Essay: Talent Management: Current Theories And Future Research Directions.

Basic Discussion

Describe about the Talent management for Current theories and future research directions?

Right talent is the greatest asset for any business ion the market. It plays an important role of human resource management that makes facilitates to enhance employee performance in an effective manner. Through the engagement of true talent management, company could get the right data along with the automat repetitive tasks.  This assignment describes talent management is little more than just repackaging of human resource management. In modern complex global environment, multinational companies have to handle an international workforce to have sustainable growth. Managing staffs globally are challenging because it is diverse, mobile and not bounded by cultural and geographical boundaries. As a result, many HR practitioners are focusing on company’s talent management aspects. One of the major factors of talent management has been the notion of shortage in talents, and the implication of shortages on the HR management practices in multinational companies. There are lot of evidence that describes even in poor economic conditions companies are having difficulties in managing talent across different range of positions. The purpose of this assignment is to review the relevant practitioner and academic literature on talent management from last five to seven years to identify the importance of talent management.

Although the invention of talent management can be seen on arts/sports management literature late back to 1865, the concept of talent management came into the business sectors in the 1990s with study named "The War for Talent" written by McKinsey (Al Ariss, Cascio and Paauwe 2014). Many HR practitioners recognized the importance of this trend. As a result, lot of excellent studies was made by HR in subsequent years by HR practitioners to examine the shortage of talent. As a result, phrases talent retention, acquisition become very popular among human resource management.

The concept of global talent management was accepted by the consulting society of human resource management, Manpower Inc., World Federation of People Management Association. Building on this study, academics currently started to evaluates the talent management phenomenon more closely (Cappelli and Keller 2014). Although there is increasing consensus that talent management is an emerging area, there is no such consensus that describes the exact definition or limitations of talent management. There are several interpretations of talent management. The most common definition of talent management are like, Talent management is usually explained by the standard HR management functions and practices. In global context, the term global talent management is used interchangeably with international HR management. The concept of talent management is mainly future oriented and describe in terms of HR practices, planning and staffing needs. According to this, talent management is focused on the types capabilities needed in the future. It is the capability-based approach to strategic HR management.

Strategies for Managing Talent in Multinational Companies

Therefore, talent management can be defined as a subset of HRM activities to develop, attract, mobilize and retain individuals with high potential so that organization can remain consistent to achieve its goals and objectives. 

Talent management plays a vital role for organizational growth in the market. Multinational companies manage their talent through following several strategies. For example, IBM believes in evidence-based solutions for enhancing their work force in an effective manner. it suggest the process where the organization motivates and retain talent management program of IBM includes some major steps such as talent suit, talent engagement, recruitment process outsourcing, social learning, performance management and compensation (Meyers and van Woerkom 2014). The performance management of the organization involves the monitoring system to track employee’s performance in the business. On the other hand, Google believes that recruiting skilled professionals is the key challenge for the business. Therefore, the recruitment process of the organization is quite complex. The employee must go through under the LAX test in order to be recruited in the organization (Collings 2014). Moreover, the human resource team of the company provides importance to their employees so that they get motivation to perform better in the business. They provide coveted career, abundant benefits and effective communication system to their employees to enhance the productivity. Through the engagement of recruiting the skilled performers, the organization has enhanced their workforce ability in the business. it is responsible for actual business growth. Hence, the IBM provides the enough training and learning session to retain their talent for long duration. On the other hand, Google manages their talent management process by recruiting the skilled professionals in the business (Cerdin and Brewster 2014).

Many factors may have impact on organizational talent management issues. More specifically, these factors might have impact on how companies develop, retain, attract and mobilize talent. It includes Shortage of talented individuals, Differences in country culture, Changing demographics, Different attitudes towards structure of work

There is lot of evidence that shows companies worldwide are having difficulties in finding right talent for the right jobs. Recent study by Cerdin and Brewster (2014) shows that shortages of talent are a global issue, it affects variety of positions in many countries around the world. Collings (2014) reported that almost 35% of organizations are having difficulties in finding suitable individual to fill positions. Brazil, Japan and India are among the top three countries in terms of having difficulty in filling suitable candidates for filling up organizational positions (Cooke, Saini and Wang 2014). Therefore, every company is implementing several strategies to manage shortage of talents that includes aggressive recruitment strategies and employee training and development. Boston Consulting Group and The World Economic Forum recommend systematic approach to handle talent and suggest many responses by the organizations (De Vos and Dries 2013). That includes Workforce planning (e.g., identification of expected talent gap), Foster brain circulation (e.g., encouraging individuals to work at birthplace i.e., decreasing the rate of brain drain), Increase employability (e.g., increasing the level of skills of future and current employees), Develop talents (e.g., offering several career developmental pathways).

