Human Resources has seen some radical changes over the past decade in the way it operates, many of these changes are due to outsourcing to other countries in order to cut costs and reduce overheads. The advances in technology and ease with which the World Wide Web can be accessed by people all over the world have significantly transformed human capital management.

Due to this technology growth companies now have access to an international workforce, leading to changes in the way they recruit and train. Employees now often work from home and can be located in a totally different country to the main office of the company they work for, training has to be designed and implemented in such a way it will adequately prepare them for their new role.

The responsibilities of a human resources department are many and varied, some of the different functions carried out by this department involve recruiting employees, training staff and keeping employee records. Each function has an important role within the organization and forms the foundation from which it can run smoothly and efficiently. HR have had to adapt and change in order to meet the new standards and demands of global asset management.

The main challenge human resource professionals have to deal with in today's competitive world is to identify and implement successful methods to hire and retain good quality employees, or in other words, 'talent'. This is known as talent management.

Talent management is concerned with coordinating and managing the different talents people have to offer within an organisation. This is done by studying and evaluating each individual on their skills, talent, personality and character, in relation to filling a particular vacancy within the company. Everyone has different skills to offer and the hard part for a company is identifying those that fit in with the existing company culture – effective HR procedures will be able to identify these individuals and appoint them appropriately.

Talent in an employee can involve all kinds of elements, from their educational qualifications and skills, previous experience, known strengths and additional training they have undertaken, to their abilities, potential and motive, qualities and personality. Most companies practise TM in some way, this could be anything from the recruitment and selection of individuals, to their placement within the company, training and development courses, to performance management and various schemes that reward high-fliers and achievers. How involved a company is in talent management generally depends on the size of the business and their commitment to employees and their future.

Succession planning is a fundamental ingredient of a business strategy, enabling your organisation the ability to recognize potential high performers so you can plan for the future regarding staff changes. It's important formal recruitment processes are in place, whether you are recruiting from the existing workforce or looking for fresh talent, also there should be a clear career path for employees who wish to progress, this should include relevant courses or on-going training to prepare them for their new role. Succession planning tools can be facilitated to help you identify and develop existing and future talent within the organization, raise employee commitment and retention through definite career paths, and ease costs connected with identifying successors.

An effective solution will show the achievements of individual members of staff and whether or not they are performing well in their present responsibilities. It can also assist in identifying those who should be rewarded, anyone who may need a warning for whatever reason and those who could cope with, even benefit from, additional responsibilities. Staff training and development needs, promotions and demotions are all part of the process and a successful performance management solution should cover all elements.

Talent management will not be successful if there isn't a system in place clearly identifying performance results. If a member of staff is deemed average then they should be rewarded to reflect this, whilst the high achievers in the company should receive higher rewards otherwise they will become demotivated.

Outsourcing your recruitment process will save your company money and improve the candidate hiring process, as well as cutting costs, and give you that edge over others in the market.