Corporal punishment Essay

Introduction The performance of most South African schools fluctuates from time to time. These fluctuation trends are as a result of the micro-evolutionary mechanistic changes that consistently take place throughout the country. Some schools in the urban areas perform extremely well, but some perform poorly despite the available resources that the school have. For example some of these schools have laboratories that are highly functional and also well structured for experimental as well as practical work which enhances skills in learners and also intensifies the existing theoretical knowledge that the learners have, whereas in schools geographically featured in remote areas or should I say rural schools, these resources are scarce. Privileged learners in these schools (urban) do not utilize these resources appropriately. Most learners in rural areas come from very disadvantaged homes and go to disadvantaged schools. However, the performance in some of these schools is satisfactory. Some learners academically excel irrespective of the harsh conditions they have to encounter on a daily basis. These Excellencies are facilitated by educators, parents/guardians or community members who act as â€Å"steering† in the learning environment. Educators in these schools sympathize with their learners and thus dedicate themselves in everything they do which effectively enhance as well make active the mindset of learners irrespective of their spectral backgrounds. We often hear of these educators who play such critical roles in learner’s academic life in newspapers, community radio stations and also on televisions. Some of the work of these educators may not be globally recognized but the outcomes are truly appreciated in the South African context. Distinction between resilience and excellence The restoration from form unfavourable conditions due to environmental factors is referred to as resilience. Generally resilience according to Akhurst and Sader, 2012 is â€Å"the process of recovering quickly from misfortune or illness†. If resilience was to be explained in scientific terms: It can be explained as follows, â€Å"let’s consider a typical plant cell and see what happens when you place it in a saturated solution( solution containing an excessive amounts of solutes) , the plant cell shrinks, becomes smaller in size and temporarily lose form and shape. During the process, its contents are rearranged, altered and functionality ceases to operate. When you take the same plant cell and place it in pure water, the cell regains its contents and gets restored back to its original form. The plant cell does not die because there is a â€Å"resilient force† which prevents it from total annihilation. The plant cell stays dormant until its physiological conditions get restored†. Similarly in the context of resilience in schools, some schools are able to overcome the barriers associated with learning and continue with the production of good results irrespective of external factors. Excellence in simple terms can be described as the ability to do well or the production of positive outcomes. Excellence in schools can be assessed differenty depending on the schools primary purpose. For example schools that do well in mathematics regard themselves as being excellent whereas schools that perform well in Speech and drama also regards themselves also as being excellent. So in actual fact, the description of the excellent depends on the desired outcomes of that particular context. Excellence in schools Resilience in Relation to Excellence Corporal punishment was another way of shaping learners, that mischiveously stood on the way pathway of learners with the willingness to perform to produce outstanding results. (Christie, P, 2001, p52). Even though this is very unlawful, meetings based on corporal punishments are first discussed with the parents/guardians of the learners before a decision is taken. Some learners parents/guardians agrees, specifically those with children’s from black schools. The reason why they (parents) permit educators to give corporal punishment is simply because they were raised in a similar way which in a way instilled good discipline and also helped them to be responsible individuals. â€Å"Some parents still believe that abandoning corporal punishment by the government is the reason why learners perform poorly in their subjects at school. However, according to Christie, 2012, the banning of corporal punishment could not be the reason for poor performance in South African schools, because no evidence was gathered in the apartheid era. Some resilient learners were greatly aspired by pupils in the community, these included church, and community services. This is true, for example in my case after trying to give on school . i. e. at high school, some grown up folks that lived in the same neighbourhood as me, folks that i used to hang up with and take drugs encouraged and told me that dropping out of school was not an option for a person who really wants to be successful in life. At first when they said this, i questioned them about why did they drop out at standard 8 and 9, now known as grade 10 and 11 respectively? Unfortunately these guys did history while still at school and the response they gave was a quotation from former S. A president, Nelson Mandela, which stated that â€Å"A 70 year old can never think like a 30 year old, and being 70 years of age gives you the licence and priviledge that the 30 year old can never have†. The second quotation they gave was from Malcom X, which stated that,†The future belongs to those who prepare for it today†. Well at that stage all of this was meaningless to me as a science learner, but after being triggered by a discussion I had with one of my EDPD610 colleague (Ms Moodley) during the first contact session, I started to realise the in depth meaning that these guys were trying to convey to me 11 years ago. Conditions at that time for me were unfavourable, both mom and dad were uneducated, consumed liquor and I had to watch my father beat my mother almost every weekend, the home turned into a â€Å"gladiator ring† with my elder brother and I as the referees. I was good in mathematics and science at grade 8, but when I reached grade 10, the performance started to deteriorate because I started to take drugs and abandoned my soccer training in the afternoons. I joined wrong friends and isolated myself from my primary school buddies. Unfortunately one of my science teachers, Mrs S Padayachee detected the problem and confronted me directly. I received help, woke up and dusted myself, but it was too late for me to catch up with the material covered in grade 12. I ended passing with bad symbols and decided to repeat my matric. After repeating, I passed with good symbols, enrolled for Bsc degree at UKZN, graduated, and now i’m a science educator, with less than a year experience. Generally I feel revived, resurrected, and restored and have this immense power of wanting to infiltrate knowledge to South African learners. I managed to excel academically despite the repulsive forces that acted upon me, I managed to excel in overcoming my negative thoughts, I managed to excel in making my family proud of me because i’m the only person in the family to reach matric and have a degree. Best practices of teacher’s resilience in their schools Conclusion References 1) http://web. uvic. ca/hr/managertoolkit/changeandtransition/takingchargechange. pdf( date accessed 13/03/13) 2) Botha ,R. J(2004). Excellence in leadership : The demands the professional school pricinple. Retrieved 08 March 13, 2013http://www. ajol. info/index. php/saje/article/viewFile/24995/20678 3) Christie,P. (2001). Improving school quality in South Africa: a study of schools that have succeeded against the odds. Journal of Education , 41,45,52 4) Hattie, J (2003). Teachers make a difference: what is the research eveidence.

Literary Analysis of “A Doll’s House” by Henrik Ibsen

In the play â€Å"A Doll’s House† Henrik Ibsen introduces us to Nora Helmer and shows us how spontanesly her design of the ideal life can change when a secret of her is revealed. Nora’s husbands promotion to Manager of the town Bank, leaves her convince she will be living a wonderful life; stress and worry free. However, Nora’s idea of a wonderful life is completely changed when her long-kept secret is revealed. It is Christmas time when the play begins and with a larger income starting after the New Year, Nora is excited for a arrival of a new life. Yet, this ideal life for her begins to change when an old friend by the name of Mrs. Linde pays a visit to the Helmer household. Mrs. Linde, looking for a job has come to Nora looking for help through her husband; this excitement has Nora believing â€Å"He must Christine. Just leave it to me; I will broach the subject very cleverly- I will think of something that will please him very much. It will make me so happy to be of some use to be you† (677). Although, Torvald is happy to offer Mrs. Linde a job, Nora is unaware is has taken one step closer to her secret being reveal. As the story unfolds Nora begins to realize her husband’s ability to give Mrs. Linde’s new job, means Mr. Krogstand the man holding her secret is left unemployed; causing Nora to realize the cons of helping Mrs. Linde. â€Å"By matters of business- such as business as you and I have had together-do you think I don’t understand that? Very Well. Do as you please. But let me tell you this- If I lose my position a second time, you shall lose yours with me† (688). Mr . Krogstand uses the powers he has over Nora, to try and keep his job. He explains to her, that if he loses his place at the bank to Mrs. Lindke, he will be sure to tell Nora’s secret to her family. Realizing what this would do to the wonderful life to come after the New Year, she begs Torvald to find a place for Mr. Krogstand. However, Torvald opts not to find a position for him and with Mr. Krogstand keeping to his word he writes a letter to Torvald revealing Nora’s secret; creating the scene when everything in Nora’s life changes. As Torvald receives the letter, he acts out with rage â€Å"It is so incredible that I can’t take it in. But we must come to some understanding. Take off that shawl. Take it off, I tell you. I must try and appease him some way or another. The matter must be hushed at any cost. And as for you and me, it must appear as if everything between us were just as before- but naturally only in my eyes of the world. You will still remain in my and that is a matter of course. But I shall not allow you to bring up the children; I dare not trust them to you. To think that I should be obliged to say so to one whom I have loved so dearly, and whom I still-. No, that is all over. From this moment happiness is not the question; all that concerns us is to save the remains, the fragments, and the appearance-â€Å"(715 ). In was in this spite of rage that’s Nora’s dream of the soon to be wonderful life, is changed. Although it was shortly after this outrage from Helmer that he receives another letter saying Nora’s secret is safe; it was too late for Nora. The outrage has caused Nora to realize things about her life and explains to Helmer â€Å"I mean that I was simply transferred from papa’s hands into yours. You arranged everything according to your own taste, and so I got into the same tastes as you- or else I pretended to, I am really not quite sure which- I think sometimes the one and sometimes the other. When I look back on it, it seems to me as if I have existed merely to perform ticks for you, Torvald. But you would have it so. You and papa have committed a great sin against. It is your fault I have made nothing of my life† ( 717). This situation has created the chance for Nora realize she has been living in someone else shadows. She is not sure who she is or even her likes and dislikes and with that she ends the life she has been living. â€Å"Indeed, you were perfectly right. I am not fit for the task. There is another task I must undertake take first. I must try and educate myself- you are not the man to help me in that. I must do that for myself. And that is why I am going to leave you now† (719). She is not sure who she is or even her likes and dislikes and with that she ends the life she has been living. When the play â€Å"A Doll’s House† began we were introduced to Nora as a character who was excited for her new life after the New Year. Yet, a unexpected visit from a old friend caused Nora to make a decision that ended up resulting her secret begin revealed to her family. As this secret was reveal, it caused Nora to realize the perfect life she thought she wanted after the New Year was not the life she wanted. Showing us that sometimes things don’t always go as planned.

