CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter briefly introduces the issues and concerns related to talent management practices
and its impact on Employee Engagement. It covers a detailed discussion of the existing
theories of Talent Management and building blocks of Talent Management. It also critically
analyzes the existing theories of talent management and builds an argument to derive the
variables for this research. It also proposes a theoretical framework of Talent Management
using the variables derived from literature. The chapter gives a detailed description of the
variables of Talent Management and identifies the research gaps used to build the conceptual
framework that impacts the engagement of the employees.

2.1. Introduction to Talent Management

2.1.1. Defining Talent Management

In popular and practitioner oriented literature, internet magazines and on social networking
sites there is an intensive debate on the talent challenges organizations are confronted with
(Iles et al., 2010). Scholars also have produced a considerable number of publications on
talent and Talent Management over the course of the past decade. Yet, the amount of
scholarly peer-reviewed literature is lagging behind. This illustrates a gap between the
practitioner and academic interest in the subject of Talent Management (Cappelli and Keller,
2014). In the academic field of Human Resources Management (HRM), talent and TM seem
to be relative poorly developed research subjects, and to add a lasting contribution to the field
of HRM, Talent Management has to overcome some limitations and difficulties. First, the
field of Talent Management lacks a stable theoretical foundation. Academic Talent
Management literature explores the field in all possible directions using a broad range of
academic traditions, including international HRM, strategic HRM, career management and
organizational behavior (Gallardo-Gallardo et al., 2015) but theoretical approaches are hardly
integrated or linked, and consensus on Talent Management definitions and principles is
therefore hard to find (Lewis and Heckman, 2006; Collings and Mellahi, 2009; Nijs et al.,
2013). According to Dries (2013, p. 3) ―vague but appealing rhetoric‖ even causes critics to
question whether Talent Management is not just a management fad.

6
Second, this criticism is endorsed by the lack of sound empirical evidence for the conceptual
models and ideas (Lewis and Heckman, 2006; Dries, 2013). The amount of empirical studies
has increased enormously since 2011, yet Gallardo-Gallardo et al. (2015) argue that empirical
Talent Management studies suffer from theoretical and methodological inconsistencies, and
they call for more theoretically and methodologically rigorous research designs.

Third, the current Talent Management literature reflects a narrow and biased view on talent
and Talent Management. An instrumental and managerial approach to talent and Talent
Management is presented, in which the organizational perspective is emphasized (Thunnissen
et al., 2013). This emphasis on organizations‘ interest is also noticeable in empirical research
on TM, in which HR professionals, managers and executives are the commonly targeted
research population (e.g. Stahl et al., 2012). Just a few empirical studies examine Talent
Management from an employees‘ perspective (e.g. Björkman et al., 2013; Dries and
Pepermans, 2008). So, even though talent or talented employees are the central subjects in
TM, there is little interest in their experiences and opinions.

Fourth, the contemporary Talent Management literature highlights the talent issues of a select
category of organizations. There is a strong focus on Talent Management in private sector
organizations, multinationals and organizations in the US context (Collings et al., 2011). It is,
however, questionable whether the current concepts and assumptions in the Talent
Management literature related to this specific Anglo-Saxon context help us to understand and
explain Talent Management issues in organizations in other contexts and geographies
(Thunnissen et al., 2013).

In sum, we notice that many business leaders, practitioners and academics attach great value
to talent and Talent Management, but there is still little known about how and how well (and
according to whom) Talent Management really works in practice. According to Boxall et al.
(2007) the academic field of HRM should provide an alternative for the tendency for ―best
practices‖ which is dominant in HRM and Talent Management.

There is little conceptual and empirical information in the TM literature on differences

between intended and actual TM practices, nor on the factors causing variability. The
literature focusses on either a conceptualization of (best) practices (e.g. Groves, 2011), or, but

7
in a lesser extent, on the employees‘ perception of the implemented practices and their
reactions (e.g. Dries and De Gieter, 2014; Höglund, 2012).

