MANAGING TALENT BUSINESS VOCABULARY IN USE (ADVANCED)

 

BUSINESS VOCABULARY IN USE (ADVANCED) 7. MANAGING TALENT

 

A Core competents DEVISING STRATEGIES TO PREVENT THE FLIGHT OF TALENT Is your company today held dependent on ‘core competents’ – talented individuals possessing the skills that make your products and services unique? If so, you’re not alone. In a study by the Corporate Leadership Council, a computer company recognised 100 core competents out of 16,000 employees: a software company had 10 oout of 11,000: and a transportation group deemed 20 of its 33,000 employees truly critical to performance. B Creatives and suits An expert in workplace trends says: ‘Some activities depend on groups of freelance creatives for each project. For example, in film making, the creeatives, that is, the writers, director, etc., and the talent – the actors – come together for a particular project and then disband. This is a typical example of a virtual organization. The only permanent people in the company are the suits, the businesspeople, who bring the teams together for each project. Other industries work in similar ways. For example, in software development, managers and programmers may come together to contribute to a particular project and then leave to work on others.’ Note: ‘Suits’ is mostly used in the plural and is colloquial. EXERCISES 7.1 Look at the article in A opposite and say if these statements are true or false. Core competents ……. 1. are highly skilled people. 2. are key to the functioning of some organizations. 3. are always senior executives. 7.2 Complete the sentences with expressions from A opposite. 1. Core competents are employees who have been identified as _________ to the success of the company. 2. People who have specialized knowledge or _________ are very valuable to the company. 3. Some say that people are a firm’s most important assets, and therefore _________ _________ is key to its success. 7.3 Look at B opposite in a film project, are each of the following people ‘creatives’ or ‘suits’? 1. the film director 2. the finance director 3. the actors 4. the head of the film company 5. the scriptwriter 6. the costume designers

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