Is your corporate Talent management strategy effectively developing the skills of your individual team members to meet the requirements their position? Do you have a Talent management process in place that’s customized to the unique needs of the organization and it is employees? Are the employee development efforts maximizing the unique potential of every team member?

Employee Development and Talent management are essential elements of any strategic human capital management program that merely can’t be overlooked.

If you do not understand the unique training and development needs of the team members you simply are not getting the greatest return on your training dollars possible Period.

When done strategically and executed effectively investments in employee development will pay huge dividends which will take your organization to the next level

Why employee development and talent management?

Employee development encourages employee engagement that is necessary to a high performance workplace

Strategic talent management raises the skills and talents of your associates and increases the performance of the team

Team members enjoy the sense of personal growth and satisfaction which comes from the chance to develop their skills and better bring about their team

Employee development can have a dramatic impact on the level of employee retention in your firm. To put it simply, engaged employees using the opportunity for personal and professional growth are more likely to stick with your business

Employee Training and development is definitely an purchase of your business that can give a significant Return on Investment when tailored to the unique needs of your individual team members

Talent management is a vital part of any effective succession plan designed to ensure the health and vitality of your organization for many years.

Talent Management Consulting – How We Might help…

We’ve powerful talent assessment tools at our disposal to determine a team member’s weaknesses and strengths and can identify the kinds of training which are most appropriate for each individual team member.

Our talent management strategies and services are never “boxed” programs. We’ll make a customized employee development and coaching strategy for your own associates to reach their unique growth opportunities.

Using the knowledge gained from our assessment tools, we can assist you to identify individuals ideal for advancement inside your organization. With this particular knowledge in hand customized development programs can be crafted to organize team members for advancement in your firm.

We will help make sure that workers are involved in their day to day activities within your organization to make sure an advanced of organizational commitment.

We offer the type of employee training and development that sticks. We avoid feel good training that actually works for a day and is forgotten. Our talent management programs are made to produce real and lasting change.

Like many internal communications, you might find that communicating change is a very demanding part of your role. In today’s environment, change is a fact of life. Companies, resistant to change, risk losing their edge against your competitors.

The process of change is complex. As human beings we quite often feel threatened by change. However the irony is the fact that without change we may still all be residing in caves. We have to admit that change can be exciting in addition to challenging because it stimulates innovation and creativity. Good for business and good for us. Now you ask ,, “Is it possible to assist in managing change without all the drama?”

Before engaging in communicating change, it is important to comprehend the psychology of change as well as your role in the change process. Change needs to be effectively managed and communicated that it is embraced instead of rejected.

One of the more sensitive areas to handle is your senior management team. They may be driving the modification initiative, but may not be so great at communicating ideas in a way that is accessible to any or all staff. They might not even possess a framework for managing the change process. A part of your job will probably be supporting your key stakeholders and making it easy for these to communicate effectively to staff whatsoever levels.

How can I communicate change and minimise negative aspects of the modification process?
You will find change management methodologies, that have shown to be successful when implementing changes. These give a framework for managing the change and alter communications process. Select processes that suit you and your company’s culture and that are appropriate towards the type of change you wish to implement.

When researching change management, it doesn’t take long to learn about trust. It requires time to win employee trust, the first step toward an employee’s commitment to the company. It requires time for you to construct it but only moments to destroy it. Signs that trust has been eroded include lower productivity, poor morale, potential to deal with change, a powerful rumor mill and good staff leaving. A good change management process with effective, honest internal communications can avoid all of this making implementing changes an exciting and rewarding challenge.

Understand the psychology of change
Don’t allow the change curve become a ride – Change is really a complex issue. A lot of us don’t embrace the need for change, especially when things seem to be moving along just fine. We are firmly ensconced in our safe place and also have a feeling of wellbeing. In the business world, however, senior management needs to be a minumum of one step ahead to be able to maintain their organization’s edge against your competitors. Senior management may read ‘comfort zone’ as ‘stagnation’ and immediately start likely to innovate and improve.

Prior to announcing any change, someone has obviously considered the current situation, analyzed solutions, and come up with an agenda. This takes time. This plan is then often presented towards the employees. Being suddenly confronted with a change plan, and feeling excluded from the loop, makes many employees feel anxious.