2.1.2. The Concept of Talent Management

In today‘s scenario we believe that talent is universal. The challenge for the organization is
the identification and development of the clear as well as latent talent of individuals, to
optimise individual and business performance. As such, talent that is relevant to an industry
background needs to be identified early and developed. We can say that talent management
is to identify and develop talent by selecting the right individual for the right job and helping
that individual optimise his or her talent and ability. Chris Watkin (2004) offers one of the
simplest details of the concept. He suggests swapping the word ‗talent with ‗potential‘ and
the word 'management' with the words 'identification' and ‗development‘. The identification
and development of potential is what talent management is all about. Talent management
refers to the aware, purposeful approach undertaken to attract, develop and retain people with
the skill and abilities to meet current and future organizational needs. It involves individual
and organizational development in response to a changing and complex working
environment.

2.1.3. Features of Talent Management

The integrated approach to the process which encompasses attracting, developing and
nurturing and retaining talent is critical for effective talent management. Hence attracting,
developing and nurturing and retaining talents are important objectives of talent management
programme.

Figure 1 Main Components of Talent Management

Attracting Developing Retaining

Source: Lewis, R. E., & Heckman, R. J. (2006).

8
The talent management process begins with attracting the right talent to drive our current and
future growth. It then entails focusing on developing them in ways that widen their
capabilities, organising them to work that builds their capabilities. This calls for a focussed
approach on the three anchors of talent management - attracting, developing and retaining the
right talent. Strategic talent management involves attracting talent by creating adequate
interest in potential employees to join the group and in existing ones to stay on. With so many
companies clashing it out for a small pool of talent, it is becoming progressively more
important for all organizations to find ways and means to attract the 'right' kind of talent.
(Lewis 2006). By developing talent, we mean to means provide employees with the real life
learning experiences with the real life learning experiencing that are needed to shine on the
job. It does not mean just conventional classroom or online education but ‗real life‘
experiences that extend their capabilities and the lessons they study from peers, mentors and
others. Employees need to be placed in course work, which are aligned to their deep rooted
skills, interests and knowledge.(Heckman 2009). The focussed approach to talent
management will lead to; guarantying an continuous availability of talent pool members for
significant positions, assigning appropriate development opportunities for people to facilitate
them to tie together and optimise their capabilities and grow in their careers, effective
employment of talent pool whenever there is business requirement, growth the leadership
pipeline of the business and the group by developing capable successors for critical positions.

Fernando Kevin Vince (2008) articulated from a strategic business perspective that Talent
management may be defined as a core sub-system of an organization‘s tactical management
system, to develop a human resource asset base that is capable to support current and future
organizational growth directions and objectives. Talent management may be described as
comprising three key components as;

 Talent Identification
 Talent Development - Internal and external talent development
 Talent Engagement - motivation and retention

The first component, talent identification is the process of identifying key positions and roles
necessary to support the design and deployment of strategic and ready plans and proposals.
(Williams 2000). The second component, talent development is divided into internal and
9
external development. Internal talent development relates to a diversity of activities such as
training, performance management, coaching, special projects, job plan, career development,
etc. Bloom, B. S., & Sosniak, L. A. (1985). External talent development is basically
recruitment and selection, where the organization goes out into the labour market to identify,
attract, select and motivate mandatory talent to join the organization. The third component,
emphasises on employee engagement, motivation and retention. Once the organization has
the required talent, it needs to manage its investment, building required promise and strategic
alignment to support the organization‘s policy. (Bhatnagar, J. 2008)

Talent management is the use of an incorporated set of activities to guarantee that the
organization attracts, retains, inspires and develops the talents people it needs now and in the
future. The aim is to safe the flow of talent, bearing in mind that talent is a major corporate
resource. It is sometimes assumed that talent management is only concerned with key people-
high flyers. Smilansky (2005) stated that it is aimed at improving the caliber, availability and
flexible utilisation of remarkably capable (high potential) employees who can have a unequal
impact on business performance. But everyone in an organization has talent, even if some
have more talent than others. Talent management process should not be limited to the favored
few.

