exists in the
number of professionals fully prepared to lead and manage projects. This talent gap is
negatively impacting the growth and profitability of organizations. Quality, innovation,
strategic projects, and market opportunities have all been adversely affected by that talent
scarcity. To ensure success, organizations need to both recruit smartly and align their people
strategically.
"By narrowing our focus and having visibility and alignment throughout the organization,
everyone knows the part they play in achieving the company’s goals.
We are all in it together—the success of a company lies in everyone’s ability to make those
goals a reality."
Talent Management in India

• This new age economy, with its attendant paradigm shifts in relation human capital, in
terms of its acquisition, utilisation, development and retention, has placed a heavy
demand on today’s HR professionals.
• Today, companies have become fiercely competitive when it comes to attracting and
retaining talent. According to Branham, 75 per cent of the senior executives admit that
employee retention is a major concern today, the obvious reason being the ‘increasing
rate of turnover’.
• This changing and volatile demand supply equation with such erratic attrition trends and
cut throat competition has led organisations to focus on mechanisms pertaining to
attracting and retaining talent.
• It is an accepted truth that turnover will happen and companies need to devise a strategy
to curb unprecedented turnover from affecting organisational success.
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 As the Director, HR (Asia) of Bausch & Lomb, Mr. P.G. George declares, achieving
zero percent turnover is neither realistic nor desirable. People tend to seek change for
a variety of reasons—more money, better benefits, the appearance of a greener
pasture- and this has been a practice from the very beginning. Then, what is it that has
really changed?
 Despite intense competition being the key to market development and success,
organizations have failed to identify some of the major reasons which highlight why
‘good performers’ leave.
 In his study, Branham clearly states that one major reason why people leave their
organization is because of the organization’s failure to bring about a correlation
between pay and Performance.
 The present scenario with abundant opportunities has triggered a wave of employees,
 Perpetually “on the move”, forever seeking better opportunities whenever, wherever
and however they can.
 One of the critical functions of HR is a sound Human Resource Planning through
which they are able to project the demand for human resource and thereafter
formulate strategies for acquiring them.
As the leading HR heads of the country point out, the solution is not just about findingthe
correct retention mechanisms, but it starts from the very beginning by devisingwaysto
acquire the right people for the right jobs!
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Talent Management - Trends for 2018
1. A focus on today, not on the future
Instead of focusing on talent management interventions that have, hopefully, a long

term effect (such as traineeships and development programs), you can focus on the
interventions that have an effect today. Some examples:
 Remove the blocker in the management team, and appoint one of your top potentials
instead;
 Appoint one of your biggest talents as Chief Digital Officer;
 Give teams of high potentials responsibility for the development of new markets;
 Don’t hesitate to put your best people on the most important jobs.
2. From a standard to an individual approach
The most important trend in HR is individualisation. Today it is no longer necessary

to make assumptions about what people need and want. Today it is no longer necessary to
divide the workforce in crude segment (“High Potentials”, “Middle Management”, “The
older employees”). In consumer marketing, the individual approach is becoming very
common. The way organisations treat employees, is lagging. Employees are more and more
expecting the type of experience they have as consumers, in the workplace (read “The
consumerisation of HR“).
In talent management a tailored individual approach is very important. If you know what
the capabilities of people are, what their wishes are and in what direction they want to
develop, you can design opportunities that fit best with the individual needs and wishes.
With the technology of today, you are able to know your employees better than they know
themselves.
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3. Blurring boundaries between internal and external
There is talent everywhere. Organisations limit themselves unnecessary, if they

focus too much on developing and retaining the talent on the payroll. You can make your
talent pools larger, if you include talent elsewhere (at suppliers and partners, in the group
of alumni, the self-employed professionals who work for your organisation).
4. Performance consulting
Good people want to become better. Performance consulting is the practice, to help
people to become better, by giving them regular and granular feedback, based on real
performance. Helping top performers to become better, is not easy. It is a lot easier to give
someone with average performance some guidance on how to improve performance.
5. More focus on teams
Most of the HR practices, including talent management, are still very much focused
on individuals (Read: “From individuals to networks of teams“). At the same time, teams
are the major building blocks in most organisations. Developing and strengthening talent
teams is still an underdeveloped practice, but will get more attention in the coming years.
6. The talent experience is important
On Twitter, there is a hashtag #myfirstday. People post photos of their first day in
the new job. A photo of a nice clean desk, with a MacBook Pro and some flowers, or a
photo of the nice lunch with the team on Day One. The employee experience better be nice!
People like to share experiences, and the more positive experiences they share via social
media, the better for the employer branding. Do you know what the experience of your
talent is? Do they share heroic stories via Facebook and Instagram? How does the talent
experience your company provides score on a scale from 1-100?
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4. TALENT ACQUISITION
• Talent acquisition is the process of finding and acquiring skilled human labour for
organizational needs and to meet any labour requirement. When used in the context of
the recruiting and HR profession, talent acquisition usually refers to the talent
acquisition department or team within the Human Resources department.
• Thetalent acquisition team within a company is responsible for finding, acquiring,
assessing, and hiring candidates to fill roles that are required to meet company goals
and fill project requirements.
• Talent acquisition as a unique function and department is a relatively new development.
In many companies, recruiting itself is still an indistinct function of an HR generalist.
• Within many corporations, however, recruiting as a designation did not encompass

