The War for Talent

In order to understand the magnitude of this War for Talent, we studied 77 large companies from a variety of industries. Nearly 400 corporate officers and 6000 senior executives were surveyed in the USA alone. More than 20 case studies were made of companies widely regarded as being rich in talent, and 5000 alumni of eight top universities participated in additional research that focused on the war for technical talent in the New Economy [1]. 

Talent management therefore has to become a top corporate priority, for chemical companies even more than for others. Executive talent is, in general, an under-managed corporate asset. Our survey data show that, on average, fewer than 10 percent of executives say that their companies develop people effectively and move low performers quickly. In the chemical industry, companies manage their physical and financial assets with some sophistication, but with few exceptions they have not made people a priority in the same way. 

To attract and retain the best people, corporations must also create and perpetually refine a clear employee value proposition - that is, a convincing answer to the question of why any smart, energetic, and ambitious individual would want to work for that company instead of any other. Once this answer is established, attention can shift to recruiting top talent and to developing it into an even more valuable workforce. 

Creating a winning value proposition means tailoring a company s brand in the recruitment market and making the jobs that it has to offer fit the specific 

What such firms can do to help themselves, however, is to create exciting jobs for their target executive group, offering both challenges and rewards  

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Chambers, E. G., Foulon, M., Hand-FIELD-JONES, H., HanKIN, S. M., MICHAELS III, E.G. The War for Talent, The McKinsey Quarterly (1998) 3 44—57 The Universum graduate survey 1999 -Pan-European Business Edition US-Edi-tion... 

Michaels, E., Handfield-Jones, H., Axelrod, B. (2001). The war for talent. Boston, MA Harvard Business School Press. 

Opportunities for building global businesses arise, and these help to attract and retain entrepreneurial talent. This is especially important in an industry which is in an uphill battle against other industries in the reignited war for talent . 

The new company s future platform has to be announced as soon as possible for two reasons first, a clear vision prevents uncertainty in the organization and secures the motivation of the employees. This is especially important in toda/s War for Talent (see Chapter 10). Second, it serves as a proactive demonstration to the financial markets that the management has the firm intention of reorienting the new company, so that shareholders respond to the company s targets rather than setting their own goals. 

Diversity candidates have many employment options in today s market because many organizations are aggressively seeking diversity employees. Licensed, experienced engineers of color or female engineers are a valuable and sought-after asset. The turnover rate in people of color is greater than white males, says Valencia Faye Tate. Because there s a war for talent, folks are extended more lucrative offers. ... 

The majority of women chemists entered the analytical field. Women were probably more accepted for this work, as repetitious and exacting analyses were considered compatible with women s talents. Throughout the war, there was a demand for analytical chemists some to determine purities of explosives and of their precursors and others, the purities of pharmaceuticals.36 Even graduating high school women chemistry students were taken on for the war effort, as was mentioned above. 

J. Robert Oppenheimer Physicist Oppenheimer was asked by Groves to serve as civilian director of the Manhattan Project under Oppenheimer the talents of hundreds of scientists were coordinated into the singular goal of creating an atomic weapon. Oppenheimer also convinced Groves to establish the project s central laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico. After the war Oppenheimer admitted to harboring sympathies for Communists and was stripped of his security clearance. 

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