Talent management starts with the business approaches and what it signifies in terms of the
talented people required by the organization. Ultimately, its objective is to develop and
maintain a talent pool consisting of a skilled, occupied and committed workforce.(Lewis, R.
E., & Heckman, R. J. 2006).Various basics of talent management are to be discussed such as;
the resourcing strategy, attraction and retention policies and programmes, talent audit, role
development, talent relationship management, performance management, total reward,
learning and development policies, and career management etc. Here ‗resource strategy‘ we
can be defined as every business plan that gives the basis for human resource planning, which
defines human resources requirements and leads to attraction and retention policies and
programmes for in-house resourcing (i.e. identifying talent within the organization and
developing and promoting it). ‗Attraction and retention policies and programmes' describe
the approach to ensure that the organization both gets and keeps the talent it needs. Attraction
policies lead to programmes for outside resourcing (recruitment and selection of people from
outside the organization). Retention policies are designed to ensure that people remain as
10
committed members of the organization. (Botha 2012). The outcome of these policies is a
talent flow that creates and maintains the talent pool. ‗Talent audit‘ identifies those with
potential and provides the basis for career planning and development, ensuring that talented
people have the sequence of experience supplemented by coaching and learning programmes
that will fit them to take more challenging roles in the future. Talent audits can also be used
to point out the possible risk of talented people leaving and what action may need to be taken
to retain them.(McCartney, C., & Garrow, V. 2007). Talent management is concerned with
the roles people carry out. This involves 'role development' ensuring that roles provide the
responsibility, challenge an autonomy required to create role engagement and motivation. It
also engages taking steps to ensure that people have the opportunity and are given the
encouragement to learn and develop in their roles. Talent, management policies also focus on
role flexibility- giving people the chance to develop their roles by making improved and
extended use of their talents. 'Talent relationship management' is the procedure of building
effective relationships with people in their roles, it is concerned generally with creating a
great place to work but giving them a voice and providing opportunities for growth. The
objective is to achieve talent engagement ensuring that people are dedicated to their work and
the organization.(Trost, A. 2014) Performance management processes offer a means of
building associations with people, identifying talent and potential, planning, learning and
development activities and making the most of the talent obsessed by the organization.
Performance management is a mean of growing the engagement and motivation of people by
providing positive feedback and recognition. (Otley, D. 1999) 'Total reward strategies'
provide for both monetary and non-financial incentives, can contribute to the engagement and
commitment of talented people by representing that they are devalued for their contribution
and by operating fairly and consistently. Paying competitive rates will affect the ability of
organization to attract and retain employees but there is a limit to the extent to which
companies can struggle with the pull of the market. (Jiang, Z., & Xiao, L. 2009) 'Learning
and development policies and programmes' are essential components in the process of
developing talent - ensuring that people acquire and enhance the skills and competencies they
need. Learning and development activities are also important means of developing managers
and gaining the engagement and commitment of talented staff by giving them opportunities
to grow in their present roles and to grow to higher level roles. (Harrison, R. 2005). Career
management consists of the processes of career planning and management succession. Career

11
planning forms the progression of individuals within an organization in harmony with
assessments of organization needs, defined employees achievement profiles and the
performance, potential and preferences of individual members of the enterprises. (Greenhaus,
at al 2009). Management succession planning takes place to make certain that, as far as
possible, the organization has the managers it needs to meet future business needs.

Talent management strategies are important to keep in mind while workforce planning,
strategically planning for business is being administered. Mainly there are two kinds of talent
management strategies are to be kept in account i.e. attraction and retention strategies for
employees. (Bhatnagar, J. 2007). Figure 2 describes the talent management strategies with
respect to talent attraction and talent retention strategies in greater detail.