Letter to the Editor about Arthur Schopenhauer Essay

Dear Sir,  Your editorial on the correctness and practicality of Arthur Schopenhauer’s philosophy in our everyday lives was well very well-written. In it, you have made clear the main elements of Schopenhauer’s philosophy: that existence, far from harmonious, is actually full of conflict, that the will – the innermost essence of every man – is irrational and nothing but a blind impulse toward existence, and that happiness cannot be attained by humankind because the will necessitates suffering (Pfeffer, 1972, p. 42). To solve the problem of existence, you proposed what Schopenhauer himself suggested, and that is the negation of the will as much as possible. This is similar to what Buddhists do in their denial of man’s desires. Thus, like Schopenhauer, you propose everyone should try to rid themselves of their will to attain Nirvana. Sir, as much as I intellectually enjoyed your exposition of Schopenhauer’s philosophy, I would have to disagree with you both. I think that the will should not be denied because it does not necessarily lead to suffering. Instead, suffering must be overcome by changing those who are willing. These refutations are based on the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, whose thought I think has more practical applications in life than Schopenhauer’s. Nietzsche greatly admired Schopenhauer because of the wisdom that allowed him to break with the optimism of the Western philosophical tradition which followed Friedrich Hegel. However, Nietzsche’s philosophy developed into a complete and utter refutation of Schopenhauer’s, which he deemed wrong and I deem wrong. For Nietzsche, pessimism was good, as long as it is not the â€Å"weak pessimism† that Schopenhauer adopted (Pfeffer, 1972, p. 44). This kind of pessimism is uncreative and negative and would simply lead men to living lives based on nothingness. What Schopenhauer did was merely to replace Kant’s transcendental world of reason with the will but the basic approach did not change (Strong, 1988, p. 227). I would even venture to say that Schopenhauer’s suggestion when it comes to living life is far more absurd than that of Kant. For while Kant instructed us to use reason in everything we do, Schopenhauer would rather us erase our will – something which is virtually impossible since the will cannot be completely destroyed. It is easy to point out what Schopenhauer’s biggest mistake was in terms of Nietzsche’s philosophy. Nietzsche’s concept of the master and slave morality draws a line between self-affirming values and self-denying values. The master morality consisting of self-affirming values of selfishness and absolute individualism will lead to the creation of the ideal Superman who will be perfect in mind and body (Mencken, 2003, p. 64-65). On the other hand, self-denying values, which are mainly perpetuated by Christianity, will lead to man’s ruin. Schopenhauer, with his belief that the will should be negated because it necessarily leads to suffering, clearly adopted a slavish attitude toward life. The danger with following Schopenhauer is that his philosophy was a direct result of his own slavish nature, and thus, men would suffer more and perish if they followed it. Schopenhauer took his own psyche and prescribed it to everyone without thinking that his will was not shared by the entire world. Thus, said Nietzsche, people should not be forced to say that â€Å"the world is Schopenhauer writ large (Strong, 1988, p. 227).†   Schopenhauer is also wrong when he said that happiness is impossible for it is nothing but a form of pain and a brief cessation of desire (Nietzsche, 2006, p.11). From my own experience, I could definitely say that I have experienced happiness and though it did not last forever, the feeling was not a negative one. It also doesn’t make sense to me why a person would want to move away from happiness simply because it is fleeting. Again, Nietzsche has a better opinion on happiness because to him, happiness is a function of power. Whatever increases power is good and feels good. Therefore, happiness is power and to attain happiness, men should strive to be powerful. The path to happiness is not denying the will but to change those who are willing. Instead of negating the will or curbing our desires, men must always act for the benefit of the generations to be born after him, according to Nietzsche. By practicing life-affirming values, the instinct to apply the will to power becomes sharper. Generations of putting the master morality into practice and getting rid of slavish beliefs would eventually lead to the formation of a new society of supermen with perfected instincts (Mencken, 2003, p. 67). For me, this goal is clearly far superior, more positive and beneficial to humankind than what Schopenhauer proposed. Schopenhauer’s philosophy is basically that of resignation and negation. His ways to achieve the abolishment of the will should inspire revulsion in someone who loves life. Schopenhauer said that the will could be destroyed through timeless contemplation such as what artists do, and by living a life of an ascetic (Nietzsche, 2006, p.11). Nirvana is the ultimate goal of these lifestyles, which is supposed to be a state of perfect nothingness and peace. Schopenhauer defended his view by saying that this state of nirvana might be nothing to a man who still desires, but to a man who has denied his will, the current world we’re living in â€Å"with all its suns and milky way is nothing (Pfeffer, 1972, p. 45).† While Schopenhauer was right when he said there will always be suffering, it does not follow that we should adopt his attitude of resignation and negation. It also does not follow that we must abolish our desires and live as hermits and artists devoid of passion. As Nietzsche said, suffering is not something to destroy for it is a productive power. Instead of escaping suffering and struggle, men must overcome these to cancel out their weaknesses and preserve their strengths (Pfeffer, 1972, p. 45). Clearly, Nietzsche was correct again in this aspect as Schopenhauer was wrong. The answer to creating more powerful, happier selves and society is not to eradicate our desires. Instead, we must assert our individualism and selfishness more strongly, not to create chaos, but to build a better future for the generations after us. Schopenhauer was a great thinker but he allowed his slavish nature took control of his ideas. I have no doubt that following his philosophy would only lead to our ruin. References Mencken, H.L. (2003). The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. Tuczon: See Sharp Press. Nietzsche, F. W. (2006). The Nietzsche reader, Volume 10. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Pfeffer, R. (1972). Nietzsche: disciple of Dionysus. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press. Strong, T.B. (1988). Friedrich Nietzsche and the politics of transfiguration. Berkeley:   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   University of California Press.

Homestasis - Thermoregulation and control of blood sugar Essay

Homestasis - Thermoregulation and control of blood sugar - Essay Example The hypothalamus effects changes in response to alterations in body temperature by activating adjustments to effectors in the form of muscles manipulating body hair movement and operation of the sweat glands. Hence, the human body’ temperature can only be regarded as stable provided that the heat produced matches heat lost. The sustenance of the temperature of the body at a steady level is paramount given that the living processes within the cells closely depends on the action of the enzymes that work effectively in a set of stable conditions, especially at optimal temperature and pH. Any alterations in the set properties influence the utility of the enzymes and can yield to the death of the cells, and, ultimately, the death of the whole organism. This stresses the significance of regulation and sustenance of a constant internal environment. Nevertheless, the internal environment may not be entirely constant as it may be tolerated to fluctuate, albeit at exceptionally constric ted limits. Indeed, temperature regulation is imperative given that the speed of metabolic reactions is directed by enzymes activity that only functions optimally at temperatures that neighbor body’s core temperature of 37Â °C. ... Devoid of enzymes activity, much of critical bodily functions would fail to take place at the required level, which leads to the death of the cells. Q2 How the body gain and lose heat The outside temperature mainly differs significantly as the day progresses; however, the body temperature ought to be sustained at the core temperature of 37Â °C. This is well demonstrated in Jamel’s case given must be sustained at a constant 37Â °C with minimal variations while the outside environment is bound to change (Sircar 2008, 697). Given that the temperature in New York City stood at 10Â °C and there is a possibility that the temperature fluctuated prior the race, during the race, and after the race, Jamel’s body must adapt to the changing external environment. This is achieved via a number of processes through which the body is subjected to, namely: vasodilation, sweating, shivering, and vasoconstriction (Sircar 2008, 697). During the race in which Jamel’s body temperat ure rises owing to the rise in metabolism, the sweat glands located within the skin are activated to secrete/release sweat on to the surface of the skin. The action of evaporation of sweat from Jamel’s body’s surface yields to rapid cooling of the body, which, in turn, yields a drop in body temperature. How Jamel’s body Generate Heat Body energy (heat) is essentially gained through the action of two critical methods, namely: energy generation through metabolic and energy acquisition from environmental. Jamel’s body heat generation and preservation are facilitated by a number of factors: (1) increased muscular activity such as via shivering, which entails the transfer of stored chemical energy, which yields to a net increase in body heat around the skeletal muscle that flows

Term paper Research Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Term - Research Paper Example important to observe the background and personalty development – these aspects definitely influenced the creation and key points of any particular doctrine. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) is one of the greatest philosophers, who influenced the development of a variety of paradigms of ancient and modern philosophy. His main concerns lied in the area of ethics and thinking processes of a human being in general. Reviewing Kant’s works, it can be stated according to the key questions he explored, that they have differences with other ancient philosophers ideas, like Socrates. Metaphysics, Politics, Aesthetics and epistemology were some of the core topics that Kant had major interest in. There was a significant impact that Kant’s theories had on human ethics. Human ethical attitudes and behaviors have improved since the introduction of the ethics topic by Immanuel Kant. The key area of investigation was reasoning. Reason is one of the major subjects that Kant investigated underscoring on its significance particularly on the whole society. Kant contended that thinking frame the premise of a quiet conjunction among individuals from the general public. Kant further contended that it is through thinking that the distinction between a creature and an individual is drawn. At the point when a person apply Kant philosophical teachings on their lives, then thinking gets to be a piece of their lives before they make any strides in life subsequently impact their activities to great deeds. A both monetary and social advancement depends vigorously on quiet conjunction in any given society. Kant further contended that it is through thinking that contentions and contrasts between individuals from a particular society are comprehended. The reason is a human privilege. As it was specified above, just people have the capacity to reason – none of different animals on the Earth can. Reason is more profound and more comprehensible than cognizance and sensibility. It is a perspective

