Executive summary
Talent development makes references to the core values, beliefs, and efforts that a company does to boost and prepare its labor force according to the necessities of the industry and challenges that can appear in the future; this process also includes the correct management of resources, both human and monetary. Nowadays there are corporations worried and doubt about to invest in their talent development of their workforce. However, there are enterprises that consider it as an important value to succeed in the market.
This analysis pretends to highlight the meaning of the talent development in the first section of the essay. Then, there will be a comparison of the same topic between two international companies, one from USA, Apple, and the second one from China, Huawei. For both enterprises will be an examination of their differences and similarities. Additionally, there will be recommendations for both enterprises, following by an analysis in case both get mixed and finally there will a personal conclusion.
Talent development
Today, all the companies are facing and challenging massive disruptions. Rapidly changing behaviors in how the people need to react or take critical decisions for the future survival of the enterprise (Todd Fisher, 2015). All these changes and defies are created by a unique asset, and the only one who can confront these commotions is the same that created them, the human being. Then, how can a company can face and survive to these suddenly obstacles?
The only ones who can take the correct decisions and bring the required results it’s the labor force. Therefore, it is a necessity for the companies to develop a good base of employees capable to manage these defies. The process to create this base is through talent development and this corresponds to the strengthening of the worker to get a better performance of it to drive the business and obtain the desirable results, and this will be achieved through an integrated development and performance management of the company.
Nowadays, it is difficult to imagine a company without a clearly plan to manage the development of their labor force and helping them to shape the future of their careers. However, it can sound unbelievable but there are enterprises that are still ignoring this vital part (Lipman, 2013). Some companies are still seeing it as a merely budget or a waste instead to visualize it as an added value.
A company’s attitude to talent development is a core strategy. However, as it was mentioned before, there are enterprises that have not connected correctly the components of the approach and answered the question about how they should invest in their labor force. This disconnection can be costly for corporations even in good times and it can be vital in case the worst scenarios appear. Instead of this contradiction, managers or general leadership in human resources should develop focused people plans aligned to the business path with the objective to support the success of it (DeAnne Aguirre, 2012).
Companies and third parties can create extensive and nutritious programs to prepare the employees, but are these plans and big budgets enough to produce effective talents? That’s the reasons that many have questioned the efficacy and efficiency of talent development approach and they have considered it a merely waste of money.
A study developed by Deloitte in 2012 showed that American companies invest more than $14 billion annually on talent development training. The market has available thousands of books related to this topic, and there are many firms offering courses and executive programs. However, an investigation revealed that once these all trainings are finished the people tend to forget nearly 50% of what they learn and the CEOs don’t know how to translate this knowledge into practice (Hedges, 2014).
Leadership board prefers to save the money and invest it in a process to select the specific candidate. Why to develop own talent if it can find it outside? Additionally, there are companies that don’t know the reason of the programs to develop talent and they are more worried to fulfil the demands of the managers and stockholders.
Previous arguments could sound negative; however, there are advantages to have a well-focus talent development structure in the company. The first one is the improvement of the professional career of the employee. It is a win-win term, the enterprise invests in the worker with the objective that he or she could have a better performance inside the work and the curriculum of the employee will have more value. This kind of investment is strongly criticized because many consider that a high-skilled and well-prepared worker can become an easily target to be tented by external companies.
The second point is the capacity to have a good base of well-developed people focus in the main objectives of the company. This is the connection between the strategies of the corporation with the required people to fulfil them. The third point is the improvement of the relation between the employee and the company. This is not always positive, in many times the training is not what the worker is looking and he would not have the best performance. However, talent development is a way not also to attract but also to retain.
Finally, the attractiveness of the company to attract “new blood” will increase. A good talent development strategy is able to be perceived as desirable enterprise in which people can improve their professional careers. However, if the corporation receives tons of requests per day then they should have an excellent team to pick the correct talents.
At this point it can be considered that there are more advantages than disadvantages, but talent development implies more activities than a simple decision taken by the management board. This decision carries a deep analysis about what actions need to be implemented and this can be translated to additional expenses. Some examples of these expenditures are the time to develop the programs, third parties to give the courses, talent management etc. However, this analysis doesn´t pretend to take part between good or bad, this is a general review of what is talent development.