enough of the duties that fell to the corporate recruiter. A separate designation of talent
acquisition was required to meet the advanced and unique functions.
• Modern talent acquisition is a strategic function of an organization, encompassing talent
procurement, but also workforce planning functions such as organizational talent
forecasting, talent pipelining, and strategic talent assessment and development.
• Talent acquisition is quickly becoming a unique profession, perhaps even distinct from
the practice of general recruitment. Talent acquisition professionals are usually skilled
not only in sourcing tactics, candidate assessment, and compliance and hiring standards,
but also in employment branding practices and corporate hiring initiatives.
• Talent acquisition professionals often craft the unique company message around the
approach the company takes to hiring and the ongoing development of employees.
• The employment brand therefore encompasses not only the procurement of human
capital, but the approach to corporate employee development.
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• The unique needs of large companies especially to recruit and hire as well as attract
top talent led to the development of a unique talent acquisition practice and career.
• However, modern talent acquisition is becoming a unique skill-set. Because talent
acquisition professionals many times also handle post-hire talent issues, such as
employee retention and career progression, the talent acquisition role is quickly
becoming a distinct craft.
• As a craft, talent acquisition is of course not new; it is the simple process of
recruiting good talent to meet company needs. As a profession, however, talent
acquisition is quickly evolving into a unique and important job function.
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Essentials - Talent Acquisition
• When you look at the growth of any company, then most of us look at the numbers that
the company produces, but we forget the most important factor behind those numbers
and that is the company’s staff.
• The employees work hard in order to achieve those numbers and how successful your
company will be depends on how you look at recruitment.
• The companies which want to grow fast but steady knows that it can only be achieved
when they have the perfect combination of employees and for that recruitment is of
utmost importance.
• Whether your candidate will turn out to be an asset for the company or a liability, all
depends on how you recruit people. It is a costly affair, so when you are delving with
recruitment you must be very careful about it because one wrong move will create a
big hole in your pocket.
• If the candidates whom you have selected starts performing well, then there will be no
issue at all, instead it will come out as a good investment overall.
• In order to carry out the different processes that are involved in business, you will
require people who will be managing different responsibilities.
• In operations, HR and marketing you need people who have the skill set to perform the
job efficiently and for that it becomes a necessity that recruitment is done in a perfect
manner, so that the right kind of candidates get selected for the job positions.
Recruitment v/s Talent Acquisition
Talent Acquisition means a view of not only filling positions, but also utilization
of the candidates and their skills that come out of a rigorous recruiting process as a
means to fill similar positions in the future also.
These future positions can be identified today by looking at the succession
management plan, or by analyzing the history of attrition for certain positions. This
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makes it easy to predict that specific openings will occur at a pre-determined period in
time.
o Recruitment – In this resumes are invited for a vacancy oSelection - Screening of only
relevant or best matching candidates.
o Hiring process - Time frame from the period of requisition of man power being made
till the person actually joining.
o Talent Acquisition - Acquiring of “talent”.
Here we focus on talent that the person possesses and not just the educational
background or the experience / working years one has to be simple, it is about attracting,
recruiting, inducting and making use of right talent.
• Such as if one have a talent for content writing but do not possess any certification or
degree in this field. A person who is recruiting might not be interested in my profile.
• But a talent Acquisition person who is looking for talent might want to try my skills.
Recruitment invites the eligible candidates for the existing vacancies available in the
organization.
• Talent acquisition is an ongoing cycle of process related to attracting, sourcing,

recruiting and hiring employees within an organization.
• This includes elements of employment branding, outreach, networking and relationship

building with potential candidate communities to continually build and enhance the
talent pool for an organization.
• Talent Acquisition professionals understand that each talent has something of value to
offer.
• They also build relationships with the best of the talent that lead to more successful
networking, more referrals, more business and an amazing give and take of expertise,
knowledge and information.
• Recruiting takes tremendous effort. Talent acquisition takes efficient and productive
processes that are easy to use and candidate centric.
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• The identification, relationship building and selection of people who possess special,
creative/technical skills and who can influence, contribute to and/or drive revenue to
our business by exerting extraordinary effort, exercising strong relationship
management in present or in future could be considered as TA.
• Recruitment is a linear process, where employers source candidates for the existing
vacancies currently available. This approach is reactive in its nature, thus leads to
increased time-to-hire and cost-to-hire.
• At times organizations compromise even on quality in order to manage cost and time.
As specified above Talent Acquisition is ongoing cycle of process that starts by building
Employer Brand, communication of Employee Value Proposition and ongoing
relationship with targeted Talent segments.
• This approach leads to the development of talent pools and talent pipelines eventually
creating sustainable talent supply chain. This leads to more strategic nature of the
approach and significant improvements across all Recruitment KPIs.
• The term Talent Acquisition (TA) is often used synonymously with Recruiting.
However, these are two very different things. Recruiting is a subset of TA, and includes
the activities of sourcing, screening, interviewing, assessing, selecting and hiring.
• In some organizations this extends to the early stages of on boarding, which then
becomes a shared responsibility between HR and the hiring manager, with support from
the learning organization.
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Talent acquisition includes recruiting, but it is inclusive of other strategic

elements as follows:
 Talent Acquisition Planning & Strategy – This ensures business alignment,
examines workforce plans, requires an understanding of the labour markets, and
looks at global considerations.
 Workforce Segmentation – It requires an understanding of the different
workforce segments and positions within these segments, as well as the skills,
competencies, and experiences necessary for success.
 Employment Branding – This includes activities that help to uncover, articulate
and define a company’s image, organizational culture, key differentiators,
reputation, and products and services. Employment branding can help advance the
market position of organizations, attract quality candidates and depict what it is
truly like to work for that organization.
 Candidate Relationship Management – This includes building a positive
candidate experience, managing candidate communities, and maintaining
relationships for those candidates who are not selected at present against a particular
skill set, but have few more skills.
 Metrics & Analytics – It is the continuous tracking and use of key metrics to
drive continuous improvement and to make better recruitment decisions, to
ultimately improve the quality of hire. Within each of these core elements of TA
there are many other sub-activities and best practices. And of course, the selection
of tools, technology and outsourcing partners is a key element of a company’s
talent acquisition strategy. In other words, a leadership program is to leadership
development what recruiting is to talent acquisition. Alone, neither will drive their
highest value to the business.
More Out-of-the-Box Recruiting Strategies
It’s difficult to stand out and attract applicants when recruiting in a highly
competitive market. Technology executives from Forbes Technology Council say
locating and attracting talent, resume distrust, the need for quick hiring decisions, and
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geographic constraints have been the top recruiting challenges faced in 2016. Using
innovative and creative recruiting tactics, and finding ways to work out-of-the-box,
makes it faster and easier to find and connect with the active and passive candidates
you need in your workforce.
Ask for Reviews

