TALENT MANAGEMENT IN SUPPLIES

The shortage of talent has been one of the main problems experienced by business organizations in emerging countries, which has led to the intensification of global competition between companies due to the growing need for human capital to manage the numerous challenges that emerging countries experience in the development process.

These human resources, in addition to other attributions, will be of great importance in the development of innovations that will feed competitiveness and boost the economy of those who are still on the path of growth. However, developing nations have been finding it difficult to obtain qualified labor to maintain the supply flow for ongoing projects.

The problem of emerging countries becomes even more complex because they saw – during the several years of low economic performance that preceded the current growth – the departure of talents who sought better opportunities in developed countries. These professionals on the run, in the past, sought both better jobs and better training in terms of education. The current trend is to reverse this drain of talent, bringing back those who stood out in the trajectory of the industrialized world. These people are returning to their home countries to take advantage of existing opportunities.

Undeniable is the fact that companies are seeking talent in a vigorous way, never seen before. They are employing the most varied strategies to attract the labor they need, the most common being the increase in rewards offered. The scarcity of qualified personnel is leading to competition between companies so that the most aggressive ones try to conquer professionals from other companies as if it were a war for talent.

This text will approach the question of the scarcity of qualified labor bringing the discussion to the environment of the supply professional, presenting two surveys carried out with the purpose of mapping aspects of the management of this professional.

CHARACTERISTICS OF TALENT MANAGEMENT IN SUPPLIES

The topic of talent management (GT) has occupied a significant space on the agenda of supply executives nowadays. These are employing about twenty percent of their time in involvement with issues related to GT and are not leaving these issues entirely in charge of the human resources area. In the supply environment, it is very common for industry executives to participate in solving GT challenges, represented in the selection, hiring, development and retention programs of talent in their area.

Supply professionals acquire strategic importance as they acquire goods and services that will be used in production and that will allow companies to achieve their goals of growth, innovation and competitiveness.

The strategic importance of the supply professional takes us back to the concepts of the resource-based view that are widely used for the development of corporate strategies. This theory concerns the establishment of strategies that bring competitive advantages, based on unique, valuable, rare and difficult to imitate resources.

Valuable resources allow organizations to capture opportunities by transforming them into something that becomes unique and therefore difficult to copy or adapt. Resources are financial, physical, human and organizational assets used by companies to develop a product or a service for their customers.

The dimension most linked to the precepts of the theory of competitive advantages, based on resources, is the difficulty of imitation. Companies, through their people, gain skills and capabilities to, over time, develop culture, social networks and organizational structures that manage these skills and capabilities, making them difficult for competitors to imitate.

Supplier negotiation and management skills are examples of skills that are unique and developed for each company, making a human resource with the aforementioned skills unique and distinct, contributing to obtaining competitive advantages.

In most positions in companies, the skills required for the performance of existing positions are focused on basic education, communication skills and skills for using technicians. However, to carry out the typical activities of a SHOPPING/Supplies, the professional must know the most modern management practices and be able to use them according to the different situations of acquisition of goods and services; he must be competent to deal with suppliers, capacity for analysis, ability to act in line with the organization's strategy, to work under certain adverse conditions, be able to face difficulties and live with complexities, motivated and easily adapt to different situations.

Talent management in supplies is more complex in view of the economic growth we are predicting for our country. This complexity becomes more pronounced when faced with the high volumes of INVESTMENTS of large national companies, which will imply the need for people who can obtain the necessary resources (goods and services) to carry out the planned investments. With regard to personnel employed in the procurement of goods and services, the following points add complexity to the WG scenario in procurement:

a) Growing need for talent to meet the appetite of companies in the Purchasing/Supply sectors;

b) The younger generation has to be enough to fill the new jobs to be vacated by the older generation, called the babyboomer;

c) Lack of skills due to the inadequate qualification of candidates to replace vacancies.

This, in many cases, leads companies to hire a professional without proper qualifications and then to carry out a training program to provide this professional with the appropriate tools to perform their activities well. With regard to supplies, the main alternatives for improving talent start in a more traditional way, with classroom training. Other options are methods of learning while carrying out a task (on the job learning), rotation between different positions in the supply structure, specific missions, monitoring tasks carried out by other more experienced professionals (job shadowing), the opportunity to send the professional spends a period of time at the multinational's headquarters, using more experienced professionals for guidance, monitoring and counseling (mentoring and coaching).

THE CURRENT SITUATION OF TALENT MANAGEMENT IN SHOPPING/ SUPPLIES IN BRAZIL

The remaining part of this article is concerned with the presentation of two surveys of a descriptive and explanatory nature, which were carried out by ILOS, with the author's participation, in the years 2010 and 2011. These works had the purpose of analyzing the current situation of GT in Purchasing/Supplies in the country, making some reflections on the results found as a result of the collection of quantitative data carried out.