Walt Disney Co. V. Beijing Publishing Press Essay

Walt Disney Co. V. Beijing Publishing Press - Essay Example Although Beijing Publishing Press had entered into contract with and paid Maxwell which has intellectual property rights from Disney, it violated Disney IPR. The contract details form Disney did not give Maxwell the right to subcontract its intellectual properties to third parties, which means that the contract between Maxwell and Beijing was void. The fact that the contract was illegal makes it void. Disney enjoys copyright protection of its products from the Chinese law. Therefore, any third parties who wish to utilize its intellectual properties must enter into a contract with Disney. In this case, there existed no contract between Disney and Beijing Publishing. Before paying IPR, a party should conduct careful due diligence to assure that it is paying for enforceable IPR. This case illustrates concept in that Beijing Publishing Company had an obligation to carry out proper investigations to ascertain the legality of the contract with Maxwell Company and Children Press. The department of state copyright administration requires companies to conduct an inquiry and implement registration procedures with the relevant authorities before actual use of IPR. Although Beijing Publishing Company had exempted itself in the working agreement with the Children press, where it stated that Children press would bear any responsibilities arising because of non-registration with the copyright authority; it failed to ascertain that Children Press is not an independent legal person and thus had to bear the responsibility. Beijing Company has a lawsuit against Maxwell. The contract between Disney and Maxwell stated, â€Å"Disney Company licenses to Maxwell Comp any exclusive rights to publish and sell within China its publications based on Disney world characters.† The contract expressly states that the license given should not be granted to third parties (Shaffer, Agusti, and Earle 574). Beijing Publishing can sue Maxwell on the ground that it breached the initial contract, which led to it incurring damages. Champagne V. Wines Worth Group Ltd This case involves an Australian company by name Wines Worth Group against French Department of Champagne that sought an injunction to prevent Australians from â€Å"passing off† their wine as produced from France. French Department of Champagne filed on the basis that they own the trademark. A trademark is a distinctive sign used by businesses to speak a message to their consumers to specify the origin of the product and henceforth dictate the target markets. It is a name, word, phrase, logo, or symbol and the owners of

Corporate Investment Banking Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Corporate Investment Banking - Essay Example The bank boasts of over 48 million customers in over 50 countries worldwide and the total asset portfolio is well over 2 trillion dollars making it the seventh largest bank in the world based on assets (Barclays, 2015). The bank has a rich history with its fundamental origin being traced back to 1690 a factor that makes it one of the leading financial institutions in the world (Barclays, 2015). The company’s mission statement is to help people achieve their ambitions in the right way and measure and reward the company’s employees not only on commercial results but on how they pursue the company’s values in their daily activities. The company looks to be a global power in terms of the financial services and products delivery to all its customers. The company announced a profit before tax of  £2,885m in 2014 that was a 29% increase from 2013 when it recorded  £2,233m (Barclays, 2015). The total income increased by 1% to  £8828M from the previous year. The com pany has been witnessing steady growth and is looking to diversify the different aspects of the company in different parts of the world to increase their level of income and sales. The bank attributes its success and extraordinary growth in the global market to the significant innovative strategies that the company has implemented over the years (Barclays, 2015).The company changed its organizational structure to offer better services and products to its customers in the different parts of the world. The cost of maintaining the previous structure were also considerably high and it adapted to a new structure that the company felt was sustainable and most of all good at service delivery.  

PRJ1 Security Tool Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

PRJ1 Security Tool - Assignment Example However, when used non-ethically, hackers can also utilize this tool to extract information of the network traffic deprived of any sort of authorization (Ethereal. 2007). Wire Shark is categorized in the list of open source tools and was released on a GNU public license. As per the GPL, the complete source code is free. The open source tool can be modified as per business requirements. The importance of this tool is significant, as securing the network requires specialized software or tool that penetrates within the network for detecting anomalies. Previously, these specialized tools were very expensive and proprietary. However, with the launch of Ethereal, this trend has changed. Some of the functions that Wire Shark provides to its users are: As mentioned before, compatible on both UNIX and Microsoft platforms Regardless of interface type, captures network traffic and display packets on the screen Incorporates ‘tcpdump’ for displaying captured packets. ... (Sharpe, Ed Warnicke et al.) As shown in fig 1.1, wire shark has captured some packets and is ready for further query. Figure 1.1 Wire shark GUI illustrates three panes. (Sharpe, Ed Warnicke et al.) The first pane i.e. the top one is called the packet list, as it shows the summary of every captured data packet. Users can click on any one of the captured packet to get the properties that are illustrated in the next two panes. Likewise, the middle pane is comprised of tree structure that can be expanded further. (Sharpe, Ed Warnicke et al.) The further expanded properties show frame count, interface type, protocol type and TCP properties. Moreover, the upper left corner at fig 1.1 displays a filter tab that can be used to filter the packet types, as per interest. Furthermore, new protocols can also be added, as it is an open source tool and they can be called as modules or can be constructed in sources. (Sharpe, Ed Warnicke et al.) Some of the protocols that are not common and can be a dded in the tool are 802.1q Virtual LAN, 802.1x Authentication, AFS (4.0) Replication Server call declarations, AOL Instant Messenger, ATM, ATM LAN Emulation, Ad hoc on-demand Distance Vector Routing Protocol, Ad hoc on-demand Distance Vector Routing Protocol v6 etc. (Sharpe, Ed Warnicke et al.) Platforms that the tool supports other than UNIX and Microsoft are AIX, Debian GNU/Linux, Slackware Linux, Red Hat Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, HP/UX and Sparc/Solaris. Figure 1.2 As shown in Fig 1.2, the wire shark capture menu shown multiple options i.e. interfaces, options, start and capture filters. The interface option provides users an opportunity to add or remove network interfaces

Free to explore topics and thesis of your choice, but paper has to Research

Free to explore topics and thesis of your choice, but has to have very strong thesis - Research Paper Example To aid in this analysis, focus will be drawn on three films that have undertones of criticism of this particular educational system. These series are collectively known as the Yeogo Goedam I,II and III. Whispering Corridors is a series containing five movies that was first released on the 30th of May, in the year 1998. Being horror by genre, it came at a time when horror was not exactly popular and the teen films had dwindled to non-existence. The cast consisted of new actresses and actors save for a single who actor who played the part of a teacher. Whispering Corridors took a different turn from the conventions of serried films. This is because all of the each of the series is independent from the previous ones and the characters are new in all of them. The common thing between them all is that they are all horror and they are all casted in an all-girls boarding school. Despite the fact that it came as a far cry from the popular genres at the time, the audience’s response to it especially the teenage response, was very great. It was not released during the summer vacation as per the norms of teen movies, the reaction then had something to do with the context of the film. It did well in the box office having reached 2.5 million admissions. This success came after the producer, OH Ki-Min, had been turned down by over en production companies who did not see the place of horror in the Korean Film industry. It was finally accepted by Cine 2000 and Cinema Services who went against the odds of the industry and produced what turned out to be a benchmark for subsequent horror films in Korea. Notable though is the film’s lack of extreme emphasis on horror itself much as it is presented as a horror movie. What they do is employ the horror undertones as a channel of conveying various issues that affect the Korean society. This paper will focus on the first three of the series, that is, Whispering Corridors 1 (Yogo Kwedam I), Memento Mori (Yogo Kwedam II) an d Whispering Stairs (Yogo Kwedam II). Whispering Corridors 1, also known as Yeogo Goedam, touches on important social and cultural issues in its storyline, especially issues that border the unique South Korean educational system. The fact that it depicted the educational system in negative light made the film be subjected to rigorous censorship. After the ban on the censorship it was released for public viewing. It of course caused a stir upon its release but at the end of the day the message that was intended had been put across. The plot of the movie focuses on three platonic relationships between the girls who have some affiliation with the school, Jookran High School For Girls. The first friendship ties are between Hur and Jin-Ju. The second bunch of friends is Ji-Oh and Jae-Yi. The other one is between So-Young and Jung-Sook. So-Young and Jung-Sook, however, have such a strained relationship that they are not in speaking terms with each other. The movie opens with a female teac her at the school, Park, is talking on phone with another teacher about a discovery she has made on a former student of the school, Jin-Ju. Mrs Park has been nicknamed Old Fox due to her unkind treatment of the students who attended the school. She says that Jin-Ju, apparently dead, is back. She however gets killed before she gives a full statement of her discovery. Her body is discovered by three students, Jae-Yi, Jung-Sook and Ji-Oh, the following day. The administration

How does college experience affect future experiences Essay

How does college experience affect future experiences - Essay Example Students learn to listen and pass their ideas articulately with good communication skills. In order to score good grades, students must be committed to attending all the classes. This is also true at the workplace. Employees are expected to be at their work place every day with few off days. Results are what matters in colleges in spite of how hard one works. At the workplace employees are also expected to deliver on their targets without excuses. Time keeping is a critical factor in our college lives. Both in college and workplace we are required to observe time and be punctual always. (Staley & Staley, 2012) observes that students should be able to exhibit the work ethic they had in college in their work life. The way they worked hard to achieve good grades should be the same way they will strive in their work places to meet the standards set by the organization. Most students have at one point been given a group work assignment. This experience prepares them to work in committees in future. They are also expected to be good team players from the experience they gain through the group work. In college students meet others from different races and cultural backgrounds. This enables them to appreciate and co-exist peaceful with other people from different backgrounds in their future endeavors. It helps them develop socially and intellectually. The extra co-curricular activities students participate in help in drilling discipline and enhancing self esteem. It also develops students socially since they interact with many people. Students are also thought to obey rules which in turn them into responsible citizens once they grow up. The values and characters developed in college can have a huge influence on success in the professional life. As (Staley & Staley, 2012) summarizes it â€Å"Thanks to having gone to college, you can begin your career with ready-to-go professional

Business Plan Degree Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Business Plan Degree - Assignment Example Mission Statement of the Business Plan: First and foremost I would like to state the Mission Statement of our Business Plan. The Mission Statement of Thame Valley Golf Club should be to make it a professional Golf Club, making it a profitable one utilizing all its facilities to the maximum capacity. Thame valley golf club is situated in Oxfordshire, approximately 4 miles north of Thame Town centre. It consists of a par 36 full-length 9-hole course. The course is situated 10 miles north east of the city of oxford and 4 miles north of Thame town centre, Alysbury is about 10 miles away and High Wycombe is around 2 miles to the southeast. Motorway access is reasonably good as the M40 is only 5 miles away and M4 is around 25 miles away. The course is currently of 9 holes but land is available to build a further 9 holes in the future. There is only one set of Tees for the course. There is a practice putting green adjacent to the clubhouse and a large teaching and practice area. No PGA professional has been in place. Hence lessons have not been promoted. A local PGA Pro is running on ad hoc basis. The arrangement with the local PGA Pro is terminated with a mutually agreed settlement. At present a small shop selling regular day-to-day items and accessories is run by the owner's daughter. A new shop will be established near the test tee, where there exists an outbuilding, which will be made secured now. The Pro has to make the interiors of the shop. Facilities available: Male Female changing and shower rooms. Administrative offices Cafeteria style eating area Golf shop Current shop membership, Membership and Green Fees. The membership is growing steadily. Currently the membership stands at 419 comprising 196 men, 22 women, 99 seniors (Male), 19 seniors (Female) and 11 juniors. The owner targets to increase the membership to 700 with Men Ladies and juniors as main target group. The cost of the membership is as follows: Entrance Fee 175 Adult yearly subscription 385 Senior Yearly subscription 225 Junior 85 Social 15 Visitor 9 midweek ,, 12 a weekends ,, With members 8 The no. of round played by visitors averages at 35 and that of 30 rounds by members. Target round for visitors doubled at 50 rounds. External: Surroundings: There are 8 primary schools, 2 secondary comprehensives, several colleges and Oxford University in the surrounding. There are also two leisure centres and 3 private health clubs within 10 miles surroundings. Until recently there were 2 golf shops but due to fierce competition one of them has shut down. Competition: There are two more golf clubs in the surroundings: 1. The Old Established Private Members Club There is the St. Annes club, which is a private club situates around 9 miles from Aylasbury. It is a 103 years old club. This as professionally designed reputed golf club. It has a small practice area used by the professional for teaching. There is a small shop but is not well stocked.