You may not think company review sites like Glassdoor have a place in your
recruiting strategy, but Centric Consulting LLC’s Mike Brannan does. As part of
showcasing their company culture, Centric Consulting asks employees to put their
reviews on Glassdoor. They believe it’s a good way for candidates to get to insight into
the jobs and the culture.
Quit the Cover Letters

No one really has time to read through pages and pages of cover letters and resumes
anymore. Jenn Steele, Head of Growth at RecruitLoop, says one of the innovative
screening techniques they suggest is asking for resumes without cover letters.They
suggest asking to “describe in 100 words or less” why candidates want to work for your
company and why they are a good match for the position to more quickly and easily
assess candidate interest and creativity.
Targeted Text Ads

Get creative with your recruiting message like Restaurant Binnen in the
Netherlands. They needed new dishwashers, not the most sought-after position in the
restaurant industry. Theircreative text solution? They printed beer and wine glasses
with a red lipstick impression and their simple “help wanted” message: “Restaurant
Binnen is looking for dishwashers.” Their customers were exposed to their hiring need
and their opening was communicated at the restaurant and with their customer base’s
network. This kind of creative solution applies to almost any recruiting challenge. Need
car salespeople at your car dealership? Print your opening on paper car mats used on
test drives. Need pizza delivery drivers? Print it on your pizza boxes. Need cashiers in
your retail establishment? Print it on the bags you use for customer purchases.
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Creative College Recruiting

Business employers aren’t the only ones benefiting from highly creative recruiting
tactics. Colleges are doingmore than sending out recruitment brochures.Illinois
Institute of Technology offered free iPads to incoming undergraduate freshman to
attract students. University of New Haven Business School offered free tuition to a
student with an outstanding entrepreneurial idea.BTH,a technology school in
Switzerland, sent a mailing to students at competing technical universities with cell
phone parts to assemble. Properly assembled phones gave the message “Hi! You seem
to be technical. Call us at BTH. 0455385040.”
Make Them See It

When IKEA needed thousands of applicants for a new superstore in Springvale,
Australia in 2011, their recruitment campaign focused on local residents and
highlighted the benefits of working close to home. Using a GPS-enabled mobile
billboard with Google Maps displaying time and distance to the new store, the store
quickly and publicly communicated its employment value to candidates. This creative
strategy garnered over 4,000 applications for 280 openings.
Use Your Product to Get Applicants

Microsoft used search engine Bing’s homepage to hide its job ad. For those
technically-inclined Internet users on Internet Explorer with the browser debug settings
enabled, a popup question asks “Do you want to debug this webpage?” Running the IE
developer tools console brings up another popup question with the main recruiting
message “Interested in creating Bing.com experiences? Apply today.”
Today’s recruiting requires a comprehensive strategy that must include highly
creative tactics to find and engage candidates. Targeted and creative doesn’t have to be
expensive, but it’s always highly effective. Get the recruiting results you need with the
kinds of creative tactics described here. The alternative? The candidates go to your
competition and your workforce goes undeveloped. Start working on your out-ofthebox
recruiting strategies today.
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Technology and Talent Acquisition

We are living through an exciting era in technology development—the emergence
of interactive, social media and virtual technologies whose business applications are
not yet fully realized. “Marketing professionals were quick to use these technologies.
“The application of these technologies to talent identification and development has
progressed a little more slowly--and in today’s economy where money is tight and
resources are scarce, being more deliberative is probably a wise approach,” Gorman
observes.
Social Media
• Employers to identify and attract passive and active job seekers who may be a good fit
for their organizations are using social media websites (e.g., LinkedIn, YouTube,
Twitter, etc.)
• These websites allow users to access talent branding videos, share job histories, tap into
networks of friends (and their friends), post and apply for jobs, and even make
employee referrals.
• Most people find jobs through personal or professional networks—moving those

networks online through social media websites allows more people to be aware of an
organization’s employment brand and job openings.
• Another reason employers are intrigued about the use of these websites in identifying
and attracting talent: they are extremely cost effective.
• It costs little to establish a social media presence, although managing those networks
can be demanding.
• The rapid growth of the social media market, with new players regularly entering the
arena, makes it a challenge for employers because it is hard to know where to
concentrate their talent acquisition efforts.
• Plus, maintaining multiple social media accounts could easily become a full-time job.
Employers are also concerned about choosing the “right” application for their talent
acquisition needs as these platforms develop.
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• Unfortunately, it will take time to see what application emerges as an overall or