Regarding to the analysis of talent development, this is a process that can brings positive advantages according to the requirements of the company and the final decision will be taken related to the perspective of the leaders or managers of the company. In spite of the fact that there are studies that demonstrated that talent development couldn´t be benefit, there are companies that believe in its strategies and they have developed its own management.
Two examples of companies that I believe have had developed a good program for talent development is Apple and Huawei. The first is an American company that is considered one of the bests in the world related to technology and the second is a Chinese corporation that is also recognized as one of the best developing technologies and that in less than 20 years has growth immensely. This oriental enterprise has demonstrated that can compete against the big “giants” such as Samsung and Apple.
I believe that Apple and Huawei have developed a good talent development programs because in just few years the companies have been able to create extraordinary products, moreover they have taken the correct decisions to succeed in the industry. The success not only depends of innovative products, it also requires a good decision-making talent. Therefore, what is the secret of both companies to create excellent products and be the bests? I believe the correct answer is that they have extraordinary talent.
Analysis of the companies
Apple
Apple Inc. considered as the most profitable and number one in market value (Forbes, 2017) was founded in 1977 in USA by a group of young entrepreneurships. The company is specialized in designs and sells media devices, personal and portable computers, software and other web-based communication services such as cloud-computing (Reuters, 2017). Nowadays it has more than 100,000 thousand employees working in part and full time.
The company sells its products and services all over the world in almost all the countries. The brand is so famous that a lot of people recognize the bitten apple logo and it has tried or has one of its products. But, what make Apple the most valuable globally company are not its innovative products or services, it is thanks to its talented people.
Many have heard about the stories of the ex-CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs, considered a visionary and great leader by many and a tyrant by others. The actual CEO, Tim Cook, who is also view as a good leader and according to a survey of Glassdoor; Cook received a good rate approval by his employees and this makes him one of the best CEOs (Glassdoor, 2016). These two guys have been fundamental for the success of Apple, however, this history of achievements has not been written by only two, it need to be recognized that the story was also created by the people that not always receive the reflectors of the media, the employees.
Therefore, what is doing Apple inside of its header quarters to develop its people and then create extraordinary products and services? The answer for this question will sound madness, but Apple doesn’t have an establish career development plan management for its employees. Every employee is in charge of its own development. It is well know that Apple has its own university but most of its information is secret and only few have been able to go there.
While many top companies invest tons of money to enhance or establish the correct program development for theirs employees such as Huawei and Samsung, Apple’s approach is totally the contrary, the attitude over the employees are that they need to consider their own plan. Then, most of the questions a worker should solve are: What and where is my path? How can get progress and go to another level? (Lashinsky, 2012)
When the culture of the company is established as Apple, the employees could see this way to work overwhelming, because there are workers that still need the guide to find the correct path to the next level. Many shareholders can consider this a good decision because they don’t have to invest in robust programs for their labor force and additional can give more time to their employees because they are avoiding the supervision of others or worried about higher rungs (Lashinsky, 2012).
With this description it looks that Apple are having troubles with their employees due to the lack of a stablish career development plan, however, its labor force is happy. Because they are free to take their decisions plus all the benefits the company offer such as higher salaries, the culture inside is very mature and innovative, people is always learning from the others because the offices of Apple are full of geniuses and finally if someone believes that Apple is not the correct firm to work it will be easier to find a job in other corporations (Kosoff, 2016).
Regarding to this mindset of Apple over the talent development, it could be misunderstood that their employees are always occupying the same position inside the company, but the strategy is based in exalt their employees to look for the correct position, while many other organizations prefer to dictate the path of their labor force, in Apple they have a created a liberal way of think (Lashinsky, 2012).
This way of thinking is not recently, it has been born since the creation of Apple, according to an article published in 1994 in Workforce, “Apple can’t guarantee lifelong employment. Your responsibility is to drive your own development and career. (Caudron, 1994)” Every employee should be ready to create their own network, and it should look for their own path for developing its own skills and experience (Lewis, 2014).