Learning Skill Essay Example for Free

Learning Skill Essay ?The attributes of the learners and how they can help the learners to be successful in an online learning environment Education of children is compulsory, formal and standardized. Adult learning is voluntary and intentional. The purpose of adult education is the independent self-directed learner. Adults tend to resist a learning process which is incongruent with their self-concept as autonomous individuals and does not correspond to their needs and interests. Adults focus on direct application. Given their daily duty in job, profession, family and community, they learn to cope with the pressures and problems of life they are facing. For that reason, the adult educator’s concern is primarily focused on the needs and interests of the learners. Andragogy (adult education) calls for program builders and teachers who are person-centered, who don’t teach subject matter but rather help persons learn (Knowles). Hence, the interests of adults are their real needs. Or the solutions learners have in mind do not solve their problems. The adult educator often has to register into a needs negotiation (Bhola) with learners when teaching new needs about boiled water or a balanced diet, about clean surroundings, preventive health practices or small families. In the dialectical process of needs negotiation the needs as felt by the learners and the needs as seen by the adult educators must be showed together to reach a consensus on the real needs. These real needs must agree to the experience of adult learners. If an adult gets the impression that his experience is not being valued he feels turned down as a person. New learnings take on meaning as adults are able to relate them to their life experience. Experienced adult educators, so, build into the design of their learning experiences provision for the learners to plan and rehearse how they are going to apply their learnings in their day-to-day lives or duties and combine training with transfer and application. A workshop then really can become a workplace where educational materials are produced or evaluation studies are designed. According to Knox’s proficiency theory the learning needs for an adult move upward from life situations and interpersonal communication. Social expectation motivates and empowers an adult to search for more knowledge, better expertness and more suitable performance. Adult learning is based on experience, on the learners’ own experience and on the experience of others. Learning settings of adults usually have a participatory and collaborative basic part. Adults prefer to meet as equals in small groups to explore outcome and concerns and then to take common action as a result of dialogue and inter-learning by discourse. The group becomes the learning co-operative. The group provides the opportunity for inter-learning. Within the group the teacher as well as the other group members plays the task of facilitators. All group members become co-agents (Bhola) in learning. The absence of formal accreditation or certification facilitates collaboration not only on a specific product or outcome but even in structuring and restructuring the learning process according to the needs and interests of the group. The learning process becomes as important as the learning outcome, and a balance between both is often not easy to maintain. How much freedom can actually be given to the adult learner in choice of content and way? Adult learning is life-centered. It is learning by doing, by application and experience, and if need be by trial and error. Adults do not simply to get knowledge created by outsiders, but should examine their own reality themselves and make a positive declaration about it. Praxis is the focus of effective adult learning and praxis means analysis and examination of reality in order to transform it. Adult learning is without interval process of investigation and exploration followed by proccess of doing something grounded in this exploration, followed by reflection on this action, leading to further investigation and so on. The principle is testing not banking (P. Freire) of knowledge. Exploration of new opinion, skills and knowledge take place in the context of the learners’ experience. In settings where skills are being learned, learners become acquainted with skills, apply these in real life settings, redefine hoe these skills may be altered by context, re-apply these in other settings and so on. Adults explained the meaning of ideas, skills and knowledge through the medium of their life-experience and test them in real life settings. To make the learner self-directed is the intention of adult education. But the self-directed learner is neither the one who can retrieve information or locate resources nor the one who appears in group dynamics. The inner-directed, self-operating learner (R. Kidd) is the one who reflects critically on his own assumptions and is keen to find alternative and better solutions. The learning process contributes largely to the success of learning. But learning is more than just the learning process. A participative learning process which fails to assist the learners in  acquiring knowledge and competence is a failure. A participative learning process may take more time because it means active involvement of everybody, discussing all the pro’s and con’s, despite that it must lead to concrete results combining commitment with competence. Education is, as Brookfield points out a â€Å"transactional encounters. That means that the sole responsibility for determining curricula or for selecting appropriate methods does not rest either with the educator or with the learner. If the first acquires, then we have an authoritarian style and a one-way transmission of knowledge and skills. If curricula, methods and evaluative criteria become predetermined solely by what learners say they want, then the cafeteria approach governs the educational process. Accepting the felt needs logical basis without any further inquiry and needs negotiation means that the facilitator has to give up responsibility for the learning process and the accomplishment of learning aims and objectives. Successful learning especially in workshop settings means to keep the balance between the learning process and the learning outcome so that the results justify the efforts and if they are not excellent they should be at least and always â€Å"good enough. Successful distance learners are self-motivated, self-reliant and self disciplined. Distance learning students are the architects of their own learning surrounding, have the ability to manage their study time and schedule. Students can often customize their learning projects to fit their personal interests and there is great chance for personal growth and individual academic success. This requires both internal personal motivation and discipline, and also requires the establishment of a supportive personal learning environment and may require elimination of certain activities to make room for online learning in daily life. Distance learners should be self sufficient, self-directed individuals. The online environment enables students to learn at their own pace, relieving some of the pressure of traditional seated learning and making learning more enjoyable but requires that the student is able to identify learning goals and objectives and focus their attention accordingly. Distance learners become independent problem solvers, doing their own research and expanding their lifelong learning skills. This process helps them to grow critical thinking skills and the ability to interpret and synthesize reading materials, articles and research papers with differing points of view and in the process develop their own positions and beliefs about the subject matter. Some computer and Information literacy is necessary for a distance learner. Distance learners should possess a working knowledge of email, the Internet, and basic keyboard skills. Instructional material within the learning management system will provide all the other skills needed to access and begin the online or distance lesson. Distance learners may be required to develop skills for researching and locating information from several sources and differentiate and assess them for inclusion in distance learning assignments and research projects. Distance learners should be energetic and disciplined managers of their own time. Students must be able to organize and plan their own best study schedule. While individual learners may prefer a different time of day or times in the week to give up to their distance learning study and projects, it is important to devote time each week to course work and it is vital that the distance learner understand that the same amount of time is involved in distance education courses, and traditional seated courses. The distance learner should assess his or her best time of day for study, either it is early morning or evening, every person has a best time of day for learning and thinking. A intentional effort must be made to carve out time in the student’s daily schedule for an optimal study time. Study time should not be the time that is left at the end of the day, unless that is the time when the student is most lively and attentive. All learners and especially distance learners need effective communication skills. The particular nature of distance education requires that communication be done in a written format, whether it is email, written assignments or discussion forums, the written word is vital in distance education. The ability to write clearly and communicate ideas becomes more important since it is the primary means of communication in distance learning. The successful distance learner has a strong sense of responsibility and personal commitment to academic success. Online learning, like many things in life, reaps rewards equal to the energy put into the changes. The independent nature of distance education to insist upon the presence of motivation, and discipline but commitment and follow-through are also vital.

