The future of work: Model of the Talent Life Cycle (TLC)

Its time that organizations understand that the perfect candidate with the perfect set of skills will be scarcely available in a highly competitive labor market. Hence we have to focus on our existing employees and identify opportunities to train or refocus their skills into new positions.

- Basudev Sanyal

The insurance industry is in the verge of a significant transformation. These are exciting and important times for the insurance industry. The insurance industry is adopting technology, digitizing processes and creating products that will appeal to the modern, next-gen customer base. Customer expectations are also rising making it more important than ever that insurers provide a high-quality customer service experience. The situation brings with it human resource challenges in such organizations, which if left unaddressed could prevent them from successfully adapting their business strategies to meet the changing demands of the market.

In such a situation, it has to be realised that what is crucial is investing in an organization's most important resource - its people. This involves recruitment of candidates with highly desirable skillsets, providing ongoing learning and development opportunities, the rewarding of valued team members and encouraging them to advance within the organization.

Drawing a parallel with a 'Product' that is launched by an organization after market research and with a focused marketing strategy, we observe that human resource talent is also recruited and launched within the organization with certain specific objectives. The Product Life Cycle (PLC) is a marketing model developed by Raymond Vernon that helps to map the evoloution of a product from its launch to its obsolescence. Observing that the human resource in an organization can also be understood with a similar model, I had presented for consideration a model of the Managerial Life Cycle (MLC)* in an article published in February, 1997 in the Insurance Times and the same model can be used as a reference in devising a strategy for maximizing the value of talent within the organization.