However, this doesn’t means that the employee will be “flying” in the company without any guide. Apple’s pretend to exploit the strategy to have the correct person in the right place (Stafford, 2013) . The company’s compass for career-management plan is related to support the employees to find their skills, necessities and make them ready for future opportunities. Apple has available many resources for the employees such as:
- Library for career development: a collection of a variety of many sources such as newspapers, books, videos, etc. Additionally they can find the available information of the open positions and requirements to fulfil and the vacancies of other companies.
- One-hour seminars: the company offers weekly seminars about business trends, and career tendencies.
- Assessment and counseling: Apple offers assessments to help its employees to appreciate the different types of personality related to the career planning development and career choices. Additionally, they have the opportunity to express their development issues to receive advice.
- Networking groups: these groups help the employees to understand more about other areas of the company and to know more about the requirements career-skills. Furthermore, the people share information of external vacancies.
- Online job posting: as many other companies the company has its own platform to publish the current vacancies and analyze the requirements for them.
There is another resource that Apple opened for talent development, the Apple University but most of the details of it are kept in secret. It is considered more elite than Harvard and Yale, and the main purpose of it is to offer training, not merely career development approach, and the assistance to it is not compulsory, this means that not all the employees go to it. The assistance to the university is by invitation, until know nobody knows how the people are selected, and are directed to corporate managers at the director level and above (Colt, 2015).
The training inside of the university it could be sound weird because Apple is focus into train people about how to be a staff member of Apple and to think about the way of Steve Jobs did it. The training is tailored to develop the skills of employees such as “What makes Apple, Apple” in which the pupils study about different business cases (Gibbs, 2014).
Huawei
Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. Is a Chinese company founded in 1987 by the entrepreneur and ex-member of the People´s Liberation Army, Ren Zhengfei. Nowadays Huawei is considered one of the leaders in the information and communications technologies solutions provider. It offers many types of products and services such as portable computers, mobile phones, smartwatches, a variety portfolio for business communication solutions and web-based services such as cloud computing.
The company has presence in more than 170 countries and regions and it has more 180,000 employees around the world (Huawei, 2017). The company has growth considerable in the last years; just in 2016 its revenue was 32% bigger than the previous year (Tomás, 2017). But what makes interesting this company is that is going to be the main competitor of Apple.
According to the experts, Huawei is going to “knockout” Samsung and the market will be disputed principally by Apple and the Chinese company (Taylor, 2017). However, there are people that paint a better scenario for Huawei, in which it will defeat Apple because the oriental corporation is offering better products with higher quality and better features (Perlow, 2017).
What really makes interesting this company is the highest success that has had in the last years; this “gene” of triumph in the global market is a characteristic of Chinese companies in the recent years. Other success stories are Sany, Haier and Alibaba. But, repeating the question made in the Apple section, what is Huawei doing to develop its people to continue with this rate of success?
As difference of Apple, Huawei has implemented a complete system to support the career development of its employees. The Chinese company recognized that its labor force is its backbone that will drive it to the success. For this reason the enterprise has developed a sense of urgency in offering to its workers varied career paths to help them to enhance their professional life.
In the company everybody is seeing as equal and everybody receives the opportunities for training and promotion. In the year 2015, the personal system training registered more than 1.12 million of training sessions, taking the average per employee, this means and around of more than 30 hours of preparation.
One of the strategies of Huawei is that the employee should also be ready to prepare their own career path and it encourages them to take the correct development decisions according to their preferences and abilities. The worker has the decision to take two routes: managerial and technical/professional (Alan R. Nankervis, 2013).
Similar as Apple, Huawei has its own university and this is the responsible to develop the labor force, technicians, managers and future leaders. The university was founded in 2005 and as difference of its competitor; its details are available. Huawei University provides tailored training according to the career needs of the employees. The new workers receive between one and six months about corporate culture, product standards and development, marketing, sales, etc (Hugh Scullion, 2011).