Talent Management in the Corporate Sector

Talent Management in the Corporate Sector A Talent Management INTRODUCTION:- Talent management is the process that emerged in 1990 and continues to be adopted, as more companies came to realize that their employees talent, skills drive their business success. Companies that have put into practice talent management have done so to solve an employee retention problem. The issue with many companies today is that many 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. Talent management refers to the process of developing and integrating new workers, developing and retaining current workers, and attracting highly skilled workers to work for your company. Talent management in this context does not refer to the management of entertainers. The term was coined by David Watkins of Softscape published in an article in 1998. The process of attracting and retaining profitable employees, as it is increasingly more competitive between firms and of strategic importance, has come to be known as the war for talent. IMPORTANCE OF TALENT MANAGEMENT IN US CORPORATE SECTOR US sector always want to grow and improve their system and processes must focus on people practices that allow or foster their growth and improvement. The best practices are known. The key variables (leadership competencies, experience and skill, interest rewards) that motivate people to succeed have been identified and successfully put into practice. Talent Management is no loger a cutting-edge field being solely tapped by pioneers. It is a viable path towards and improving organizational performance. Integrated, strategically aligned human capital asset management systems have provided significant economic benefits to companies that have embraced them as ongoing processes instead of one-time events. Research done on the value of such systems to companies consistently finds benefits in these seven critical economic areas: revenue, customer satisfaction, quality, productivity, cost, cycle time, and market capitalization. This research clearly shows that adopting and investing in best-practice talent management systems results in bottom-line improvement in each of these key areas:- 1) Increase Revenue It was initially thought that companies that make more money were associated with better talent management practices only because they could afford them (.19 correlation), but the 2001 Watson Wyatt Human Capital Index Study showed that talent management practices actually increase financial performance (.41 correlation). According to Watson Wyatts research 15% of profit performance is driven by: Management participation Open management style Taking some risks, but not too many Top managers spending 20% of time with customers Around 20% of top management should be outsiders Management training is deemed important Top managers are effectively incentivized Succession planning is done A good appraisal system is in place Employees get feedback In addition to supporting Becker and Huselids 1998 results, the 2001 Watson Wyatt Human Capital Index study showed precisely which HR practices have an impact on the bottom line. 49 specific HR practices across 6 dimensions played the greatest role in creating shareholder value. The research quantified exactly how much an improvement in each practice could be expected to increase a companys market value. For example, a company that makes a significant improvement (one standard deviation) in all of the practices categorized under Total Rewards and Accountability should see its value improve by 16.5 percent, and a significant improvement in 43 key HR practices is associated with an increase of 47 percent in market value. Results included: 16.5% impact on company market value from total rewards and accountability 9% impact from a collegial, flexible workplace 7.9% impact from recruiting and retention excellence 7.1% impact from the integrity of communications 6.5% impact from the implementation of focused HR service technologies 33.9% loss from non-prudent use of resources Careful inspection of all the data shows that for every available correlation calculated over time, the relationship between past HR practices and future financial performance is stronger than the relationship between past financial outcomes and future HR practices. This is the first study to show that HR practices actually increase financial performance (.41 correlation) instead of inferring that companies that make more money can afford better HR practices (.19 correlation). Given companies of comparable size, those whos CEOs exhibited more emotional intelligence competencies showed better financial results as measured by both profit and growth. The divisions of leaders with a critical mass of strengths in emotional intelligence competencies outperformed revenue targets by a margin of 15-20 percent. 2) Customer Satisfaction Knowing and using the critical competencies associated with success creates results. The 1998 Watson Wyatt study, Competencies and the Competitive Edge, showed that when an organization identifies and communicates the core competencies that it needs to be successful in the present and the future, it has developed a powerful tool to help meet its goals. Competencies define and communicate an organizations strategy and help employees to understand that strategy and achieve its goals. The many roles that competencies can play in an organization include: Articulating what the organization values Providing a common language for employees and managers to describe value creation Establishing a new paradigm for human capital management programs (organizational levers) Focusing on the development of the individual instead of an organizational structure Linking pay, promotions and growth directly to what the organization values to be successful Guiding employees and managers to what is expected and how value is defined even in times of dramatic change and restructuring Competencies serve as a powerful communication vehicle to focus all members of the organization on the skills and activities that will create both value and wealth. Competency-based programs can make a difference to the bottom line. Analysis of the financial data clearly shows that companies with competency- based programs perform better in the marketplace. Such programs help focus the organization and all the individuals in it on what they can do to add value to the organization. Contributions are role-related rather than position-related. Adopting this view of contribution to value will help organizations think differently about their human resource and development programs. Organizations can focus on competencies needed for the future and identify the roles that employees do and must play. Programs that build employee commitment can bring great returns. Data from this and other Watson Wyatt studies clearly demonstrate that both individual and organizational performance increase when employees are committed to their companies. Ensuring that organizational levers that build employee commitment are in place and working will affect the bottom line. This was most notable when the competencies focused on attributes and behaviors that promoted customer satisfaction. Training is important, but it is no substitute for good management. A large majority of the organizations participating in Watson Wyatts study identified training and development as the driver of future corporate success. The high-performing companies identified it slightly more often than the others. Putting people first by adopting high performance management practices translates into improved morale, more innovation, better customer service, higher productivity, greater cost reduction, greater flexibility, and increased skills development. 3) Improve Quality Motor vehicle manufacturing firms in US implementing flexible production processes and associated practices for managing people enjoyed 47 percent better quality and 43 percent better productivity than firms relying on traditional mass-production approaches, according to a worldwide study by Wharton Schools John Paul McDuffie. Overall financial performance improved 3.8% per year for ten years when companies stayed with traditional talent management practices, 6.8% when they realized they needed to re-design their talent management practices, and 10.1% when they launched a completely new talent management system Watson Wyatts 2002 European Human Capital Index study shows that 36 key human capital variables (practices and policies) are associated with an almost 90% increase in value. 4) Increase Productivity Initial research on 740 companies HR practices found that those using high performance work systems (HPWS are defined as integrated talent management practices) had economically and statistically significantly higher levels of company performance. One standard deviation of improvement on their bell curve of integrated talent management systems was associated with changes in market value from $15,000 to $60,000 per employee. Employee productivity was calculated as the logarithm of net sales per employee using gross rate of return on assets (GRATE), which is less sensitive to depreciation and other non-cash transactions, and Tobins q, a future-oriented and risk-adjusted capital-market measure of performance that reflects both current and anticipated profitability and often mirrors the price that the market will pay for intangible assets (goodwill). Further research that included three US surveys and the experience of more than 2,400 companies continued to show significant impact of systems that select, maintain, develop, and reinforce employee performance on both market-based and accounting-based measures of company performance (while statistically controlling for RD investment, industry market changes, capital improvements, sales growth trends, etc.). Moving from the 60th percentile of integrated HPWS to the 80th percentile improved market valuation by $20,000 per employee. This reflects both operational excellence and alignment with the companys strategy. When the elements are present, but not aligned with the company strategy there is a 27% drop off in measured gains. Gallup Management Journal reported the following in 2001: †¢19% of all employees are actively disengaged from their jobs †¢55% of all employees are not engaged in their jobs and †¢26% of all employees are engaged in their jobs at a cost of $292-355 Billion per year to the US economy. Great people management equals great shareholder value: European companies with the best human capital management deliver around twice as much shareholder value as their average competitors. 5) Reduce Cost ASTD and SHRM studies companies that is renowned for their ability to retain top talent (Linbeck, Kennedy Rossi, Zachary, Dow Chemical, Edward Jones, Great Plains, Sears, and Southwest Airlines). One key finding was that all of these companies implemented competency-based position profiles so that employees understood the skills and abilities required to move into leadership positions. They must also avoid wasting their money on bad human capital investments: The 2001 Watson Wyatt Human Capital Index study showed precisely which HR practices have an impact on the bottom line. 49 specific HR practices across 6 dimensions played the greatest role in creating shareholder value. Additionally, one dimension, Prudent Use of Resources identifies six practices that diminish shareholder value (e.g. training that is not connected to the business objectives and not evaluated for ROI). A new book shows how Microsoft, Intel, Nokia, Starbucks, Singapore Airlines and 20 other world-class organizations are luring and holding high-quality employees. One senior executive said, Microsoft has a market capitalization of $450 billion, the largest in the world. If you add up every desk and chair, every computer, every building, every piece of land, everything we own, including the $17 billion or so we have in the bank, it comes to about $30 billion. If you then add in things like goodwill and other financial assets, maybe youll come up with another $70 billion, if you really struggle. But that means that there is $350 billion more that people have given us credit for that is not there. What is it? Well, its the stuff in smart peoples heads. With that knowledge Microsoft has built and maintains a human capital management system very similar to Mundo Strategies system to prevent employees from wanting to leave the company even as the stock took a beating in the past few years. Supervisors who received training in how to listen better and resolve employee problems found that lost-time accidents were cut by 50 percent, formal grievances were reduced from 15 to 3 per year, and productivity goals were exceeded. Retention is one of the more obvious areas that effective talent management practices can affect. What attracts and retains high performers? 79% stay because of opportunities for advancement 69% stay because their job is redesigned 65% stay because they are learning new skills in their current job. Why do high performers resign? 56% leave because they are dissatisfied with company management 56% leave due to inadequate opportunity for promotion 50% leave due to dissatisfaction with pay 6) Reduce Cycle Time There is very little research into the impact of talent management practices on company cycle time. One classic work on cycle time showed that steel mini-mills using a high-commitment approach to management required 34 percent fewer labor hours to make a ton of steel and had a 64 percent better scrap rate than mini-mills using a command and control approach. 7) Increase Return to Shareholders Market Capitalization The five highest return to shareholders from 1972-1992 (Southwest Airlines Co. 21,775%, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. 