During periods of organizational change, employees may become less productive and question their employment. Their response to change is often emotionally charged and when change isn’t managed and communicated effectively the likelihood of success reduce significantly.

‘The Change Curve’ graphically describes the psychology of change. It lists stages that employees typically undertake during a change initiative. These stages range from Satisfaction (I am happy as I am) through Denial (This is not highly relevant to my work), Resistance (I am not having one of these), Exploration (Could the work for me personally?), Hope (I can see the way i can make this work for me personally), through to Commitment (This works best for me and my colleagues). We mustn’t overlook the proven fact that when there are significant changes, people may need time for you to grieve for just about any perceived or real losses.

To communicate effectively, it is vital to recognize your employees’ mindset at any stage of the process, to be able to support them, validate their feelings and move them through to the commitment stage.

Typically at the start of any change initiative employees experience:

o Fear; e.g. of job loss or of increased responsibilities
o Frustration; e.g. with the process or with lack of information, or even
o Acceptance; e.g. they recognize that change is needed or inevitable.

Comprehending the needs of the key stakeholder groups and where they are across the continuum from the change curve enables you to hone your communications plan. Picking out a framework by having an iterative approach, enables you to make subtle (or not so subtle changes) so that your role in the change process is really as effective as possible.

Think strategically and clarify your messages

Why are we changing?

Even if you possess the trust of your employees, they won’t get alongside and make changes if you don’t give a compelling and logical reason to alter. Your strategy ought to be to motivate staff through inspiration, not desperation.

Using a structured process is just part of your strategic planning. An iterative procedure that enables you to make continual improvements depending on the feedback you receive is a superb approach. Acting on feedback shows that you are not only hearing your employees but taking note of them as well. This can be a powerful method of engaging staff and moving them right through to the Exploration stage of the Change Curve.

A great deal has been transformed ever since the balanced scorecard has been introduced into the world of business. Probably the most significant changes is that for the longest time, it absolutely was the financial statements that mattered. Once the BSC was explained, lots of people were enlightened there are also other factors with an effect on the success of the company. Fundamental essentials customers, business processes and the efficiency of the employees. You can preserve track of the progress of your organization through the use of the balanced scorecard strategy map.

The balanced scorecard strategy map is a tool that defines how your company creates value by using the connected strategic objectives in expected outcomes relationships. You will see that there is an important and existing BSC-strategy map relationship particularly with relation to its the four perspectives. Now the significant question is, “Why in the event you apply the balanced scorecard strategy map into your own small business?”

There are many reasons that you can find came from here while you’re reading books about the BSC and also the strategic communication map. All the information you have obtained and you need are only displayed in one page. In this case, read the information and view them quickly without wasting time. In addition to that, it’s relatively simple make it possible for strategic communication. Even though financial perspective is all about short term or even about the past performance of your company, you can use the information that you have gained for creating long term value of the shareholders and this also enables you to develop a productive strategy when it comes to increasing the costs and also the utilization of the assets from the business. Expanding opportunities and improving the values from the clients are also some of the benefits that you can obtain in the balanced scorecard strategy map.

Internal operations, customer relations and employee development create attributes that may affect the efficiency of merchandise and services. Your relationship for your customers and to your employees will also help the affiliation and the image of your organization. To be able to make use of the balanced scorecard strategy map well, you will have to allocate human, organizational capital, information and the skills of the leaders.

If you can to connect the things that are mentioned above, you’ll be able to effectively implement customer administration, quality supervision and process management combined with the growth and development of the company’s core abilities, the enhancement of human resources, it, innovation, organizational design and many more. Whenever you produce the balanced scorecard strategy map and you comprehend the BSC-strategy map relationship, you can describe the strategy and communicate it among the employees and also the executives. Therefore, alignment is created and it is related to the company strategy. Take note that the implementation of the company’s technique is probably the most difficult tasks that you ought to perform as a business. Nevertheless, if there is alignment inside your organization, it is obvious that you’ll be in a position to accomplish this task without many problems.

