MAXIMIZING PEOPLE POWER
EXPLORING PAKISTAN’S PERSPECTIVE
Talent Management must be placed at the heart of the organisation. It must have buy in from senior management and also the structure of the business must support the talent development principle. At a time when the country’s economy is under tremendous pressure and businesses are finding it difficult to maintain their efficiency or even survive, managing talent can be a saviour.
ACCA and KPMG undertook a global study of best practices in Talent Management in businesses. The research report ‘Maximising People Power’ highlights the role that finance teams can play to generate a competitive advantage.
To discuss the current state of talent management practices in Pakistan, senior professionals gathered at ACCA’s roundtable discussions on ‘Maximizing People Power’ held in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad. They opined that there were many motives for businesses to consider adopting an integrated talent management approach across organizations. Some key drivers for implementing talent management practices in order of importance were fast track progression and value addition in business, business sustainability, cost efficiencies, succession planning, staying abreast of technical and technological changes, employee retention and developing specialized skills, and continuous learning and development.
Mr Mujtaba Khalid, EVP Internal Audit PTCL said that although PTCL has a training academy in place that looks after the development of its employees. He added further that PTCL is going to introduce job rotation in certain departments in order to realise the benefits of on the job training.
Historically, with a few exceptions, the local businesses in Pakistan have not kept talent management practices on their list of priorities. The main reason for their doing so was the uncertainty around the return on investment and the outcomes of these practices. This has resulted in either slower business growth or closure in case they couldn’t sustain the economic downturn. On the contrary, multinationals operating in the same economic environment in the country that had talent management at the heart achieved record high profits.
The panellists of the roundtable discussion concluded that growth in businesses is directly proportional to the amount of investment made in managing talent..