Figure 2 Talent Management Strategies

Talent Management Strategies

 Employee Retention Strategies

 Employee Attraction  Performance & potential
Strategies 12 assessment
 Employer Branding  Career Management
 Employer of choice  360 degree feedback
 Creating best place to  Coaching, mentoring &
work assessment centers
 Competency mapping
 Learning & development
activities

Source: Collings, D. G., & Mellahi, K. (2009)

2.1.3.1. Talent Attraction Strategy

The overall strategy should be to become 'an employer of choice'. As Scarborough and Elias
(2002) put it, 'The recruitment of key individual who will contribute significantly to the value
12
creating capacity of the firm is crucial to success.' The aims are to establish the brand image
of the organization - how others perceive it (employee branding), to become an employer of
choice and to target recruitment and selection to obtain the sort of people the organization
needs.

Employer branding is the creation of a brand image of the organization for prospective
employees. It will be influenced by the reputation of the organization as a business or
provider of services as well as its reputation as an employer. As described by Alan Reed,
Founder and chief executive pic, in 2001, 'Employer branding is the concept of applying to
the recruitment process the same marketing coherence used in the management of customers‘.

The aim is to become an 'employer of choice' a place where people prefer to work. This
means developing what Sears (2003) calls a value proposition, which communicates what the
organization can offer its employees as a great place to work. The factors that contribute to
being an employer of choice are the provision of: interesting and rewarding work;
opportunities for learning, development and career progression; a reasonable degree of
security; enhance future employability because of reputation of the organization as one that
employs and develops high quality people. (Sokro, E. 2012) Also, there is a need to
distinguish Better facilities and scope for knowledge workers e.g. research and development
scientists or engineers and IT specialist, employment conditions that satisfy work life balance
needs, A reward system that recognises and values contribution and provides competitive pay
and benefits. This all adds up to an employee value-propositions which, as a means of
attracting and retaining high potential, employees, recognises that they will be looking for
strong values and expecting to be well managed, to have freedom and autonomy, high job
challenge and career opportunities. (Botha, A. 2012)

Ensuring that the organization is perceived as being 'a great place to work' implies that it
becomes an 'employer of choice' i.e. one for whom people want to work. There is desire to
join the organization and once that is fulfilled, a desire to stay. (Backhaus, K., & Tikoo, S.
2004). Employees are committed to the organization and engaged in the work they do.
However, achieving the fame of good employer at national or even zonal level takes much
more time and patience. Research has shown that to attain the reputation of dream employer,
there are lot of efforts required such as, effective leadership at senior management level;

13
personal growth, wellbeing balanced work life issues; fair deal pay and benefits; support at
home step when people are suffering from personal problems; effective employee
development program, staff trusted to do their jobs properly. (Berthon, P. et al 2005).
Creating a great place to work starts with developing the image of the organization, so that it
is recognized as one that achieves results, delivers quality products and services, behaves
ethically and provides good conditions of employment. Organizations with a clear vision and
a set of integrate and enacted values are likely to project themselves as being well worth
working for. (Edwards, M. R. 2009).

2.1.3.2. Retention Strategy

The first step is to identify what sort of people the organization needs with regard to their
qualification and experience and the extent to which they are likely to fit the culture of the
organization that are its values and norms. This involves analyzing and assessing work
requirements and defining what cultural fit means. (Nyambegera, S. et al 2001).The most
important characteristics of those who are already successful what separates successful from
unsuccessful employees should be determined so that others like them can be recruited.
Attitudes to work, cairns and the company are important; behaviors can be influenced later as
people become familiar with the culture so long as their attitudes are right. The turnover of
key employees can have a disproportionate impact on the business and the people
organizations wish to retain are probably the ones iiio.si likely to leave. (Vigoda, E.
2000).Concerted action is required to retain talented people. But thereare limits to what an
organization can do. It is also necessary to encourage the greatest contribution from existing
talent and value them accordingly.

