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Measuring Employee Talent against a Global Standard

Assessing an employees’ talent against a global, rather than a local standard, always helps in identifying, sourcing and retaining the right kind of talent, benefits of which are as follows:
• Helps organizations capture the strength of its human capital.
• Aids organizations understand candidate profiles that are more likely to succeed on the job, i.e. by identifying the right knowledge, skills and abilities required for a particular role.
• Understand which selection techniques are more effective in hiring such talent globally.
• Easier to move people between locations globally at short notice, helping in faster transfer of skills and knowledge where it is most required.
• Productivity and work quality is likely to be uniform resulting in less rework and higher output

The candidates also benefit from having a global ranking. Right from the start the candidates go through a clear and standard selection process - like aptitude/technical tests, structured and multi-rater interviews etc. - that are standardized throughout the organization. Moreover due to such standardized selection process, a candidate has better understanding of his/her roles and responsibilities, as well as the globally shared values, corporate culture, business goals and objectives. Hence by having such rankings, the appraisals systems are also perceived to be more fair and effective as the comparison by the employee or their manager is to a defined global standard (absolute scale) instead of a one-to-one mapping (relative scale).

In our organization we use the balanced scorecard to identify various lead (training, productivity, quality of work) and lag (revenues, costs, profitability etc.) indicators for measurement of performance of an employee, known internally as a goal-sheet. Being a global and multicultural organization, we believe having a uniform global standard in evaluating performance helps in removing all biases - actual or perceived - from the process and helps in bringing a universal culture of meritocracy in the organization. At the beginning of the appraisal cycle each Manager discusses their subordinate’s goal-sheet and they mutually agree on the performance measures and goals/objectives for the year. These are reviewed quarterly and based on the achieved goals/objectives an employee receives his incentives each quarter. The goals might vary based on an individual employee’s primary roles and responsibilities, however there is no variance on the process regardless of the location (country or nationality) of the employee.

Benefits of a global ranking to companies

Having a global standard helps in improved employee satisfaction and productivity and reduces the risk of staff turnover, all of which eventually impact an organization’s value to its shareholders.

I feel the apparent benefits to our organization by having such global rankings are as follows:
• The performance and qualifications are mapped with respect to the job requirements instead of the employees work location or culture.
• There is a standardized entry (selection) criteria for all candidates.
• General performance of an employee is measured against clearly defined goals and objectives which are transferable globally.
• Time to achieve full contribution is likely to be shorter.
• Compatibility with the customers, work group, and the organization is likely to be high.
• Their overall attitude is generally geared towards achievement of respective goals and organizational goals.
• Turnover is likely to be low, as there is no ambiguity in performance appraisals based on which rewards and recognition programs are designed.

Excerpts of this article has been published in Times Ascent and Economic Times - http://timesascent.in/article/1/20091117200911171436190011a2ae36/On-a-global-scale.html and http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/quickiearticleshow/5243196.cms

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