Huawei invest heavily in develop its employees, these kind investments includes the collaboration with prestigious international firms to develop programs and systems in human resources. One of the plans of these programs includes sending their workers abroad to learn the best managerial practices and to take management or technical courses. Due to Huawei is company that based its business in IT and communication, it is necessary that its labor force has be prepare with the newest and recently tech trends (Hugh Scullion, 2011).
In the personal system training the employee not only learns about how to do the activity, it also understands about the importance of its position and the contribution it is doing to the business organization. Moreover, the system facilitates the communication between the different levels of the company, helping to create a network between people and highlighting the corporate culture.
Other resource that Huawei has made available for their employees it is the eLearning platform, in which it is offered thousands of courses that will help to improve and develop the skills of the worker. In 2015, the platform registered more than 6.5 million of sessions taken. In this same system the company offers to the employees the most recent technical courses, especially in the area in which Huawei is leader, the information and communication technologies (ICT).
Other resources and systems that Huawei has made available to its employees are:
- Mentorship program: a program focus on the new employees to help them to take decisions for their career path and to be adapted to the culture of the company.
- Feedback system: employees are welcome to send and said their concerns about their career development or business decisions.
Strength and weakness
Evaluation
Doing the comparison between the two companies, it can be observed something interesting, both enterprises are opposite ends; in one side it is Apple, a company that delivers the management of the career development to its employees and in the other side it is Huawei which has under its management the career development of its workers.
There is a phrase that mentions that to be in the extremes will not bring the bests results, however, the strategies of Apple have been working since its foundation and now is the most valuable and profitable company, and in the other side with a totally opposite strategy, Huawei has been scaling in the market and in the next couple of years will be the mainly competitor of Apple. I believe that they should continue with their strategies.
Recommendations
Apple:
- Not all the people can manage their own development, and this could cause that people leave the company. Apple need support and develop these people; maybe they are losing excellent workers.
- Develop local talent instead to wait a lot of time to find someone. Tim Cook says that he could wait until 18 months to cover a position (Stafford, 2013). The company can lose productivity for that position or maybe if you could wait a lot of time to fill it is because you don´t need it.
- Don’t try to develop people to think equal to Steve Jobs, use the university to develop people better than him and let the dead rest in peace.
Huawei:
- Start with a step by step plan to give more freedom to the employees to self-manage their own career plan. Identify which ones will need support and which ones can “fly” alone.
- Reduce the investments of the company in career management but keep or increase them into innovative programs for their employees
- Look for alternative innovative tech platforms (gamification, role plays, simulations, etc.) to develop the skills of its employees
Mixing companies
My desirable company in case both will get mixed is one in which we could find it in the middle of the chart, a firm that gives to the employee the freedom to choice what they want but with a robust program to enhance its career development in case he or she need it.
The company should be ready to understand that not all the employees are able to self-manage their development but also it should know that they are workers that will be “flying” and in case these “lone raiders” need help the company should be ready to proportionate it.
I will eliminate the politic of Apple that talks about find the correct talent instead of develop it. Find the “chosen one” could imply a lot of time and it is possible that we could have inside of the company a “rough diamond.”
I will reduce the politic of Huawei of invest a lot of time and money in career development management and invest more in innovative platforms that can accelerate and enhance the professional career of my employees.
Eliminate the bluffing of secret universities and use them for its true reason to exist, develop people. If a company really has the best university, then the results will be observed in the graduates and not in the “bluffers” marketing campaigns.
Conclusions
Talent development it is a crucial and important action for the companies. For some enterprises these could means a waste of time and money and their efforts are based merely into find the correct talent to fulfill the positions. On the other hand, talent development could be a strategy to develop their labor force to its own way.
There is not a correct path to take about talent development, in this analysis we observed the extremes. In one side we have Apple in which their employees manage their development plan and in the other side is Huawei, where the company is in charge to develop its work force. Both firms have created a robust strategy since its foundation and this has been work with good results. For this reason I believe they don´t want to change the way they are doing it.
Both multinational enterprises are considered as the bests in the industry, then, which is following the correct path? There is not a good or bad answer for it; it will depend on the characteristics of the company. In my case, I believe that the correct way is that one in which employees and enterprise can grow.
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