Retention strategies should be based on an understanding of the factors that affect them. For
early career employees, career advancement is significant. For mid-career employees, the
ability to manage their careers and satisfaction from their work are important. Late career
employees, will be interested in security. (London, M. 1993). It is also the case that a younger
workforce will change jobs and employers more often than an older workforce, and
workforce with a lot of part timers are less stable than those with predominately full time
staff. The specific factors that affect retention are; company image, recruitment selection and
deployment, leadership, learning opportunities, performance recognition and rewards. A

14
study of high flyers found that the factors that aided the retention and motivation of high
performers included providing challenge and achievement opportunities, mentors, realistic
self-assessment and feedback processes.(Nyberg, A. 2010).

Retention strategy takes into account the particular retention issues the organization is facing
and sets out ways in which these issues can be dealt with. This may mean accepting the
reality, as mentioned by Capelin (2000), that the markets, not the company will eventually
determine the movement of employees. The old goal of human resource management - to
minimise overall employee turnover, needs to be replaced by a new goal- to influence who
leaves and when. Few more retention strategies can also be adopted by organizations to
influence the employees as; assessment of performance and potential of employees,
developing their career path, upholding proper 360 degree feedback system, coaching,
mentoring, developing assessment centers for individual development, map their
competencies for specified jobs, managing learning and developmental activities for
employees etc.

2.1.4. Human Resource Management and Talent Management

There is growing credit in the Human Resources (HR) profession of a need to shift away
from valuing employees as simple capital resources toward what is described as the more
outstanding doctrine of human talents. This shift is more than just mere semantics. At its core
is a fundamental change in how organizations value people, which includes changing how
they employ, develop, align, evaluate and retain employees. As Heidi Spirgi, President of
Knowledge Infusion, points out, the new focal point on talent management represents ‗a
paradigm shift in the way HR defines its mission and measures its success‘ (Reuters 2008).
Research suggests that the talent management paradigm is an imperative for optimising
human performance. Due to changing demographic prototypes, organizations generally are
facing an increase in the number of employees due to retirement and declining number of
younger workers available to replace them. This demographic move is changing the
environment of the employment contract, such that workers are more able to choose and
select between employers based on subjects such as work-life balance, various policies, and
the degree to which they will have a voice. All organization requires policies to face the
challenges of current circumstances and human resource management need new way to think

15
about the same background. (Rappaport et al. 2003). Many academicians might argue that
talent management is just another HR trend, but few trends seem to have twisted themselves
in to bring a new meaning in the labour market. The roots of talent management can perhaps
be traced back to the downsizing and outsourcing trends, including the slimming down of
graduate recruitment scheme (Carrington 2004). Talent management shifts the focus of HRM
away from people as resources towards employees being men and women who need to be
valued and appreciated for who they are, and hence it completely refocuses the activities of
HRM away from authority and control towards a model of shared accomplishment (Casse
1994). In many organizations, HR has already moved beyond talent to becoming an integral
part of the talent management process by expanding its activities beyond its traditional role to
include activities such as leadership assessment (Sandier 2004).

Lawler (2005) argues that Human Resources can and should add more value to corporations
by being a business partner in its own right and reviewing what products it has to offer. He
identifies three types of services and system, and role of strategic partner contributing to
business planning through consideration regarding human capital. Ulrich & Smallwood
(2005) see the emerging focus on intangibles in the wealth as an opening of the way for HR
professionals to more willingly link their work with shareholder value, providing the vital
link with strategy that may before have been overlooked. While Farley (2005) may have
agreed with Lawler's view, he is sensible about HR being in a difficult position in many
organizations, having a strong mandate without the credibility to fulfill it, and so he
challenges HR to be held accountable for its investments, as is the case with any other
business function. Farley (2007) looked at HR equipped process excellence as a success
factor for talent processes. It requires a shift from the discrete thinking of individual
processes, from using data and skill to support the measuring and reviewing of information
also in establishing the relationships between business goals and people. These will obviously
vary in organizations as the relationships will differ according to the business goals and the
people involved. The most powerful talent management practices therefore are firm specific
and respond to an organizations single business and human capital context. This means that
HR practices for one organizations may not create value in another (Heinen & O‘ Neill
2004). Executives allocate as much as 50 per cent of their time for responding to talent