industry-specific leader.
Simulations
• Simulations replicate job-related tasks to allow employers to assess a candidate’s skills.
• Early simulations were usually administered in the workplace and imitated actual job
tasks (like typing speed and accuracy) to assess a person’s ability.
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Today’s simulations have gone online and have become more interactive, making it
possible to replicate a variety of work environments and to assess performance in a
more automated (less subjective) manner.
• Modern simulations are being used to assess skills in such settings as call centers (data
entry and customer service skills) and manufacturing (computer and logic skills), and
to offer candidates “day-in-the-life” glimpses into an organization’s working
environment.
Virtual Worlds
• Virtual worlds like Second Life allow participants to interact with each other through
avatars. Virtual career fairs have been used by recruiters to reach a broader audience of
job candidates in a cost effective manner.
• Until recently, technological limitations made virtual career fairs little better than what
an employer could get through online job boards - a place to post jobs and a corporate
profile, an area for online chats, and bulletin boards.
• These limitations caused interest in the use of virtual worlds in recruiting to wane. New
and improved virtual world technology, however, has caused a resurgence of interest
among employers who see virtual career fairs as a cost effective way to attract talent,
particularly for those who grew up using technology.
• In today’s virtual career fairs, job seekers and employers use avatars to enter a virtual
world. Participants can chat live through text, voice or video, conduct interviews, and
visit networking lounges where they can interact with different employers and other job
seekers.
• Virtual career fairs allow employers to reach candidates from across the globe without
the costs associated with travel and hosting on-site career fairs. They are also
environmentally friendly because they are paperless (resumes are submitted virtually)
and energy saving (reduced reliance on gas to get to and from live career fairs).
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• Social media, simulations and virtual worlds are opening new and exciting venues for
employers seeking world-class talent.
The rapid pace at which these technologies are developing will challenge employers to
stay up-to-date with their uses and manage them in ways that will align with their
organizations strategic.
The Changing Dynamics of Talent Acquisition
Talent acquisition strategies are particularly critical for companies that face
thegreatest skill shortage. However, the best organizations across sectors are
projecting future needs and are always scouting for the best talent due to its role in
achieving faster growth besides helping in finding the right talent in a short period of
time to lead that growth forward.
Talent acquisition is a dynamic process which shapes the perception ofemployersin

the market. There is a marked shift in its outlook over a period of time from work force
to human capital to talent which is a much more comprehensive description of
individuals with attributes they possess.
Talent acquisition has evolved over a period of time to become the key
referencepoint for employer pulse.It is now a strategic and competence driven
business function unlike in the past when it was restricted to hiring. It is increasingly
considered as the core function of an organization which has touch points across
planning, budgeting, employer branding, staffing, and on-boarding and market
intelligence.
Talent acquisition entails strategy to find specialists, leaders, or future

executiveskeeping in mind the long term objectives of the organization. This is
unlike recruitment which is focused on meeting the organizations immediate manpower
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needs. For this, it tends to focus on long-term human resource planning and finding
appropriate candidates for positions that require a very specific skill set unlike
recruitment which is just about vacancies.
Talent acquisition strategies are particularly critical for companies that face
thegreatest skill shortage. However, the best organizations across sectors are
projecting
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future needs and are always scouting for the best talent due to its role in achieving faster
growth besides helping in finding the right talent in a short period of time to lead that
growth.
Growing competition for the right talent and at a lower cost within the
markethasbeen stoking the evolution of talent acquisition across the globe.
Globalization and an excessively mobile talent pool have also emerged as the key
challenge to hiring the right talent and are also playing a key role in shaping the talent
acquisition landscape. This is besides the difficulty in finding a replacement for
outgoing skilled employees which is creating pressure on resourcing teams to come up
with effective talent acquisition strategies to identify and attract the best talent.
Organizations are using innovative strategies to win the battle for top
talents.These firms are taking initiatives to turn passive interest into active interest
bynurturing candidates. Some of these initiatives are going to be the standard for
talent acquisition in the future. One such strategy is sourcing creatively by using online
recruitment methods which is cost effective. Firms also opt for networking, coaching
and constant dialogue with candidates to build a strong pipeline of potential talent.
Organizations are also in collaboration with associations, colleges, etc to reach out to
local talent.
Though globalization is a challenge to retain talent it is also a boon

fororganizations as it has opened up new markets to source top talent.
Organizations are also leveraging their workforce smartly to meet the talent crunch by
giving promotions and additional responsibilities to high performing employees.
Positive and encouraging employee feedback has always been a powerful mechanism
of advertising and attracting talent. Acknowledging this, organizations have made
employee referral an effective medium of sourcing talent.
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Social networking has emerged as a powerful advertising medium and this trendis
here to stay.This has led to organizations building their branding strategy around social
media to reach out to potential candidates. Organizations are also working towards
making the entire application process exciting to provide great candidate experience
and thus attract talent.
Technology has become a big enabler in hiring talent from different locations.
Organizations are increasingly leveraging cost effective technology like video
interviewing to reduce chances of impersonation. There is also a growing trend of
organization’s coming up with mobile responsive career portals to observe job seekers’
mobile behavior, maximize candidate volume and minimize drop-offs.
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Candidate engagement post hire has assumed significance due to its role
inensuring the joining of select candidate to the organization. Realizing this,
recruiters go an extra mile by following up with candidates after the offer letter has
been provided, guiding them through pre-joining formalities right through the
onboarding process.
Recruitment Process Outsourcing is another area that is fast emerging as

apreferred talent acquisition tool for firms looking to hire talent in a cost
effectivemanner. It is increasingly accepted as a global strategy to address the global
talent crunch due to its role in harmonizing and centralizing recruitment process,
thereby providing effective returns to business.
Attracting the best and brightest employees is a continuous process

andcompaniesthat are serious about their long-term future continually network
andbuildrelationships with individuals who are at the top of their fields to
attractthem.Such organizations realize the fact that talent acquisition process can be
effective if the whole company is involved in it and is not restricted to just the HR
department. Towards this, these firms are taking all talent acquisition initiatives under
the talent acquisition program. These firms are building marketing campaigns around
talent acquisition and are involving marketing team to showcase the company culture.
To acquire the right talent firms are following an “Always Be

