Talent Management at Bank of America

Introduction

Bank of America is considered to be the first national retail bank of the country. Its operations started in a small region of North California and after two decades it grew drastically, occupying place in the world’s biggest companies. The leaders or the management at Bank of America have to face several challenges while playing their difficult and challenging role. Bank of America has to take some major steps for the purpose of talent management as any failure in the executive marks can be costly for the bank.

Talent management to the Bank of America is its commitment to recruiting, retaining and developing the superior and talented employees available in the bank as well as in the overall job market. Talent management is considered to be a useful term as it takes into account the strategy of a business that should be fully integrated with the processes related to the employees of the organization. It is the job of every organization to attract and retain employees. An effective strategy of the organization includes sharing information regarding the talented employees and about their potential career paths across the network of the organization (Berger, 2004).

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The talent management system of Bank of America gives its managers and leadership significant role and responsibility in the process of recruitment and also in the ongoing development of retaining talented employees. In the Bank of America only the top leadership of the bank is included in the talent management system (Scullion & Collings, 2011).

Talent management program of bank of America

The talent management program of Bank of America is designed to attract, develop and retain great leaders. The steps included in the talent management program proposed by the Bank are listed below:

• Getting the right people in significant roles
• Managing their performance
• Continually upgrading them
• Helping them to develop and grow
• Paying them for their performance

Getting the right people in significant roles

Getting the right people to play the critical roles in the organization is half battle won. Bank of America considers it the most significant task to place the right person at the right job. If any organization fails to recruit the right people at the right time then it is certain that additional recruitment costs will incur. Recruitment and replacement can be costly processes for organizations as large as the Bank of America. Keeping in account these high cost, there is a need for the development of intervention that helps in placing emphasis on pre-empting failures in the senior management/leadership of the firm. There are specific interview guides that help the senior leadership to interview employees and clearly define the job specs.

Managing their performance

Bank of America ensures that the goals of the company are being met in the most efficient and effective manner. The performance management system of BOA takes into account the performance of the employees, department and the organization as a whole. Performance management is also a process that helps BOA to align its employees, system and resources. “360-degree feedback” is used by BOA, so that employees may plan and then map specific ways that would help them to develop and grow. There is a session conducted every now and then in BOA, where the business leaders discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the company, taking actions regarding the loops holes present in the system.

Continually upgrading them

BOA uses its performance management process for identifying the strong and talented employees of the organization. BOA also brings different strategic management process to recognize the hidden talent in the employees and accordingly increase their responsibility, upgrading them to a senior position based on their skills and performance.

Helping them to develop and grow

The new employees at BOA are coached by the training team according to their job specifications. There are a number of development programs introduced by the organization that help employees to develop their skills and become more competent in their specific jobs.

Paying them for their performance

BOA analyzes the present market and then accordingly develops the compensation strategies that would assist them in meeting the objectives of the organization. The compensation structure of BOA helps employees to grow in terms of their skills and support the mission of the organization.

Strengths of the talent management program

The talent management program implemented by BOA has been quite effective and has shown positive results. There are several aspects of the program that made that have it successful, however one of the most significant aspects of the program was that it allowed individual to recognize their inner strengths and weaknesses. Once the leadership was successful in identifying the strengths of the employees their next step was to create opportunities that would help employees to utilize their strengths.

Another important aspect that makes the talent management system of BOA so effective is that they know the importance of placing right person at the right job. It is an important aspect from the perspective of the organization as well as the employees. BOA believes in understanding the employees their strengths, weaknesses, career aspiration and need development.

Opportunities for improving the talent management program of BOA

BOA must ensure that the talent management program is in place in the entire life cycle of the employees. It must also ensure that the program is linked with the mission of the organization. BOA must make sure that they have all their means in place in order to deliver the strategy and to install human resource processes and HR technologies. BOA must resist from using dispersed network of the talent management tools as it decreases the quality of human data, negatively affects the analytical and reporting results and complicates the integration of the human resource processes (Oakes & Galagan, 2011).

BOA must also think about outsourcing or automating its day-to-day operations, enabling the HR team to devote all their efforts in implementing the talent management processes. BOA must ensure that their talent management strategy is not combined with its HR duties. They must hire experts dedicated for developing integrated strategies for talent management processes. This would help them to solve the problem of identifying and retaining talent present in the BOA.

Effective approaches to meet the talent management challenges in the future

Talent management is continuously becoming a critical task for the organization keeping in mind the organization’s future success. The economic slowdown is another factor that increases the importance of the talent management program in an organization.

Fully integrated approach

All the segments of the talent management program must be integrated such as recruitment, retention, development, transition, etc. Such integration in the talent management program makes it easier for organizations to hire, retain, develop and engage the top talents. The organization must also define the talent management goals more clearly and they should be directly aligned to the mission and strategies of the business (Cantrell & Smith, 2010).

Continuous updating of deployment strategies

Once the organization has put the right people on board, it is necessary for deploying them in a way that would develop their strengths, knowledge, skills and experience. It will also help in matching the competencies of the employees with their career interests, in order to meet the short term as well as the long term needs of any business. The deployment effort exerted by the organization must also be reevaluated on regular basis in the light of the changing needs and demands of the external environment and for achieving the long term goal of the business (Effron & Ort, 2010).

References

• Berger. (2004). The Talent Management Handbook. New York: Tata McGraw-Hill .
• Cantrell, S., & Smith, D. (2010). Workforce of One: Revolutionizing Talent Management Through Customization. Accenture.
• Effron, M., & Ort, ‎. (2010). One Page Talent Management: Eliminating Complexity, Adding Value. Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation.
• Oakes, K., & Galagan, P. (2011). The Executive Guide to Integrated Talent Management. ASTD Press.
• Scullion, H., & Collings, D. G. (2011). Global Talent Management. New York: Routledge.