16
management challenges (Smutniak 2004). These include important employee associated
activities, such as:

 Attracting and retaining enough talent at all levels to gather current and future needs
 Creating a value scheme that appeals to multiple generations;
 Developing a robust leadership pipeline;
 Rounding out employees abilities to prepare them for global leadership
 Shifting key knowledge and relationships to new workers (Erickson, 2008).

Talent management has become a very important for these executives. The reason often cited
is union of dynamic global demographic, economic, social and business trends whose scope
and speed are producing a major ‗talent gap‘. A gap believed so deep and so wide it is
impossible for organizations to acquire and retain talent necessary for success using standard
HR approaches. Three trends, in particular, are viewed as causes of this gap (Powell and
Lubitsch 2007). By focusing on segmentation and 'talent' in the organization, there is a
danger that HR practices that have been successful in the past and present are unnoticed and
overshadowed, ultimately leading to the talent management method working against the
broader HR practices. Perhaps the most obvious area for consideration is that of multiplicity
management.

2.1.5. Talent Management: Strategic Perspectives

The first perspective is the strategic perspective and the second perspective is the working
dimensions. Not much work has been published with regard to talent management. This
could be because it is a comparatively new concept, so there is not much study available, or it
could be because the academic community is not taking it particularly critically and seeing it
as a change of succession planning and other HR activities. However, when the field is
comparatively new, the ground is unexplored and a chart of the regional needs to occur. This
is clear that those who were writing in the ground of talent management were screening it
from a number of different perspectives in regard to their implications for HRM, and taken
forward as the 'strategic perspectives'. The strategic perspective shapes the way in which the
talent management system is looked at, implemented and processed, so that the same activity

17
can be answered in a different action and/or outcome depending on the perspective engaged.
(Collings, D. G., & Mellahi, K. 2009)

The several approaches and varied theories in the literature on talent management offer
diverse perspectives of human talent activities in organizations. These perspectives are
classified into three sets for discussions. The first set is derived primarily from learning on
business enterprises (enterprise perspectives). The second addresses social movement issues
(social movement perspectives), which are connected to talent management. The third
focuses on roles of individuals and attainment of performance outcomes (outcome
perspectives). Together, these perspectives provide an unreserved body of information that
can notify and add builds for talent management system.

2.1.5.1. Enterprise Perspectives of Talent Management

Table 1 demonstrates how the discrete areas of HR activity can be shaped according to the
perspectives taken on talent management. The first five perspectives presented resonate in the
literature. The sixth perspective, Change Management stems from the case study analysis that
is done by Eddie Blass team (2009). There is the 'process perspective' which suggested that it
includes all processes needed to optimize people within an organization (Farley 2005) as they
truly believe that the future success of the company is based on having the right talent so
managing and nurturing talent is part of the everyday process of organizational life. Here is
the ‗cultural perspective‘ that believes talent management is a mindset, and that you must
believe that talent is needed for success. This can be seen where every individual is
dependent on their for success due to the nature of the market in which they operate, and is
typical of organizations where there is a free internal labour market, with assignments being
allocated according to how well they performed on their last assignment. There is
‗competitive perspective‘ which is underpinned by the belief that talent management is about
identifying talented people, finding out what they want, and giving it to them- if not, your
competitors will. This tends to be the default perspective if no other perspective is taken, if
only as a retention strategy. It is also seen in the professional service firms where they
generally adopt the competitive approach because their business proposition is based on the
talents of their people. (Christensen Hughes, J. & Rog, E. (2008).