Executive summary

Its revenues composed US $139($184) billion, assets equaled $62($82) billion, and also the number of employees reached more than 30,000 people in 20 countries around the world.

While Enron Corporation was so highly praised through the outside observers, internally it had highly decentralized financial control and decision-making structure, which made it practically impossible to obtain coherent and clear view on corporations’ activities and processes. Obviously, the issue was not exclusively because of poor managerial performance, all the departments of the corporation were active in the ruining corporate ethical values and principles, but executives and managers bear primary responsibility for that absence of corporate culture, clear accountability and transparence of the company. If operations management worked properly, in the full force, and if it was given possibility to work in such a way, there might be an opportunity of escaping the tragedy.

Enron Corp brief history

Enron Corporation was one of the largest global energy, services and commodities company. Before it filed bankruptcy under chapter 11, it sold natural gas and electricity, delivered energy along with other commodities for example bandwidth internet connection, and provided risk management and financial services towards the clients around the world.

Enron was based in Houston, Texas, and was founded in July 1985 (though company with Enron name emerged still in 1930 (Swatz, Watkins, 2003)) through the merger of InterNorth of Omaha in Nebraska, and Houston Natural Gas. Enron Company quickly developed from merely delivering energy to brokering energy futures contracts on deregulated energy markets. In 1994, the organization started to sell electricity, and in 1995, it entered European energy market. Through the middle 2001, Enron employed about 30,000 people globally (McLEan, Elkind,2003).

Questionable accounting methods and methods provided Enron with possibility to be listed as seventh largest Usa company and was expected to dominate the marketplace which the company virtually invented within the communications, weather and power securities (Bryce, 2002). But instead the corporation had become the largest corporate failure within the global history and an example of well-planned and institutionalized corporate fraud. Enron became wealthy because of its pioneering marketing and promotion of power and communications bandwidth services and risk management derivatives, including such innovative and exotic items as weather derivatives.

In 1999, Enron launched an initiative of purchasing and selling use of high-speed Internet bandwidth, as well as Enron Online premiered as a Web-based trading site, making Enron e-commerce company. In 2000, the reported revenues from the company made $101 billion. It had stakes in almost 30,000 miles of gas pipelines, either owned or accessed 15,000 miles of fiber-optic network and had stakes in global operations on generating electricity (Thomas, 2002).

In the result, for five years consecutively, from 1996 to 2000, Enron was named “America’s most innovative Company” by Fortune magazine, and headed the list of Fortune’s “100 best companies to Work for in America” in 2000. Enron reputation was undermined by rumors on bribery and political pressure with the objective of securing contacts in South and Central America, Philippines and Africa. The Enron was blamed to make use of its connections with Clinton and Bush administrations to express pressure within their contracts. The events were then a series of scandals involving irregular accounting methods bordering on fraud which involved Enron and Arthur Andersen accounting firm and led Enron near undergoing the biggest bankruptcy in economic history in November 2001 (Emshwiller, Smith, 2001).

Since Enron was always considered a blue chip stock, the bankruptcy would be a disastrous and unprecedented event within the global financial world. Enron’s downfall was definite when it was found out that a considerable share of their profits resulted from handles so-called special-purpose entities, limited partnership under control of Enron. It led to the potential of not reporting many of the company’s losses in its fiscal reports. The final plan of Enron’s bankruptcy included creation of three new business organisations which may be spun from the company.

The reorganization process were only available in 2003 with the creation of three companies – CrossCountry Energy, Prisma Energy International, and Portland Whirlpool. CrossCountry Energy was sold to CCE Holdings L.L.C., with the money to be used for the repayment from the debts, while Prisma Energy International and Portland Whirlpool should emerge as independent companies descendant of Enron (Swatz, 2003).

Operations management scope of functions

To know the reasons of this bankruptcy and also the degree of managerial implication within the quality performance from the company, particularly that of operations management, it’s important to outline the main functions of operations management and impact it should have of functioning from the organization.