19,897%, Tyson Foods, Inc. 18,118%, Circuit City Stores, Inc. 16,410%, and Plenum Publishing 15,689%) differentiated themselves from their competitors and the market only through the way they managed their people during the infancy of talent management. Whereas at the start of the 1990s studying its earnings and fixed assets and adding a token amount for goodwill invariably gauged a companys stock market valuation, by the end of the decade a seismic shift had taken place. When accountants Ernst Young came to look at the issue, they found that the largest slice of most companies market capitalization was held in intangibles primarily, the talent, knowledge and teamwork of its staff. In high-tech companies like Nokia, the percentage was as high as 95 per cent; but even old economy stalwarts like BP, despite its huge investments in oil platforms and exploration equipment, notched up a significant 74 per cent. The upshot was that even companies operating in the same sector with similar earnings could experience widely differing stock valuations. Those ignoring the new emphasis on intangibles invariably found themselves penalized by the markets. Watson Wyatt also reported that a 26% increase in market value in 2000 was driven by common talent management best practices: Use of knowledge and contract workers Recruiting excellence Consistent pan-European HR practices Good union-management relations Lack of hierarchy, clear leadership Teamwork and 360 ° feedback Customer-focused environment Remuneration Sharing information with employees The difference between a non-strategic HR system and one that has removed the barriers to performance are dramatic. Improving the relative sophistication of the HR system by adopting best practices does not provide measurable value (20%-60% adoption of a strategic HR system). Integrating the strategic elements of HR into the broader fabric of the organization provides a significant improvement in shareholder value (60%-80%). When HR systems have adopted best practices and aligned those systems with business priorities and initiatives they return the greatest shareholder value (80%-100%). The five-year survival rates of initial public offering showed that firms whose talent management practices scored in the top one-sixth of IPO firms had a 33 percent higher probability of surviving than those in the lowest one-sixth. Firms in the upper one-sixth in providing financial rewards to all employees, not just managers, had almost twice as much chance of surviving for five years, according to research by Theresa Welbourne of Cornell and Alice Andrews of Vanderbilt. COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE OF TALENT MANAGEMENT IN US CORPORATE SECTOR Taking a systemic approach to talent management Getting the right people in pivotal roles at the right time should be nothing new to HR professionals, but done effectively, talent management can create longterm organizational success. Here, Lynne Morton and Chris Ashton show how to align talent management strategies to business goals, integrate all related processes and systems and create a talent mindset in organization. TALENT MANAGEMENT (TM) IS more than a new language for old HR work, or just the next hot new thing for HR practitioners and managers to get involved in. For many organizations, it has become a strategic imperative. McKinsey research1 reveals that 75 percent of corporate officers were concerned about talent shortages and Deloitte reports that retaining the best talent is a top priority for 87 percent of surveyed HR directors. This need for talent and, therefore, its expert management is also driven by macro trends including: †¢ New cycles of business growth, often requiring different kinds of talent. †¢ Changing workforce demographics with reducing labor pools and, therefore, a talent squeeze. †¢ More complex economic conditions which require segregated talent and TM. †¢ The emergence of new enterprises which suck talent from larger organizations. †¢ A global focus on leadership which is now permeating many levels of organizations. The strategic importance of talent management:- On the basis of substantive research undertaken for our forthcoming report , they argue that good TM is of strategic importance and can differentiate an organization when it becomes a core competence and when its talent significantly improves strategy execution and operational excellence. For example, imagine your company has the right talent in pivotal roles at the right time. What difference will these people make to revenues, innovation and organization effectiveness compared with having to operate without them? What is the cost of the lost opportunities and the downtime and replacement costs of losing critical talent? What are the consequences of having to make do with the wrong kind of leaders and managers in the top two executive layers or of not having successors groomed and ready to replace them? Yet generally, organizations still struggle with TM. According to research, three-quarters of business leaders have invested dedicated resources in TM but most say they havent yet felt the impact of doing so.3 Why not? Through one of the research, they tried to provide reasons by asking these questions: †¢ Why are they doing TM? Is it for the individual, the organization or both? †¢ What do they mean by talent and talent management? †¢ What are their propositions for attracting and retaining talent? †¢ How do they manage and use the talent in their organization needs? †¢ How are internal roles and resources deployed appropriately to support TM? †¢ How is TM integrated across HR processes and with business planning and strategy execution processes? Talent management at FDC its focus, leadership, acquisition, retention, evaluation and tools has evolved over five years, and continues to be a work in progress. The evolving talent plan aligns with goals, business strategy and their organizational implications. The talent office annually reviews analytics and recalibrates talent to align with growth and other organizational needs. The current growth objective is 15 percent. Ours is a numbers business, which tends to reflect a short-term view, says Annmarie Neal, senior VP, organization development. Yet, we also have to build a leadership bench and talent pools, not around the execution capabilities were known for, but on a customer-solutions focus and strategic foresight. Investments in talent arent short-term they need at least three-year horizons to see returns. The key issue for FDC is to accurately identify high potentials with different capabilities such as strategic thinking, partnership building, results orientation, innovation and talent leadership and then build succession depth. In effect, they are building talent balanced with buying it, guided by the notion of critical positions that is, those positions that positively impact on the strategic goals or their execution. They are now applying their processes for identifying, assessing and growing future leaders to our more junior, untested populations who we expect to be our next VPs. Technology, as Neal explains, has allowed them to do more in depth and breadth with the same headcount. TM initiatives at FDC include: †¢ Talent profiling of individuals. †¢ Conducting calibrations of business performance and key results behaviors. †¢ Assessing and forecasting succession depth. †¢ Implementing organizational assessment summaries to give status reports for leadership talent. †¢ Using just-in-time, action-learning programs and talent-sharing assignments. †¢ Developing talent at risk tools based on potential derailers and defection triggers. †¢ Introducing a talent scorecard with five perspectives, each of which has critical indicators hiring. As we see it, TM is a strategic and holistic approach to both HR and business planning or a new route to organizational effectiveness. This improves the performance and the potential of people the talent who can make a measurable difference to the organization now and in future. And it aspires to yield enhanced performance among all levels in the workforce, thus allowing everyone to reach his/her potential, no matter what that might be. Though this interpretation of talent is inclusive, it strikes a strategic balance between performance and potential. Performance historically, the primary focus of measurement and management concerns both the past and the present, whereas potential represents the future. Our position assumes that potential exists, it can be identified and it can be developed. Here are specific ways that two case organizations inthe report define talent: †¢ Executive management team leaders, directors/VPs and A-player managers in all functions plus Bplayers as potentials. †¢ Future business leaders with more strategic capabilities than just operational excellence skills -plus specialist talent able to execute business integration projects on time and to budget. Clearly, there isnt a single consistent or concise definition. Current or historic cultural attributes may play a part in defining talent, as will more egalitarian business models. Many organizations acknowledge that talent, if aligned with business strategy or the operational parameters of strategy execution will change in definition as strategic priorities change. For example, in start-up businesses, the talent emphasis will be different to the innovative or creative talent needed to bring new products to market. Any definition needs to be fluid as business drivers change, so will the definitions of talent. What TM involves Talent management is the integration of different initiatives, or constructs, into a coherent framework of activity. There are certain crucial components and a useful model for defining TM is to think of it in these key words: †¢ Ethos embedding values and behavior, known as atalent mindset, to support the view that everyone has potential worth developing. †¢ Focus knowing which jobs make a difference and making sure that the right people hold those jobs at the right time. †¢ Positioning starting at the top of the organization and cascading throughout the management levels to make this a management, not HR, initiative. †¢ Structure creating tools, processes and techniques with defined accountability to ensure that the work gets done. †¢ System facilitating a long-term and holistic approach to generate change. Integrating TM through a system Its worth emphasizing that integration is critical. Our research shows that without integrating TM activities, the effort invested will tend to be dissipated with patchy results. Integration is knowing how all the pieces of TM fit together within a TM system. This will not operate in isolation from strategy, business planning and the organizations approach to people management. In this sense, the work of talent management cuts across what has been traditional HR silos. If integrated, it functions in a more facilitative, OD-like nature. It will also reach higher up the organization than other HR initiatives, often attracting the attention of boards and senior teams. Similarly, TM reaches down the organization, to include new recruits along with tenured professionals. Lastly, talent planning must be done in parallel with business planning, creating a rich integration of people and strategy. One way of achieving such system integration and alignment is the CRF Talent Management System (see Figure 1, above right). This systemic view of talent has five elements: Need the business need derived from the business model and competitive issues. Data collection the fundamental data and intelligence critical for good talent decisions. Planning people/talent planning guided by data analysis. Activities the conversion of plans into integrated sets of activities. Results costs, measures and effectiveness criteria to judge the value and impacts of TM Using this system can help TM become a strategic differentiator rather than a standard set of HR processes if the right conditions, context, timescales and offerings exist in the first place. System integration and alignment ensures that TM efforts are rational and fit for purpose. Since the arrival of the current era of talent is widely acknowledged, its not surprising that renewed significance is being placed on the management of that talent. And as talent continues to be viewed as a strategic differentiator, its management will take more of a strategic role. How fascinating it will be to take the pulse of talent management in the business community in another five years. We believe that while the management of talent will most likely become embedded in the fiber of cultures by then, the HR executives who led those initiatives will have achieved much more prominence. OBJECTIVES OF TALENT MANAGEMENT: There are some basic objectives which need to be fulfilled by the US corporate sector while applying Talent Management in the organisation and the objectives are:- 1) TO DETECT TALENT:- It is very important for the US corporate sector to determine or detect their best talent for the organisation and this Talent Management helps the selector to select the best talent among the pool of various alternatives present in the organisation. Because the best talent helps in generating more and more good ideas which help organisation to achieve or innovate something new. As Talent Management helps in detecting best talent of the organisation within the organisation, this helps organisation to achieve their goal more efficiently and effectively which are set by the organisation. 2) TO DEVELOP TALENT:- After detecting the talent in the organisation the US corporate next step for applying Talent Management is to develop the talent. It is not necessary that every person has a some talent in him or her but talent can also be developed through regular practice such as training, educating, providing them with the basic guidelines of the respective talent so that the talent of any person can be used for the effective utilization of the talent for the sake of the organisation which will be helpful for the organisation to came up with a new idea with the help of talent which will provide them with the best competencies among the competitor so that they can stay in long run of the business giving tough competition to their competitors and by developing talent US corporate sector tried to change the scenario of the employees by developing their talent and making them more confident, reliable and motivating factor for themselves and for others too which improves the behaviour and efficiency t o work. There is a huge change when a person come to some hidden talent in him and this makes them to be more responsible to the work and take the work as natural as play 3) TO MAKE TALENTS MORE RELIABLE:- Talent Management helps in making talent more reliable and US corporate sector use the Talent Management as their one of the important tool for making their employees talent more reliable as talent management helps in detecting and developing talent by the different mode they used while developing their talent they make the employees to be more confident in their talent which makes them more reliable which means that they will be confident in using their talent and organisation can rely on their talent while doing or making effective decision. Until and unless employees believe themselves in their talent then the organisation too will not have any faith on the employee and US corporate sector never keep such employees in the organisation as US corporate sector is best known for their talent and technologies and the technology is the result of the talent only. 4) TO PROMOTE TALENTS TO STRATEGIC PROJECTS OR TO HIGHER POSITION:- Talent Management helps in promoting talent to strategic projects or to the higher position because US corporate sector that every talent should be given their own position. If the talent deserves higher position then he should be given the higher position irrespective of any other things which might be taken in account such as education or qualification. They think that if the post deserves that talent then that talent should be given that post. When talent is promoted it acts as a motivating tool for the employees to make them more responsible and work towards the achievement of the goal set by the organisation which also enhance their style and attitude towards their