Factors Affecting Organizational Talent Management Issues

Culture of a country plays an important role in human resource management. It has indirect or direct effect on HR policies about how it influences employee performance and behavior both at the organizational and individual levels. An important topic of international human resource management is the issue of divergence/convergence of HR practices across regions, cultures and countries (Dries 2013). Convergence defines HR policies and practices are similar across the country whereas divergence describes exact opposite of that. In most country, talent management is a new concept. For example, talent management in China is viewed as a different form of human resource management. Therefore, it focuses on certain jobs or certain employee group.

Many studies illustrate that the demographics of the world is changing. Current trends explain that developed countries economy is shrinking and becoming older whereas developing economies population size is increasing and getting younger. The major implication of these changes is the creation of several generations of employees. Simultaneously managing aging population or mature workers and younger employees is a challenge for talent management function. Hence, knowledge extraction from older generation is a key issue for HR practitioners. In addition, HR policy development regarding stereotypical beliefs towards senior employees is an important aspect of talent management for HR practitioners. According to a study by Gelens et al. 2013 the United States current generation makes up only 25% of the total workforce. Hence, it necessary to understand the characteristics of demographic changes regarding talent management.

Attitude towards work evolves significantly in few countries. Traditionally employees rotated through a specific set of positions within a company. Horizontal movement (example, job mobility) was within the company, and the organization invested considerable amount of resources in training and developing staffs (Meyers and van Woerkom 2014). In return, individuals showed loyalty to their organization and expected to continue their job. However, the picture is somewhat different now. Employees are frequently changing jobs. Therefore, employee loyalty is decreasing over time. From talent management perspective, general assumption is that the structure of work will change continuously that eventually creates many challenges for companies to retain talent.

Talent management is little more than repackaging of HR management:

Talent management is relatively a new concept. McKinsey first refers it in the report “The War of Talent”. There are three factors that influences “The War of Talent”: shift from industrial era to information technology era, emerging requirement of highly talented individuals, the increasing tendency of the employees from one company to another. According to several studies that illustrates many factors relates to talent management (Meyers et al. 2013). Therefore, talent management concept cannot only be associated with the human resource policies and practices. Obviously, HR management has an important role in identifying talent across the globe that is best suitable for the organization. However, recruiting talent and keeping talent within the organizational structure is not similar at all. The major factors other than HR policies that can have impact on talent management are discussed as follows:

Shortage of Talented Individualsex

Figure 1: Talent Management; Source: Cappelli and Keller 2014

One of the key aspects of talent management for the organization is its workforce planning. It consists HR matrices, human capital management, human capital reporting and workforce analytics (Minbaeva and Collings 2013). Workforce planning defined as the contrasting number and quality of employees to achieve organizations strategic objectives. There is consensus of stakeholders in few areas of human capital that affects organizational performance. They are employee motivation, leadership, performance improvement, training and development (Schiemann 2014). The findings of workforce planning study indicate that HR professionals do play an important role in managing and developing talents.  For any business to grow, organizations need exceptionally talented people in their workforce. Therefore, it is up to the HR department to understand the future demand of employees and the kind of skills they need to possess to support organizational goals. Hence, a proper planning regarding workforce management is necessary. Human resource policies played key role in that. However, it completely not depended only on the workforce department alone. There are other factors such as employee benefits, growth potential, job satisfaction also has its impact on the organizational talent management. 

Study explores that core self-evaluation is an extremely broad term that consists of four personality traits: generalized self-efficacy, self-esteem, locus of control and emotional stability (Stahl et al. 2012). Study shows that above mentioned four personality traits are based on a single attribute of job satisfaction that eventually leads positive impact on organizational performance. Hence, it indicates that if an employee is not satisfied with his/her job then chances are high that he/she will move to another organization for better position. Hence, to keep talent associated with the organization, emotional stability of employees with the organization is must.

Neuroticism is a major personality trait that identifies the tendency of the employees to have poor emotional adjustments and negative feeling experience and measures these factors that affect successful performances such as hostility, fear and depression. Individuals with this trait have anger, anxiety, and nervousness and frighten of situations (Thunnissen, Boselie and Fruytier 2013). This type of individuals cannot be managed through the talent management process. On the other hand, self-consistency theory illustrates that employees are motivated to act according to their self-image. Individuals who have high self-esteem will always want to maintain their self-image by maintaining high performance level. According to the theory of learned helplessness, employees with positive explanatory style have little tendency to display motivational deficits such as withdrawal from job oriented behavior and lowering efforts that ultimately decrease the job satisfaction. Therefore, it influence individuals to move to another organization and in turn cause talent management issue for the organization that has nothing to do with human resources practices and policies.     

