Research and industry reports have suggested that organizations that are well networked and work seamlessly deliver higher market share and profits than those who are less networked.

Building a network centric talent practice fosters collaboration and innovation leading to achievement of business objectives.

A research by MIT highlights the importance of talent practices and its impact on improving collaboration within the organization. This, and many such researches, have reiterated the fact that talent management practices play an important role in enabling the achievement of business objectives  by fostering innovation, change agility, diffusion of SME knowledge within the organization and identifying high potentials who deliver business strategies.

Having said this, the current talent practices mostly focus on an individual’s performance and development from the perspective of how they contribute to an organization’s growth. The nature of work is changing and so is the workforce composition. With technology becoming the backbone of work, it is seldom that an individual can achieve the results without collaboration or teamwork. The work therefore is increasingly becoming team centric.

The question therefore arises whether organizations need to expand their philosophy of talent management to include the “collaborative contributions” of a talent?

What are “collaborative contributions”?

Collaborative contributions are the investments in the form of knowledge, support, teamwork, and collaboration, made by an employee to the internal and external network built in the organization. Research by MIT has found that high performers in organizations develop, contribute, and leverage their network within or outside their organization. Performance obviously is a given. High performers also invest in the network early in their career and through these networks, they extend their knowledge base to deepen their expertise and access valuable resources.

The network built by an employee around her/ him plays an important role in their success, progress, development, and growth within the organization. The talent practices however are yet to focus on treating this network as an important organizational resource which can deliver a sustainable competitive advantage.

How do we leverage “collaborative contributions” in talent practices?

Identifying and mapping the employee network helps the organization in analysing the nature of influence an employee has on others with whom she/ he interacts frequently eg: buddy, personal coach/ mentor, inspirational leader, technical SME etc.

The talent practices spanning the employee life cycle need to integrate this network at an organization level to enhance their efficiency and effectiveness. Organizations that leverage these networks in their talent management practices can better engage marginalized, hidden, and underutilized employees. While employee networks can be integrated with almost all talent practices, below are a few of them where such integration will enhance their efficiency and effectiveness:

To sum up…

Organizations seeking to leverage their talent practices can benefit significantly from integrating the employee networks. In relying on traditional methods, organizations frequently end up not only overlooking talent but also not seeing that some of their high performers are not making “collaborative contributions” to the organization.

So, is your talent making “collaborative contributions” at work?

#organizationnetwork #engagement #networkanalysis #digitaltransformation #learningculture #upskilling #reskilling

References

Schweer, M., Assimakopoulos, D., Cross, R., & Thomas, R. J. (2012). Building a Well-Networked Organization

J. Bughin and M. Chui, “The Rise of the Networked Enterprise: Web 2.0 Finds Its Payday,” December 2010, www.mckinseyquarterly.com.