work. Talent Management in the Corporate Sector Talent Management in the Corporate Sector A Talent Management INTRODUCTION:- Talent management is the process that emerged in 1990 and continues to be adopted, as more companies came to realize that their employees talent, skills drive their business success. Companies that have put into practice talent management have done so to solve an employee retention problem. The issue with many companies today is that many 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. Talent management refers to the process of developing and integrating new workers, developing and retaining current workers, and attracting highly skilled workers to work for your company. Talent management in this context does not refer to the management of entertainers. The term was coined by David Watkins of Softscape published in an article in 1998. The process of attracting and retaining profitable employees, as it is increasingly more competitive between firms and of strategic importance, has come to be known as the war for talent. IMPORTANCE OF TALENT MANAGEMENT IN US CORPORATE SECTOR US sector always want to grow and improve their system and processes must focus on people practices that allow or foster their growth and improvement. The best practices are known. The key variables (leadership competencies, experience and skill, interest rewards) that motivate people to succeed have been identified and successfully put into practice. Talent Management is no loger a cutting-edge field being solely tapped by pioneers. It is a viable path towards and improving organizational performance. Integrated, strategically aligned human capital asset management systems have provided significant economic benefits to companies that have embraced them as ongoing processes instead of one-time events. Research done on the value of such systems to companies consistently finds benefits in these seven critical economic areas: revenue, customer satisfaction, quality, productivity, cost, cycle time, and market capitalization. This research clearly shows that adopting and investing in best-practice talent management systems results in bottom-line improvement in each of these key areas:- 1) Increase Revenue It was initially thought that companies that make more money were associated with better talent management practices only because they could afford them (.19 correlation), but the 2001 Watson Wyatt Human Capital Index Study showed that talent management practices actually increase financial performance (.41 correlation). According to Watson Wyatts research 15% of profit performance is driven by: Management participation Open management style Taking some risks, but not too many Top managers spending 20% of time with customers Around 20% of top management should be outsiders Management training is deemed important Top managers are effectively incentivized Succession planning is done A good appraisal system is in place Employees get feedback In addition to supporting Becker and Huselids 1998 results, the 2001 Watson Wyatt Human Capital Index study showed precisely which HR practices have an impact on the bottom line. 49 specific HR practices across 6 dimensions played the greatest role in creating shareholder value. The research quantified exactly how much an improvement in each practice could be expected to increase a companys market value. For example, a company that makes a significant improvement (one standard deviation) in all of the practices categorized under Total Rewards and Accountability should see its value improve by 16.5 percent, and a significant improvement in 43 key HR practices is associated with an increase of 47 percent in market value. Results included: 16.5% impact on company market value from total rewards and accountability 9% impact from a collegial, flexible workplace 7.9% impact from recruiting and retention excellence 7.1% impact from the integrity of communications 6.5% impact from the implementation of focused HR service technologies 33.9% loss from non-prudent use of resources Careful inspection of all the data shows that for every available correlation calculated over time, the relationship between past HR practices and future financial performance is stronger than the relationship between past financial outcomes and future HR practices. This is the first study to show that HR practices actually increase financial performance (.41 correlation) instead of inferring that companies that make more money can afford better HR practices (.19 correlation). Given companies of comparable size, those whos CEOs exhibited more emotional intelligence competencies showed better financial results as measured by both profit and growth. The divisions of leaders with a critical mass of strengths in emotional intelligence competencies outperformed revenue targets by a margin of 15-20 percent. 2) Customer Satisfaction Knowing and using the critical competencies associated with success creates results. The 1998 Watson Wyatt study, Competencies and the Competitive Edge, showed that when an organization identifies and communicates the core competencies that it needs to be successful in the present and the future, it has developed a powerful tool to help meet its goals. Competencies define and communicate an organizations strategy and help employees to understand that strategy and achieve its goals. The many roles that competencies can play in an organization include: Articulating what the organization values Providing a common language for employees and managers to describe value creation Establishing a new paradigm for human capital management programs (organizational levers) Focusing on the development of the individual instead of an organizational structure Linking pay, promotions and growth directly to what the organization values to be successful Guiding employees and managers to what is expected and how value is defined even in times of dramatic change and restructuring Competencies serve as a powerful communication vehicle to focus all members of the organization on the skills and activities that will create both value and wealth. Competency-based programs can make a difference to the bottom line. Analysis of the financial data clearly shows that companies with competency- based programs perform better in the marketplace. Such programs help focus the organization and all the individuals in it on what they can do to add value to the organization. Contributions are role-related rather than position-related. Adopting this view of contribution to value will help organizations think differently about their human resource and development programs. Organizations can focus on competencies needed for the future and identify the roles that employees do and must play. Programs that build employee commitment can bring great returns. Data from this and other Watson Wyatt studies clearly demonstrate that both individual and organizational performance increase when employees are committed to their companies. Ensuring that organizational levers that build employee commitment are in place and working will affect the bottom line. This was most notable when the competencies focused on attributes and behaviors that promoted customer satisfaction. Training is important, but it is no substitute for good management. A large majority of the organizations participating in Watson Wyatts study identified training and development as the driver of future corporate success. The high-performing companies identified it slightly more often than the others. Putting people first by adopting high performance management practices translates into improved morale, more innovation, better customer service, higher productivity, greater cost reduction, greater flexibility, and increased skills development. 3) Improve Quality Motor vehicle manufacturing firms in US implementing flexible production processes and associated practices for managing people enjoyed 47 percent better quality and 43 percent better productivity than firms relying on traditional mass-production approaches, according to a worldwide study by Wharton Schools John Paul McDuffie. Overall financial performance improved 3.8% per year for ten years when companies stayed with traditional talent management practices, 6.8% when they realized they needed to re-design their talent management practices, and 10.1% when they launched a completely new talent management system Watson Wyatts 2002 European Human Capital Index study shows that 36 key human capital variables (practices and policies) are associated with an almost 90% increase in value. 4) Increase Productivity Initial research on 740 companies HR practices found that those using high performance work systems (HPWS are defined as integrated talent management practices) had economically and statistically significantly higher levels of company performance. One standard deviation of improvement on their bell curve of integrated talent management systems was associated with changes in market value from $15,000 to $60,000 per employee. Employee productivity was calculated as the logarithm of net sales per employee using gross rate of return on assets (GRATE), which is less sensitive to depreciation and other non-cash transactions, and Tobins q, a future-oriented and risk-adjusted capital-market measure of performance that reflects both current and anticipated profitability and often mirrors the price that the market will pay for intangible assets (goodwill). Further research that included three US surveys and the experience of more than 2,400 companies continued to show significant impact of systems that select, maintain, develop, and reinforce employee performance on both market-based and accounting-based measures of company performance (while statistically controlling for RD investment, industry market changes, capital improvements, sales growth trends, etc.). Moving from the 60th percentile of integrated HPWS to the 80th percentile improved market valuation by $20,000 per employee. This reflects both operational excellence and alignment with the companys strategy. When the elements are present, but not aligned with the company strategy there is a 27% drop off in measured gains. Gallup Management Journal reported the following in 2001: †¢19% of all employees are actively disengaged from their jobs †¢55% of all employees are not engaged in their jobs and †¢26% of all employees are engaged in their jobs at a cost of $292-355 Billion per year to the US economy. Great people management equals great shareholder value: European companies with the best human capital management deliver around twice as much shareholder value as their average competitors. 5) Reduce Cost ASTD and SHRM studies companies that is renowned for their ability to retain top talent (Linbeck, Kennedy Rossi, Zachary, Dow Chemical, Edward Jones, Great Plains, Sears, and Southwest Airlines). One key finding was that all of these companies implemented competency-based position profiles so that employees understood the skills and abilities required to move into leadership positions. They must also avoid wasting their money on bad human capital investments: The 2001 Watson Wyatt Human Capital Index study showed precisely which HR practices have an impact on the bottom line. 49 specific HR practices across 6 dimensions played the greatest role in creating shareholder value. Additionally, one dimension, Prudent Use of Resources identifies six practices that diminish shareholder value (e.g. training that is not connected to the business objectives and not evaluated for ROI). A new book shows how Microsoft, Intel, Nokia, Starbucks, Singapore Airlines and 20 other world-class organizations are luring and holding high-quality employees. One senior executive said, Microsoft has a market capitalization of $450 billion, the largest in the world. If you add up every desk and chair, every computer, every building, every piece of land, everything we own, including the $17 billion or so we have in the bank, it comes to about $30 billion. If you then add in things like goodwill and other financial assets, maybe youll come up with another $70 billion, if you really struggle. But that means that there is $350 billion more that people have given us credit for that is not there. What is it? Well, its the stuff in smart peoples heads. With that knowledge Microsoft has built and maintains a human capital management system very similar to Mundo Strategies system to prevent employees from wanting to leave the company even as the stock took a beating in the past few years. Supervisors who received training in how to listen better and resolve employee problems found that lost-time accidents were cut by 50 percent, formal grievances were reduced from 15 to 3 per year, and productivity goals were exceeded. Retention is one of the more obvious areas that effective talent management practices can affect. What attracts and retains high performers? 79% stay because of opportunities for advancement 69% stay because their job is redesigned 65% stay because they are learning new skills in their current job. Why do high performers resign? 56% leave because they are dissatisfied with company management 56% leave due to inadequate opportunity for promotion 50% leave due to dissatisfaction with pay 6) Reduce Cycle Time There is very little research into the impact of talent management practices on company cycle time. One classic work on cycle time showed that steel mini-mills using a high-commitment approach to management required 34 percent fewer labor hours to make a ton of steel and had a 64 percent better scrap rate than mini-mills using a command and control approach. 7) Increase Return to Shareholders Market Capitalization The five highest return to shareholders from 1972-1992 (Southwest Airlines Co. 21,775%, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. 