Cultivating(ABC)”strategy. As part of the strategy, firms are spending as much time
and effort attracting and retaining employees as it does on finding and keeping
customers. The
Company’s culture on social media is also increasingly being promoted to build and
attract talent.
With the emergence of new trends and the introduction of new tools, the
talentacquisition process is continuously evolving.Its future sits on technology and
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third parties like consulting practices, search firms, recruitment process outsourcing
(RPO), and more.
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We expect more aspects of talent acquisition to be automated and outsourced inthe

coming future. Some of the functions that will be out sourced may include payroll. We
also see a trend for talent acquisition managers to take on more responsibility for the
actual supervision and development of their employees besides their traditional role to
help out employees with the overall interpretation of the HR policy.
Talent acquisition has emerged as a key business imperative for

organizationsforits role in sourcing the right talent to ensure long term growth. It
is now a long term strategy for organizations and HR functions for their role in driving
the overall corporate success and profitability of the organization.
Trends That Will Define Talent Acquisition in 2018
• The best way to do that is to look at this current year, assess how you stack against your
peers and think about the trends that will shape your work over the next year.
• The report is based on a survey of around 4,000 corporate talent acquisition leaders across
35 countries and it will give you a look into how recruiting leaders perceive the importance
of their teams, the top metrics and priorities they track, as well as how they spend their
budgets and where they’d like to invest.
Talent acquisition has a prominent seat at the executive table
• The recruiting organization has never been the most glamorous department in the company.
It doesn’t directly bring in revenue or create game-changing products.
• Yet, it is the quiet enabler behind these company successes and this has not gone unnoticed.
• Over 83% of recruiting leaders state that talent is the number one priority in their company
and that their team regularly meets with the C-suite.
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Recruiters will be even busier this year and are focusing on finding mostly sales,
operations, and engineering talent
• The importance of the recruiting department of course translates into more responsibility.
The majority of recruiting departments, 56% of all respondents, expect to have to hire even
more people this year.
• While the global numbers are very positive, this is the first time in five years when the year-
over-year growth is slowing down. This subtle cooling of the job market reflects hiring
slowdown in Brazil, China, and parts of Europe.
Budgets go to traditional tactics, but branding tops investment wish list
• Having a glimpse into how other recruiting teams spend their budgets is always exciting
and this is the first year we have this data. It turns out that because recruiting budgets are
so tight, leaders tend to spend them rather conservatively. Over 50% of the spend for most
companies goes to job ads and recruitment agencies.
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• Around 17% of the budget is allocated to technology which allows the teams to create leverage
and automate their workflows (especially important when headcount for recruiters is tight).
Diversity, screening automation, and data are key future trends
• Given that recruiters report limited headcount and budget, while hiring demands are growing,
it makes sense that automation is top of mind for the industry.
• Automation would increase the speed of screening candidates, minimize human bias, and help
assess soft skills more precisely.
4.COMPANY PROFILE
Ryggrad is the trusted advisor and counselor to some of the most influential businesses
and institutions. It is an emerging business enabling consulting firm assisting
organizations achieve their goals by means of proper strategies and execution.
Ryggrad has been one of the fastest growing firms in India.
Its business experts serve a wide variety of clients in various industry types. Their
experts are skilled and equipped to work with global multinational companies, large
Indian corporate houses, mid-sized firms and private equity players.
They don’t just passionately work towards the goals set by their clients; they diligently
work to achieve them by means of rigorous research, planning and thus providing
successful execution. Their teams’ passion, zeal and customer centricity drive
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engaging ahead of the curve solutions and insights in managing and developing talent
across domains.
Ryggrad, as the name suggests, acts as a spine to any organization by providing it

assistance in workforce and organizational development.
Their Services and Solutions:
 Help organizations evaluate their approach to people strategies and their people
processes
 Provide practical models and patterns of the latest thinking in HR from the most
progressive companies and furthermore tailored to needs
 Inculcate and hone the HR skills and make the workforce even more impactful and
relevant to a fast moving world
“Ryggrad stands for the fearless instinct rooted in all of us, one we often forget to
listen to. If you strip away everything that defines who we are, we are left with just
two things, our instinct and our backbone”
Ryggrad is an emerging business enabling consulting firm that helps organizations in

lining up their goals with strategy and streamlined execution.
It offers broad latitude of consulting services in workforce and organizational

development across diverse global landscapes. Our team’s passion, zeal and customer
centricity drives in engaging ahead of the curve solutions and insights in developing
& managing talent across domains.
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It addresses PEOPLE transforming needs leading to cultural & behavioral CHANGE

to produce outstanding RESULTS.
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Vision & Mission
Vision:
“To invite disruption into competitive & progressive landscapes of Human Capital &
Management consulting with ahead of the curve scientific solutions that focus on
business impact”
Mission:
“To be amongst the top five most respected Management & Human Capital Consulting
organization in Indian Subcontinent by 2018”
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Services of the company
Ryggrad Consulting organization is an upcoming global HR consulting solutions

organization - A Part of $500mn conglomerate. It is one of the fastest growing HR
service providers, with Service Offerings:-
 Behavioral and Soft skills Training

 Talent Acquisition
 OD & Leadership Consulting
 Education Consulting
 Harrison Assessment
 Payroll Management
• TALENT ACQUISITION
• RPO
• Executive Search
• Contract Staffing
• HR Outsourcing
• Retained Search
• OD & LEADERSHIP
• Organization Diagnostics
• Coaching
• Leadership Development
• Talent Management
• Culture & Change
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• Talent Rightsizing & Audit