Panorama in the corporate environment

The first survey had the interviewed companies as the object of analysis and the purpose was to verify in the field the problems of talent management in supplies discussed so far in this text. Companies belonging to the large group of the thousand largest in the country were consulted according to the classification of billing published in Exame magazine.

The exhibition includes small, medium and large companies ranging from 97 to 50.000 employees, with an overall average of 5.363 employees. The number of employees working in the Purchasing/Supply department ranged between three and 120 people.

With regard to the shortage of talent in the Purchasing/Supply area in recent years, 83% of the interviewed companies identified this problem as one of the biggest challenges to meet their growth needs over the next five years. Some are considering the possibility of importing labor from countries that traditionally have excellent training for their university students and that are going through unprecedented economic crises.

Respondents also stated that their companies were able to fill only 60% of positions with qualified personnel in the Purchasing/Supply department. Of the 40% of vacancies that were not filled with qualified personnel, 17% were left unfilled and the remainder was filled with personnel without qualification for the sector. Companies prefer to recruit people without qualifications and then give them basic training to start the activity and slightly reduce the number of open positions than to spend a long time without having a professional on their staff.

There are companies that keep the selection process for hiring personnel in Purchasing/Supplies constantly open. This procedure differs from the traditional one that existed until recently, which established specific periods for opening the process.

When asked about the alternatives used to fill the personnel gaps that are constantly open, half of the sample indicated that they end up redistributing work among existing personnel. This can trigger dissatisfaction among the staff and encourage migration to other companies. In addition to this initiative, others are being used, but on a much smaller scale. Transfer of personnel from other areas, temporary hiring, work automation and outsourcing of activities are examples of alternative paths that are used in the order in which they are presented in this text.

Relationship networks were the most effective channel, indicated by 40% of the companies, to attract qualified personnel. In second place was hiring recruitment firms, with 36% of the respondents' votes. The use of information from personnel in other functions of the organization was the option used by the remaining 24%.

Within this framework of scarcity that has been described, the recruitment process to replace open vacancies has been extended over a much longer period of time than usual, in the opinion of 68% of the investigated companies. This fact is reflected in the average hiring time for talent in the sector, which is currently 2,6 months.

With regard to establishing salaries and benefits at the time of hiring, it was observed that 77% of the companies use some benchmarking survey to establish the salaries of the personnel to be recruited and 40% of the companies in the sample increased the average salary by around 18,4% to attract new talent.

Despite the average salary trending upwards, the average turnover rate for Purchasing/Supply personnel (turn over) is 14%, which may be a sign of the existence of a war for talent.

Another interesting piece of data concerns the increase in the level of skills and competences of the Purchasing/Supply personnel over the next three years, as a reflection of the demand for greater training of this professional to face the large projects of INVESTMENTS that are planned. Thus, 93% of the interviewed companies reported that they agree with the statement that there will be an increase in the skills of professionals in the sector.

In line with the previous finding, it was asked what practice was used to get staff to acquire the skills that are in demand. Among the interviewed companies, 82% indicated that they use traditional training in the classroom as a form of qualification and only 32% said that they use another option in addition to traditional training; the remaining 68% said they don't use anything else.

Most companies believe that this situation of increasing demand for personnel in Purchasing/Supplies could lead to an improvement in the skills/capabilities of the sector professional as a whole. This manifestation was observed in 70% of those who participated in the research.

Another piece of information related to the shortage of talent concerns the level of automation of the Purchasing/Supply activity. Most companies in the sample (80%) believe that the use of electronic tools will facilitate the execution of various transactional and operational activities and free up human resources for tasks of a strategic nature.

This entire scenario drawn up to this point has involved the Purchasing/Supplies executive to closely monitor the development of events regarding the personnel in his sector, gain the attention of the human resources department and contribute to solving the growing problems of personnel in your area.

The survey asked respondents whether the Purchasing/Supply department has a plan for the area's talent management process or whether this is the responsibility of the human resources sector. Of the companies questioned, 60% said that the two sectors jointly take care of this task, but the Purchasing/Supply department calls for its responsibility the planning of this management process.

Likewise, it was asked which sector is responsible for the personnel succession process in the Purchasing/Supplies environment and, as before, the sector executive calls his department to plan the foreseen successions. These last two findings indicate the concern of the supply executive with the subject and confirm the hypothesis that he is committing a good part of his time to talent management in his area.

Panorama in the individual environment

The second survey on the subject was carried out at conferences aimed at Purchasing/Supply professionals, with the distribution of a questionnaire to collect the perceptions of participants in these events, normally attended by Purchasing/Supply executives, resulting in a participation of 92 respondents .

The stratification of the participants was distributed according to the hierarchy shown in Figure 1. It is observed that the majority was represented in the highest levels of the companies.

The male audience was the majority among the respondents, representing 70% of the sample, and the distribution of positions between men and women is shown in Figure 2, which seeks to group the positions into three groups to facilitate visualization and improve understanding. As can be easily observed, the managerial level is the most representative among the respondents who attended the events and which were used as a background for data collection.