19,897%, Tyson Foods, Inc. 18,118%, Circuit City Stores, Inc. 16,410%, and Plenum Publishing 15,689%) differentiated themselves from their competitors and the market only through the way they managed their people during the infancy of talent management. Whereas at the start of the 1990s studying its earnings and fixed assets and adding a token amount for goodwill invariably gauged a companys stock market valuation, by the end of the decade a seismic shift had taken place. When accountants Ernst Young came to look at the issue, they found that the largest slice of most companies market capitalization was held in intangibles primarily, the talent, knowledge and teamwork of its staff. In high-tech companies like Nokia, the percentage was as high as 95 per cent; but even old economy stalwarts like BP, despite its huge investments in oil platforms and exploration equipment, notched up a significant 74 per cent. The upshot was that even companies operating in the same sector with similar earnings could experience widely differing stock valuations. Those ignoring the new emphasis on intangibles invariably found themselves penalized by the markets. Watson Wyatt also reported that a 26% increase in market value in 2000 was driven by common talent management best practices: Use of knowledge and contract workers Recruiting excellence Consistent pan-European HR practices Good union-management relations Lack of hierarchy, clear leadership Teamwork and 360 ° feedback Customer-focused environment Remuneration Sharing information with employees The difference between a non-strategic HR system and one that has removed the barriers to performance are dramatic. Improving the relative sophistication of the HR system by adopting best practices does not provide measurable value (20%-60% adoption of a strategic HR system). Integrating the strategic elements of HR into the broader fabric of the organization provides a significant improvement in shareholder value (60%-80%). When HR systems have adopted best practices and aligned those systems with business priorities and initiatives they return the greatest shareholder value (80%-100%). The five-year survival rates of initial public offering showed that firms whose talent management practices scored in the top one-sixth of IPO firms had a 33 percent higher probability of surviving than those in the lowest one-sixth. Firms in the upper one-sixth in providing financial rewards to all employees, not just managers, had almost twice as much chance of surviving for five years, according to research by Theresa Welbourne of Cornell and Alice Andrews of Vanderbilt. COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE OF TALENT MANAGEMENT IN US CORPORATE SECTOR Taking a systemic approach to talent management Getting the right people in pivotal roles at the right time should be nothing new to HR professionals, but done effectively, talent management can create longterm organizational success. Here, Lynne Morton and Chris Ashton show how to align talent management strategies to business goals, integrate all related processes and systems and create a talent mindset in organization. TALENT MANAGEMENT (TM) IS more than a new language for old HR work, or just the next hot new thing for HR practitioners and managers to get involved in. For many organizations, it has become a strategic imperative. McKinsey research1 reveals that 75 percent of corporate officers were concerned about talent shortages and Deloitte reports that retaining the best talent is a top priority for 87 percent of surveyed HR directors. This need for talent and, therefore, its expert management is also driven by macro trends including: †¢ New cycles of business growth, often requiring different kinds of talent. †¢ Changing workforce demographics with reducing labor pools and, therefore, a talent squeeze. †¢ More complex economic conditions which require segregated talent and TM. †¢ The emergence of new enterprises which suck talent from larger organizations. †¢ A global focus on leadership which is now permeating many levels of organizations. The strategic importance of talent management:- On the basis of substantive research undertaken for our forthcoming report , they argue that good TM is of strategic importance and can differentiate an organization when it becomes a core competence and when its talent significantly improves strategy execution and operational excellence. For example, imagine your company has the right talent in pivotal roles at the right time. What difference will these people make to revenues, innovation and organization effectiveness compared with having to operate without them? What is the cost of the lost opportunities and the downtime and replacement costs of losing critical talent? What are the consequences of having to make do with the wrong kind of leaders and managers in the top two executive layers or of not having successors groomed and ready to replace them? Yet generally, organizations still struggle with TM. According to research, three-quarters of business leaders have invested dedicated resources in TM but most say they havent yet felt the impact of doing so.3 Why not? Through one of the research, they tried to provide reasons by asking these questions: †¢ Why are they doing TM? Is it for the individual, the organization or both? †¢ What do they mean by talent and talent management? †¢ What are their propositions for attracting and retaining talent? †¢ How do they manage and use the talent in their organization needs? †¢ How are internal roles and resources deployed appropriately to support TM? †¢ How is TM integrated across HR processes and with business planning and strategy execution processes? Talent management at FDC its focus, leadership, acquisition, retention, evaluation and tools has evolved over five years, and continues to be a work in progress. The evolving talent plan aligns with goals, business strategy and their organizational implications. The talent office annually reviews analytics and recalibrates talent to align with growth and other organizational needs. The current growth objective is 15 percent. Ours is a numbers business, which tends to reflect a short-term view, says Annmarie Neal, senior VP, organization development. Yet, we also have to build a leadership bench and talent pools, not around the execution capabilities were known for, but on a customer-solutions focus and strategic foresight. Investments in talent arent short-term they need at least three-year horizons to see returns. The key issue for FDC is to accurately identify high potentials with different capabilities such as strategic thinking, partnership building, results orientation, innovation and talent leadership and then build succession depth. In effect, they are building talent balanced with buying it, guided by the notion of critical positions that is, those positions that positively impact on the strategic goals or their execution. They are now applying their processes for identifying, assessing and growing future leaders to our more junior, untested populations who we expect to be our next VPs. Technology, as Neal explains, has allowed them to do more in depth and breadth with the same headcount. TM initiatives at FDC include: †¢ Talent profiling of individuals. †¢ Conducting calibrations of business performance and key results behaviors. †¢ Assessing and forecasting succession depth. †¢ Implementing organizational assessment summaries to give status reports for leadership talent. †¢ Using just-in-time, action-learning programs and talent-sharing assignments. †¢ Developing talent at risk tools based on potential derailers and defection triggers. †¢ Introducing a talent scorecard with five perspectives, each of which has critical indicators hiring. As we see it, TM is a strategic and holistic approach to both HR and business planning or a new route to organizational effectiveness. This improves the performance and the potential of people the talent who can make a measurable difference to the organization now and in future. And it aspires to yield enhanced performance among all levels in the workforce, thus allowing everyone to reach his/her potential, no matter what that might be. Though this interpretation of talent is inclusive, it strikes a strategic balance between performance and potential. Performance historically, the primary focus of measurement and management concerns both the past and the present, whereas potential represents the future. Our position assumes that potential exists, it can be identified and it can be developed. Here are specific ways that two case organizations inthe report define talent: †¢ Executive management team leaders, directors/VPs and A-player managers in all functions plus Bplayers as potentials. †¢ Future business leaders with more strategic capabilities than just operational excellence skills -plus specialist talent able to execute business integration projects on time and to budget. Clearly, there isnt a single consistent or concise definition. Current or historic cultural attributes may play a part in defining talent, as will more egalitarian business models. Many organizations acknowledge that talent, if aligned with business strategy or the operational parameters of strategy execution will change in definition as strategic priorities change. For example, in start-up businesses, the talent emphasis will be different to the innovative or creative talent needed to bring new products to market. Any definition needs to be fluid as business drivers change, so will the definitions of talent. What TM involves Talent management is the integration of different initiatives, or constructs, into a coherent framework of activity. There are certain crucial components and a useful model for defining TM is to think of it in these key words: †¢ Ethos embedding values and behavior, known as atalent mindset, to support the view that everyone has potential worth developing. †¢ Focus knowing which jobs make a difference and making sure that the right people hold those jobs at the right time. †¢ Positioning starting at the top of the organization and cascading throughout the management levels to make this a management, not HR, initiative. †¢ Structure creating tools, processes and techniques with defined accountability to ensure that the work gets done. †¢ System facilitating a long-term and holistic approach to generate change. Integrating TM through a system Its worth emphasizing that integration is critical. Our research shows that without integrating TM activities, the effort invested will tend to be dissipated with patchy results. Integration is knowing how all the pieces of TM fit together within a TM system. This will not operate in isolation from strategy, business planning and the organizations approach to people management. In this sense, the work of talent management cuts across what has been traditional HR silos. If integrated, it functions in a more facilitative, OD-like nature. It will also reach higher up the organization than other HR initiatives, often attracting the attention of boards and senior teams. Similarly, TM reaches down the organization, to include new recruits along with tenured professionals. Lastly, talent planning must be done in parallel with business planning, creating a rich integration of people and strategy. One way of achieving such system integration and alignment is the CRF Talent Management System (see Figure 1, above right). This systemic view of talent has five elements: Need the business need derived from the business model and competitive issues. Data collection the fundamental data and intelligence critical for good talent decisions. Planning people/talent planning guided by data analysis. Activities the conversion of plans into integrated sets of activities. Results costs, measures and effectiveness criteria to judge the value and impacts of TM Using this system can help TM become a strategic differentiator rather than a standard set of HR processes if the right conditions, context, timescales and offerings exist in the first place. System integration and alignment ensures that TM efforts are rational and fit for purpose. Since the arrival of the current era of talent is widely acknowledged, its not surprising that renewed significance is being placed on the management of that talent. And as talent continues to be viewed as a strategic differentiator, its management will take more of a strategic role. How fascinating it will be to take the pulse of talent management in the business community in another five years. We believe that while the management of talent will most likely become embedded in the fiber of cultures by then, the HR executives who led those initiatives will have achieved much more prominence. OBJECTIVES OF TALENT MANAGEMENT: There are some basic objectives which need to be fulfilled by the US corporate sector while applying Talent Management in the organisation and the objectives are:- 1) TO DETECT TALENT:- It is very important for the US corporate sector to determine or detect their best talent for the organisation and this Talent Management helps the selector to select the best talent among the pool of various alternatives present in the organisation. Because the best talent helps in generating more and more good ideas which help organisation to achieve or innovate something new. As Talent Management helps in detecting best talent of the organisation within the organisation, this helps organisation to achieve their goal more efficiently and effectively which are set by the organisation. 2) TO DEVELOP TALENT:- After detecting the talent in the organisation the US corporate next step for applying Talent Management is to develop the talent. It is not necessary that every person has a some talent in him or her but talent can also be developed through regular practice such as training, educating, providing them with the basic guidelines of the respective talent so that the talent of any person can be used for the effective utilization of the talent for the sake of the organisation which will be helpful for the organisation to came up with a new idea with the help of talent which will provide them with the best competencies among the competitor so that they can stay in long run of the business giving tough competition to their competitors and by developing talent US corporate sector tried to change the scenario of the employees by developing their talent and making them more confident, reliable and motivating factor for themselves and for others too which improves the behaviour and efficiency t o work. There is a huge change when a person come to some hidden talent in him and this makes them to be more responsible to the work and take the work as natural as play 3) TO MAKE TALENTS MORE RELIABLE:- Talent Management helps in making talent more reliable and US corporate sector use the Talent Management as their one of the important tool for making their employees talent more reliable as talent management helps in detecting and developing talent by the different mode they used while developing their talent they make the employees to be more confident in their talent which makes them more reliable which means that they will be confident in using their talent and organisation can rely on their talent while doing or making effective decision. Until and unless employees believe themselves in their talent then the organisation too will not have any faith on the employee and US corporate sector never keep such employees in the organisation as US corporate sector is best known for their talent and technologies and the technology is the result of the talent only. 4) TO PROMOTE TALENTS TO STRATEGIC PROJECTS OR TO HIGHER POSITION:- Talent Management helps in promoting talent to strategic projects or to the higher position because US corporate sector that every talent should be given their own position. If the talent deserves higher position then he should be given the higher position irrespective of any other things which might be taken in account such as education or qualification. They think that if the post deserves that talent then that talent should be given that post. When talent is promoted it acts as a motivating tool for the employees to make them more responsible and work towards the achievement of the goal set by the organisation which also enhance their style and attitude towards their work.