• Assessment Centers
• HR Advisory
• Competency Frameworks
• Balanced Score Card
• BEI
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• TRAINING CONSULTING
• Behavioral Labs
• Experiential Trainings
• Induction Programs
• Voice & Accent
• Soft Skills Training
• Outbound Learning
• Achievement Motivation
• Train the Trainer
• Training Needs Identification
• Content Development
• Technical/Functional Trainings
• EDUCATION CONSULTING
• Campus to Corporate Readiness

• Executive Education
• Content/ Curriculum Development
• Campus Placements
• Accreditations & Affiliations
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Stake holder’s details
Ryggrad Consulting organization is a Part of $ 500mn conglomerate. Its parent

companies are Sunil Hi Tech and VRG Training Pvt. Ltd.
Parent Company - Sunil Hi Tech Engineers Limited (SHEL), VRG TRAINING &
CONSULTING PRIVATE LIMITED,
Head Office - 601, 6th Floor, DLH Bestseller, Linking Road Talmiki Road, Santacruz
(W), Mumbai Mumbai City, India, 400054
Email ID: [email protected]
Other offices: India- Santacruz, BKC Kurla, BKC Bandra, Bandra East, Pune.
UK - London.
About the Company-
Sunil Hi Tech Engineers Limited (SHEL)
Sunil Hi Tech Engineers Limited (SHEL) is a major Engineering, Procurement &

Construction (EPC) Company in India. SHEL is the transformation of a proprietary
company into a growth giant. In 1998, the company got incorporated as Sunil HiTech
Engineers Pvt. Ltd. Since then many generations have joined the company enabling
groundbreaking ideas and build the nation by quality led innovations for the Power,
Construction and Infrastructure industries.
The company was converted into Sunil Hitech Engineers Ltd (“SHEL” or “The
Company”) on, 18th August 2005.
Good Corporate Governance has been instrumental for building the group’s overall
strength. Today the group stands tall with more than Rs. 2100 crores top line.
Sunil Hitech diversified into Power and Distillery through its subsidiary SEAM
Industries Ltd at Butibori Nagpur in 2008, which has the capability to manufacture
power plant and process plant equipment, power accessories (up to 660 mw), steel
54
girders, for ROB’s and Railway coach. The company has an annual turnover of approx.
Rs. 200.00 crores.
Values
Our values define us. It serves as a guidebook to our daily actions and behavior. It
guides us and acts as an ‘influencer’ to the way we work with each other, the way we
serve our clients and also engage with our communities. At SHEL, we demonstrate
integrity, respect and thrive on innovations. Our skilled professionals are responsible
for the high level of execution and create a benchmark by providing timely completion
of any given job. We give high importance to quality and safety standards. At SHEL
we take utmost care of our employees and their development.
Vision
SHEL’s vision is to contribute extensively to the development of the Infrastructure

Sectors by providing quality services matching the best in the Industry thus
consistently meeting the benchmarks set by customers in terms of quality, price and
schedules.
Mission
Our mission is:
o To develop and implement the best industrial practices, both offsite and onsite with
innovative construction techniques.
o To continuously improve on cycle time reduction and modernization of construction
methods thus bringing consistency in our dealings by applying these methods to the projects
handled for the power, process and infrastructure sectors.
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Philosophy
o To bring in a high level of execution skills, meet customer benchmarks serve customers and
satisfy them through timely completion of projects without compromising on quality.
o To improve on existing quality system in its operations.
o To achieve greater productivity and safety standards.
o To develop human resources and improve employee attitudes.
o To maintain good growth of net worth and build on the assets of the company.
o To be a market leader and a highly dependable services provider.
o To develop partnerships for growth and diversification.
Operational Details
Ryggrad Consulting
Location: 501 Block A, Kanakia Zillion, BKC Annexe, Bandra (E), Mumbai 400051.
No. of Employees: 15-20
Founded in year: 2015
Services:
1. Talent Acquisition
2. Payroll Management
3. Training & Development
4. Content Development
5. Project Management
6. Manpower Planning
7. Education Consulting
8. Management Consulting
List of Training Programs-
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1. Personal and Interpersonal Effectiveness

o Managing Self / Personal Effectiveness
o Personality Development
o Communication skills
o Conversational
o Time Management
o Stress Management
o Work Life Balance
o Team Building
o Conflict Management
o Business Etiquette
o Emotional Intelligence
o Transactional Analysis
o Neuro Linguistic Programme
2. Functional Competencies
o Train the Trainer
o People Management
o Interviewing Skills
o Negotiation Skills
o Customer Orientation
o Planning & Prioritizing
o Delegation
o Creativity & Innovative Thinking
o Problem Solving & Decision Making
o Presentation Skills
o Sales Training / Effectiveness
3. Leadership Development
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o New Manager Induction

o Coaching & Mentoring Skills
o Skillful Conversations
o Goal Setting
o Leading Others
o Strategic Thinking
o Performance Conversations
o Supervisory Development Program
4. Organizational Effectiveness
o Managing Performance
o Competency Mapping
o Assessment & Development Center
o Career Journey
o HR Consulting & Outsourcing
o Organizational & Leadership Culture
o Vision, Mission & Values
o Change Management
o Leadership Team Effectiveness
5. Technical Skills
o Product & Process Training
o Finance for Non – Finance
o Computer Skills – MS Office
o Project Management Training
Challenges faced by the company
58
Ryggrad Consulting, like several other consultancy firms, faced several challenges. The most
prominent one was ruthless competition, in their industry. All consultancies struggle to get
clients, make good connections and bring new companies that agree to collaborate with them.
It was especially difficult for them to find companies that would outsource training and
development requirements to them. Lead generation for getting projects for training of
employees was the most difficult task, which we face when we were going through business
development training.
Most companies prefer to conduct internal recruitments and internal training programs as per
the organization’s needs. Thus, it was a difficult task for Ryggrad to obtain new clients and
work on good profiles of recruitment and training, in order to enhance business.
Other prominent challenges faced by the company, could be discussed as follows:
 Lack of Training/ Unskilled employees

