Michigan Central Train Station in Detroit

Organization rise and fall based on people involved in leading, managing and supporting.

It has become a deciding factor for success in any organization to hire, nurture and retain the great talent.  Organizations have in past gone out of way to attract key talented resources from competitors.

There might be fancy deck of powerpoint presentaton produced by HR professionals on available programs to do all that, but is it the reality on ground? Is it working?  Are key people leaving organization or moving to different department? How can you ensure the success of your initiative if key talented resources do not want to stick around? As a project manager you get to see things first hand if policies or programs are working as expected.

Also, I think, it is not only HR’s function to attract and keep talented folks but project managers play a vital role in it. Job security, clarity of direction, level of engagment, opportunities available, benefits and work environment determine how talented resource make their mind up but Project Managers can also influence talented resoureces stay by  –

1. Marketing the project, its benefit to customer and organization along with in what way it  can help resource grow professionally;
2. Keeping the account of talent levels of each resource’s skills, background and career goals to make informed decisions;
3. Offering or arranging mentoring sessions & directing the focus of talented and motivated employees to groom and engage resources;
4. Delegating in light of what resources can or can not do, level of hand holding required, comfort level in taking risk for project success;
5. Keeping the communication lines open, first listen then guide and supervise so that resource feels connected and knows he/she makes the difference;
6. Accepting that mistakes will be made by resources, plan accordingly and anticipate to develop future leaders and managers;
7. Finding challenging and creative assignments for talented resources so that resources can grow;
8. Rewarding and recommending the resources in presence of key stakeholders;
9. Giving or arranging opportunities to attend conferences, meetings and training to sharpen their saws; and
10. Explaining how project management fits into the life cycle of product development or any project – it’s not asking for status and producing late tasks report.

This is a list of 10 points to start your thought process, please share what else should be added.  Hope to find out from your valuable contribution through comments.  Thanks for reading.

Categories: Career, Employee, Leadership

Tags: Business, central train station, Consulting, Education and Training, Human resources, Management, Project and Program Management, Project management, Project Manager, Talent, talented folks, talented resources