Impact of Culture on Human Resource Management

Based on distinguishable and unique characteristics such as instructive value, product convenience and the mechanism that used to control employee action, the incentive that increases the motivation are social recognition, money and performance feedback. Considering the regulatory perspective of employee action, there are two types of properties of money instrumental and symbolic (Vaiman, Scullion and Collings 2012). In case of instrumental form, money motivates employees by satisfying their psychological needs. On the other hand, if it viewed as symbolic, it influence the social comparison with others regarding social life. Hence, money is a critical factor that can have severe impact on the talent management policy of the organization. Many studies indicate that pay for performance is probably one of the best way by which commitment of the employees can be enhanced. The process of engagement of the employees is based on non-tangible and tangible factors that influence the atmosphere of development, inspiration and recognition (Lacey and Groves 2014). It also requires cohesiveness of employee relationships, responsibility, autonomy and opportunities for development. Apple’s talent management policies can be an ideal example of describing talent management policies. Unlike other companies like Intel, Toyota, and Procter & Gamble wanting to dominant their own industry. Apple is one organization that got into many industries in very small span of time. Therefore, it comes down to the agility of the senior management policy to keep talent associated with the organization. Since, Apple is now dealing in several industries like Google, their policy of lean talent management contributes immensely to the productivity, which in turn increase the sense of satisfaction among the employees. Since, innovation of new product is the major source of business of Apple, it is very critical to them to manage their talent properly. Therefore, Apple has policies like employee orientation, well-defined carrier path, proper training and development for the employees, excellent facilities to keep their employees personal and work life in balance. These practices help Apple to keep talent within the organization. Hence, it also displays the fact that the talent management concept does not entirely depend on the HR practices and policies but it has some other factors as well that might have an impact on organizational talent management concept.

Conclusion:

With changing competitive business environment all over the world, every organization managements are strongly focusing on the concept of talent management very seriously. In last five to seven years, several studies are made on talent management issue with the purpose of identifying suitable technique for the organization to keep its best possible talents associated with the organizations. At initial stage, many beliefs that talent management concept is just an extension of human resource management. Nevertheless, the above study concludes that there are many others factor present that established that talent management is little more than repackaging of human resource management. 

References:

Al Ariss, A., Cascio, W.F. and Paauwe, J., 2014. Talent management: Current theories and future research directions. Journal of World Business,49(2), pp.173-179.

Cappelli, P. and Keller, J.R., 2014. Talent management: Conceptual approaches and practical challenges. Annu. Rev. Organ. Psychol. Organ. Behav., 1(1), pp.305-331.

Cerdin, J.L. and Brewster, C., 2014. Talent management and expatriation: Bridging two streams of research and practice. Journal of World Business,49(2), pp.245-252.

Collings, D.G., 2014. Integrating global mobility and global talent management: Exploring the challenges and strategic opportunities. Journal of World Business, 49(2), pp.253-261.

Cooke, F.L., Saini, D.S. and Wang, J., 2014. Talent management in China and India: A comparison of management perceptions and human resource practices. Journal of World Business, 49(2), pp.225-235.

De Vos, A. and Dries, N., 2013. Applying a talent management lens to career management: The role of human capital composition and continuity.The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 24(9), pp.1816-1831.

Dries, N., 2013. The psychology of talent management: A review and research agenda. Human Resource Management Review, 23(4), pp.272-285.

Gelens, J., Dries, N., Hofmans, J. and Pepermans, R., 2013. The role of perceived organizational justice in shaping the outcomes of talent management: A research agenda. Human Resource Management Review,23(4), pp.341-353.

Meyers, M.C. and van Woerkom, M., 2014. The influence of underlying philosophies on talent management: Theory, implications for practice, and research agenda. Journal of World Business, 49(2), pp.192-203.

Meyers, M.C., van Woerkom, M. and Dries, N., 2013. Talent—Innate or acquired? Theoretical considerations and their implications for talent management. Human Resource Management Review, 23(4), pp.305-321.

Minbaeva, D. and Collings, D.G., 2013. Seven myths of global talent management. The International Journal of Human Resource Management,24(9), pp.1762-1776.

Schiemann, W.A., 2014. From talent management to talent optimization.Journal of World Business, 49(2), pp.281-288.

Stahl, G., Björkman, I., Farndale, E., Morris, S.S., Paauwe, J., Stiles, P., Trevor, J. and Wright, P., 2012. Six principles of effective global talent management. Sloan Management Review, 53(2), pp.25-42.

Thunnissen, M., Boselie, P. and Fruytier, B., 2013. A review of talent management:‘infancy or adolescence?’. The international journal of human resource management, 24(9), pp.1744-1761.

Vaiman, V., Scullion, H. and Collings, D., 2012. Talent management decision making. Management Decision, 50(5), pp.925-941.

2014. Lacey, M. and Groves, K., 2014. Talent management collides with corporate social responsibility: creation of inadvertent hypocrisy.Journal of Management Development,33(4), pp.399-409.