Although Ryggrad itself provided training and development solutions to others, it was
ironic to see that their own recruiters lacked basic skills demanded by their job. Many
recruiters lacked good communication skills, many lacked confidence and so on. Thus
it was difficult for them to get closures on profiles they worked on. Lack of training
was one of the most prominent problems for inadequate performance.
 Communication gaps and problems between senior management and executives

Every time the senior management came in order to evaluate the performance of
employees and ensure if the set targets were met, there was chaos and aggression in the
office. The environment turned hostile from both sides- employees as well as the senior
management.
Employees complained about not receiving salaries on time, not getting paid leaves or
other basic benefits, whereas senior management was always dissatisfied with the
performance results.
The aggression and hostility led to communication gaps and resentment between the
juniors and the seniors.
59
This led to employee dissatisfaction and eventual employee turnover. The performance
was affected and that in turn affected the growth of the firm.
 Performance deficits & inadequate resources

As mentioned earlier, due to lack of training and inadequate skills, the performance was
never satisfactory and the targets were never met. The performance deficits in turn led
to loss of client’s trust, leading to eventual loss of client base.
Inadequate resources only added to the problem. Lack of enough number of portals
(naukri and monster), less number of working employer ids, defective laptops etc. were
other problems which were ignored. These in turn were responsible for employee’s
excuses and reasons for not being able to do their job well.
 Losses borne by company/ Bad ROI

As discussed, due to lack of good basic investment, i.e. investment into training of
employees and providing them with the required skill sets of a recruiter, the
performance never met the targets. Lack of resources, delayed salaries etc. was other
problems that led to employee turnover and losses incurred.
All of this led to bad ROI and losses for the parent company.
 Ruthless competition
The competition for Ryggrad was enormous. With new consultancies emerging every
year, it was a tough task for all small sized consultancies to get good clients and to
recruit for good profiles. Several consultancies would work on the same profile for the
same company and therefore finding good candidates became difficult.
Lack of opportunities and high scale competition became a very big threat to the
survival of the company in the industry.
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61
SWOT Analysis of the company
Strengths Weakness
Good Capital Untrained
investment employees
Strong IT Client base Not target based
performance
Opportunities Threats
Invest more into Too much
training competiton
Improve employee Weak Performance
performance management
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5.WORK AS INTERN
My Summer Internship started from the 5Tth of May and was completed on June 5th
2018.
During this stint, I was exposed to several facets of HR functions, mainly including
recruitment / talent acquisition, understanding payroll management, studying training
and development programs and its importance, editing HR policy manuals and
business development.
This Internship program has been an integral part of developing management and other
important skills in me. My individual growth in these 2 months has been enormous
and life changing. It helped me gain hands on training, making mistakes and learning,
becoming presentable, developing skills required to be an effective manager etc6.
Apart from this, it has also helped me develop astute business acumen and problem
solving skills. Doing this project helped me learn thorough researching, surfing for
content on prominent HR sites, reading articles and manuals, sourcing legitimate
content and enhancing my knowledge by learning about HR practices in different
organizations and corporate.
With newer challenges coming in at every step of my internship, learning how to deal
with them and work my way around them, to find solutions and get the work done;
was a skill set I developed while working in the firm. Learning wise, it has been a
tremendously important and an evolving experience, for me as a student and as a future
HR. I learnt about business processes, training programs, live projects and recruitment
processes in companies. All of these helped me develop an understanding about the
skills and tactics required to grow and persevere in an organization.
Most of my internship job consisted of recruitment and talent acquisition. We were

given one or two profiles to work on every day. These profiles were mainly IT based,
example- sourcing for the position of Java developer, SharePoint developer, magento
developer, windows and systems admin, data centre operator, IT helpdesk executive,
PHP developer, LAMP administrator, iOS developer etc. We usually sourced
63
candidates on naukri and monster portals. In case of difficult profiles, we even used
LinkedIn to source appropriate candidates.
Another training given to us was cold calling and business development. This helped
me develop skills of convincing, being elaborate but concise on a call, engaging and
confidently speaking to clients and getting in business for our firm. In a period of 15
days, I managed to get one lead for recruitment requirements from a manufacturing
company. It helped me understand the challenges of sales, getting business and also
the level of competition consultancies face to survive. Business development also
helped me connect with as many as 30-40 HR Managers on LinkedIn, from medium
and mid-sized companies. This in turn, helped me in getting the email addresses and
a medium of communication with these HR Managers, for the purpose of filing up my
questionnaire for my research project. The conversation I had with them over the
phone also helped me understand how training and development is conducted in their
organizations. It helped me gain an insight about how much importance corporates
give to training of employees, what time of the year they choose for conducting
training programs, how often training is conducted in firms and so on.
My chosen topic for research was- “Understanding Training and Development