The remuneration obtained by the participants considered the earnings actually received and all other benefits that were included in hiring the professional. This initiative aims to allow the creation of a common denominator that facilitates comparison between participants. Figure 3 shows the commented distribution, where a quarter of the sample earns over R$300 a year and another 21% of participants earn between R$200 and R$300 a year.

When looking at remuneration distributed by age, it is observed that older professionals have the highest salary levels, which makes perfect sense, because they are usually the ones who occupy the highest levels in the company. This stratification is depicted in Figure 4.

Of the total respondents, 56% said they were satisfied with the wages received. However, there is still a lot of dissatisfaction, since 67% of those over 55 years old and who also account for the highest salaries indicated dissatisfaction with their income. Already 75% of those aged up to 25 say they are satisfied with their income.

Another way of looking at the issue is to look at the salary range according to the position held. Figure 5 seeks to describe this information, where it is observed that the vast majority of directors have salaries above R$ 300 thousand.

An important piece of data regarding the supply professional concerns the level of education obtained by him throughout his career. Figure 6 brings this information in a simplified form, where it is observed that graduate studies are popular in all surveyed positions, especially among managers and directors. Additionally, 22% of directors were even more concerned about their level and sought higher training through master's and doctoral courses.

Another factor of equal importance to be studied is the degree of INVESTMENT in career development with the purpose of improving qualification in the performance of functions. On average, professionals participate in 30 hours of training per year, with managers taking the most part in this activity. However, when it comes to investment in these trainings, it is observed that the value is low, putting in doubt the effectiveness of this measure in relation to the objective of having more qualified professionals. If the contracted courses are chosen according to the price criterion, it is possible that they do not have the adequate quality to make a difference in the qualification of the professional. On average, analysts, managers and directors spend, respectively, R$ 5.749,00 per year; BRL 6.341,00; and R$ 12.666,00 for professional improvement.

The themes of the most sought after courses are logically related to the activity of project management. SHOPPING/Supplies. There is also a small group of courses that would be more related to the Logistics activity, but due to the great proximity that exists between the areas, some courses may be of interest to both the Purchasing/Supply and Logistics professional. Below is a list of courses that were identified as being of interest among the investigated executives:

a) Strategic Management of Purchasing/Supplies (strategic sourcing);

b) Negotiation for buyers;

c) Development of Suppliers;

d) Relationship with Suppliers;

e) Financial Analysis;

f) Procurement Processes;

g) Inventory Management;

h) Contract Management;

i) Project Management;

j) Management Costs;

k) Innovation;

l) Pricing;

m) Transport Management;

n) Information Technology.

The average weekly hours worked and the average hours spent in meetings are directly related to the hierarchical level occupied by the professional in the organization. Figure 7 represents the division of workloads according to the position occupied by the Purchasing/Supply professional. Directors spend, on average, 54 hours on their workday during the week. That's nearly 11 hours of work a day in a typical Monday-Friday week. In addition, directors and other levels of the Purchasing/Supply department take an average of 18 working days of vacation per year.

There was also a trend towards greater demand for professionals to commit to the number of hours per week, as a result of the shortage discussed throughout this article. The research participants pointed out that companies with a greater number of employees and with a greater number of hierarchical levels in the SHOPPING/Supplies are demanding more hours from employees to meet their growth commitments.

CONCLUSION

The appreciation of the supply professional is increasing, as he becomes strategically important for the growth of companies and the country, enabling both to face the challenges of future growth. The numbers of research on talent management in supplies point in the direction of this greater importance of the professional in the area.

The scenario of economic development in emerging countries with pressure from demand and limited resources brings back the ghost of inflation in all segments, including human resources. The general perception in the market, captured in interviews with executives, is that the country will not have SHOPPING/ Supplies enough to satisfy future demands.

Many questions still need to be answered for further elucidation and that cause anguish in Purchasing/Supply sector executives regarding the management of human capital in their organizations. What skills will be needed for the future? Is the company attracting the necessary talent into its operation, or are other companies doing this? Is the company promoting the development of the skills it will need for future succession? Is the performance of the supply sector strategies aligned with the company's strategies? Are performance requirements and the career development program aligned to increase talent retention and commitment? What actions need to be taken to improve the performance results of existing talent?

All questions raised need to be answered with actions that bring greater productivity to the Purchasing/Supply professional. If increasing the number of employees in the sector is difficult due to lack of options, or due to cost constraints, an alternative is to increase the production of existing employees. Thus, current professionals must be trained to obtain more results with less use of resources.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BEECHLER, S., & Woodward, IC (2009). The global “war for talent”. Journal of International Management, 15(3), 273-285.
ELEGBE, JA (2010). Talent Management in the Developing World. Farnham, England: Gower.
ILES, PP (2009). Talent on Demand: Managing Talent in an Age of Uncertainty. International Journal of Training & Development, 13(1), 73-83.