The principal task of operations management is effective transformation of inputs into “desired outputs” from the company (Shafer, 1997). The outputs are traditionally understood in manufacturing and profit-making context inside the organizations. But recently it has been recognized that operations management is a discipline which isn’t limited with your narrow functions; it may be deployed in practically any area in which the organization aims at achieving its objectives (Barnett, 1996). For instance, non-profit or public sectors need to learn how to optimize their internal operations and procedures within the situation of limited resources; service companies come to conclusion that by reappraising their delivery process they can revolutionize and significantly improve their approach to companies as well as their marketplace. Robin Wood (2001) provides the illustration of such operations management implication in Daewoo company, which understood that it may specialize and differentiate its product with the addition of definite bundle of benefits to the product which includes additional supporting services. Operations sector is the heart of those changes which are produced by leading companies to improve their performance and increase subscriber base.

The survival of commercial company depends on ability from the organization to concentrate and shape its operational resources to meet the expectations of its stakeholders: customers, employees and shareholders, expressed in organizational strategy (Russel, 1995) . Irrespective of economic sectors the company are operating in, the ability of operations management of this company to fulfill those above-mentioned tasks depends on their understanding that it is necessary to create trade-offs. They can’t avoid the situation of working under constraints and also have to know their capabilities and constraints to provide significant inputs into strategic decision-making process involving further resources from the organization.

Operations managers within the organizations aren’t empowered to make strategic decisions, however they play important role in shaping the organization’s strategy and bring about the strategic thinking ( Pasternack, Viscio, 1998). Operations managers should be able to translate strategic aims and objectives into clear operational objectives and actions and to implement, design and enhance the products from the company themselves and the processes of their delivery. They have to understand how changes incorporated to external factors influence the operation and just how alterations in taking care of from the operating-system influence other aspects.

Also, operations managers need to know how technological changes impact organization’s capacity for delivery, and also to incorporate their conclusions into strategic process (Peters, Waterman, 1982). Therefore, the heart of operations thinking includes the ability to think dynamically and systematically across some time and space (Miller, 1998). Besides traditional tasks of operation management, new perspectives and objectives emerge connected with the emergence of recent trends and developments of operations management, such as total quality management, shop floor control, global supply chain management, manufacturing planning software, yet others.

Total quality management has become one of the most important developments from the operations management. The quest for higher-level of merchandise and services quality is caused by the globalization of markets, on the one hand, and increasing litigation over products or services failure. The connection between quality and market share performance is doubtless. Those firms that fail to comprehend the issue of quality end up at the base of their industry hierarchy. A substantial share from the responsibility for quality standards rests around the operations manager. Global supply chain management is yet another very important component of operations management. The world economy has become more global than ever. Looking for lower production costs, more flexibility and local risk reduction, companies are seeking to outsource and produce services and products on global scale (Heizer, 2004). Operation managers have the effect of fulfilling the task. Project management is yet another task of the operations management department. Operation managers bear responsibility for numerous projects including considerable capital projects to a particular ones for example installing of new information system.

Effectively managing projects involves fulfillment and delivery them in timely manner and inside the budget (Stevens, 2001). In short, operations management is indispensable element of the business, since it fulfills numerous important functions from the company. Operations manager handles daily running and functioning from the organization.

The implication of poor managerial performance for that collapse of Enron Corporation

It is now necessary to find out and analyze whether operations management of Enron Corp performed all the functions mentioned above and what was the quality of their activity.

The Enron did have operations management department, which, based on their official source, fulfilled the next functions: setup accounts and notify utilities, agency agreement from customer, verify the format of invoice, setup invoice data transfer, test algorithms of invoice and file transfer to the customer, determine the reporting requirements from the customer (Enron Energy Services, 2000). Because it is seen from the source, the functions of very operations management department are extremely limited. There are other management departments which perform the functions of operations management stated above: operations facility management, commodity management, energy asset management, financial operations, and capital management. Though, the majority of functions performed by these departments, according to the source, are purely executive and lack integration, systematic vision, responsibility, control and creative aspect. Besides limited scope of functions assigned to operations management in Enron Corporation, another essential point concerns the caliber of their performance and overall corporate culture and atmosphere created within corporation. As it was mentioned above, ideally, the functions of operations management include creating ethic values, integrity, competence and clear accountability inside the organization. Enron’s management failed to adhere to these tasks.