Programs in Corporates and Consultants.” I chose this topic to gain insight about how
training programs are conducted in different organizations, what are the dynamics of
measuring them; how they choose employees that need to undergo training and what
other challenges arise while conducting these sessions.
The entire process of reading, understanding and gathering data for my research has
therefore helped me gain an in-depth understanding about the process of Training, its
importance, relevance and challenges etc. This data was gathered by talking to HR
Managers or Assistant managers over the phone during cold calling for business
development.
64
6.CONCLUSIONS
• There was no properly planed induction programme for the interns neither there was
any face to face interviews for interns.
• Also Ryggrad lacks its presence on social media platform.
• The employee circle also was unskilled. The communication was not up to the mark,
performance was not meeting targets and the company was barely making profits, due
to all this
• Gained an understanding about How to convince people to take up a job opportunity

when the job profile had constraints like third party payroll, salary, relocation, a
stressful job or a short term job requirement
• Learnt the different ways to source candidates, various search options and what attracts
a candidate to take up an opportunity
• I had the privilege to gain experience from different employees and people while
completing the requirements of the internship, gaining ample of knowledge via
communicating with each of the employees.
• A real time experience of conducting interviews which was given to me by my boss

marks the best part of my internship
65
7.RECOMMENDATIONS
• Induction:
There should be a proper induction planned for the interns, a PPT could have been
shown to all the interns where information about the company is communicated in
detail. An induction Manual was given to the interns on the first day but people
remember more of what they see then they hear
• Face to face interviews for the interns:
There are two reasons to suggest this. First, it’s the most effective way of getting to
know the candidate and second, most of the students being fresher don’t have the first
hand experience of dealing with face to face interviews. Therefore, the face to face
interview during summer internships will help them during the interviews of their final
placement since one learns through experience
• Lack of presence in social media:
Whenever The Phoenix Mills Ltd. conducts any activity for its employees it can put up
the same on the social media like Facebook or LinkedIn in order to showcase the
organization’s participation in employee welfare, effectiveness, reputation, values and
ethics in front people
66
• The problem identified indicates a gap in supply and demand. The supply of
consultancies is huge, but demand is very little in comparison. Therefore, in
order to gain market share, Ryggrad and VRG Training would have to create a
demand and identify a need for training in every organization. This could help
them have a better scope of attracting training projects- big or small.
• Other problem with Ryggrad was unprofessionalism. Employees complained
about not getting salaries on time, not getting incentives etc. the senior
management was not supportive and lacked empathy. They were usually rude
and harsh to everyone.
• The employee circle also was unskilled. The communication was not up to the
mark, performance was not meeting targets and the company was barely making
profits, due to all this. Hiring better employees, training the existing ones and
helping them develop skills necessary to perform was something that should be
given importance for getting better results out of recruitment.
• Improving the attitude of senior management, supporting the staff and
developing a more professional work culture was the most necessary step to be
taken for the growth of the firm.
• The organization design, structure and culture needed a change in order to bring
about a 360 degree organizational change into Ryggrad. Organizational
development, proper training, employee retention and better employee
recruitments were the prime sources that needed to be taken into account to
bring about this change.
67
8.Bibliography
http://www.humanresourcesmba.net/worlds-30-innovative-corporate-humanresources-
departments/https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/innovative-hr-practices-indian- hr-
practicespolicies/https://content.wisestep.com/innovative-human-resources-activities-
foremployees/http://www.snacknation.com/blog/employee-engagement-
ideas/https://www.inc.com/jay-steinfeld/11-ways-to-make-work-fun.html
http://ryggradconsulting.com/
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What is the project report about?

What is the project report about?

What certification is mentioned on page 3?

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Talent Management & Talent Acquisition

SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT

LALA LAJPATRAI INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT

SUMMER INTERNSHIP PROJECT

Date: 31st August, 2018

Dr. Arati Kale Dr V.B. Angadi

I, Ms.Harshal Phand, student of Lala Lajpatrai Institute of Management

HARSHAL SURESH PHAND

At the outset of this project, I would like to express my profound thanks to

SR.NO TOPIC PG.NO

• Strategically sourcing potential hires from diverse backgrounds.

• Maintaining relationships for future opportunities with past candidates.

Talent management follows talent acquisition. It’s what happens after an

• Mentorship, rewarding, and the promotion of deserving employees.

• Building hiring and succession plans.

• The delivery of employee training programs.

• Coaching high potential hires.

• Develop a candidate pipeline for future staffing needs.

• Transform your business from an as needed recruitment basis to a proactive hiring

• Keep employees motivated and boost their morale.

• Career pathing to increase employee retention rates.

• Come up with most qualified internal candidates to fill key positions.

The talent management vs talent acquisition debate on which one is more

1. To identify and understand the recruitment process at THE RYGGRAD CONSULTNG.

3. To analyse if the existing training functions is achieving its objectives,

4. To evaluate the Training system for further development.

SCOPE OF THE STUDY

 This project covers TALENT MANAGEMENT AND ACQUISIOTION

The profession that supports talent management became increasingly formalized in

A talent management system is suggested to be used in business strategy and

Essential Tools of Talent Management

2. Strategic alignment: Talent, too often, is treated as an afterthought. According to the

4. Keytalent identification/retention: Going hand-in-hand with talent training and

7. Prioritizing efforts: A sophisticated, comprehensive and value-generating talent function

Talent Management v/s Employee Engagement

• Talent management includes everything an organization does to recruit, retain, develop,

Employee Engagement Starts With Talent Management

If you’re looking to improve employee engagement at your organization, consider

1. Form better relationships with your employees.

2. Don’t micromanage your team.

3. Let your workers use their skills.

INNOVATION: An Integral Part Of “Talent Management”

PepsiCo’s Mobile Strategy

Click ‘Apply’—Coming Soon

Today’s Environment Demands Improved Talent Management

 31% Decreased product or service delivery quality

How Talent Management Affects Organizational Success

Increased success = Reduced Risk The level of talent management alignment to

The way forward

Talent Management in India

Talent Management - Trends for 2018

1. A focus on today, not on the future

Instead of focusing on talent management interventions that have, hopefully, a long

2. From a standard to an individual approach

The most important trend in HR is individualisation. Today it is no longer necessary