18
 There is the 'developmental perspective' that proposes talent management is about accelerated
development paths for the highest potential employees, applying the same personal
development process to everyone in the organization, but accelerating the process for high
potential. There is more general 'HR planning perspective' which claims talent management is
about having the right people matched to the right jobs at the right time, and doing right
things. This is often identified with companies currently experiencing rapid growth which to
some extent is driving the talent management system, and once they become more stable in
terms of size of operations their perspective might change. Finally, there is the 'change
perspective' which uses the talent management process as a driver of change in the
organization, using the talent management system as part of the wider strategic HR initiatives
for organizational change (Lawler 2005). This can be a means of embedding the talent
management system in the organization as part of a broader change process, or it can put
additional pressure on the talent management process if there is wide spread resistance to the
change process.

Table 1 Operationalization of HRM According to Talent Management Perspective

Enterprise Core belief Recruitment Retention Reward Succession Development

Perspective & Selection Planning Approach
on Talent
Management
Competitive Keep talent Pay the best so Good Offer Geared Both planned
away from you attract the people more than towards and
the best. Poach like to the retention opportunistic
opposition. the best from work with competitio Letting approaches
the good n. If people accepted.
competition. people. people know what Mentors used
leave it their target to build
Aim to be won‘t be jobs are. loyalty.
employer for a
to choice. better
reward
package.

19
Process Include all Competence Work-life Calculated Routine PDPs and
procedures based reliable balance ac-cording review development
to permit approach. processes to reviews as part
talented and performan Process of
people to intrinsic ce review based on performance
shine and factors and some performance management;
optimize that make element of appraisal interference as
people potential. cycle. needed.
feel they
belong.

HR Planning Right Target areas Turnover Clear Detailed in- Planned in

people in of shortage expected, salary house cycles
the right across monitored scales and mapping for according to
jobs at the organization. and structures. individuals. organization‘s
right time. Numbers and accounted needs and
Targets for in requirements.
approach. plans.

Source: Eddie Blass et al (2009)

Enterprise Core belief Recruitm Retention Reward Succession Development

ent & Planning Approach
Perspective Selection

on Talent

Management
Developmental Speed up Ideally Clear
Clear Increments Both planned
the only developm
developm based on and
developmen recruit at ent paths
ent paths developme opportunistic.
t of high entry and then
and plans nt as well
potentials. point and develop.
to lock as
then high performanc
develop. potentials e.
into career
paths.
Cultural Belief that Look for Allow Flexible Develop Individuals
talent is raw talent. people he package negotiate their
desired for Permit freedom according in-house if development
Success introducti to to person possible, if Paths, with
ons from demonstra needs. not look Coaching &
in-house. te their outside. mentoring
talent, and
succeed
and fail.

20
Change Use talent Seek out Projects Some Can be a Change
Management manage- mavericks and result bit agents
ment to and assignmen bonus on opportunist develop other
instigate change ts keep top of ic at first who aligns
change in agents to change standard until with them
the join the agents, but scales and change is become the
organization firm. turnover structures. embedded. new talent
of generation.
mainstay
staff can
occur.

Source: Eddie Blass et al (2009)

2.1.5.2. Social Movement Perspectives of Talent Management

Table 2 describes the Social Movement set of talent management perspectives focuses on
societal issues and their expression or lack of in organizations. The social issues manifested
in these perspectives are salient concerns integrated into talent management discussions. The
issues considered in this paper enter talent management discussions through humanistic,
diversity, gender, and employee/ labour perspectives. While enterprise activities represent an
appropriate focus for talent management, as these perspectives illustrate, organizations have
social purposes, which are often paramount. Even though the primary focus is on a social
issue, each perspective makes the argument that the core belief it puts forth enhances
organizations' success. (Al Ariss,et al 2014).

The ‗humanistic perspective‘ on talent management focuses on people as the center of and
purpose for organizations. It has two threads: Intrinsic value and Human Development. The
Intrinsic Value thread stresses the innate worth of humans and nonconformity of their labour
attributes to market

Table 2 Social Perspective on Talent Management

Perspective Core Recruitment Alignment Commitment Talent

belief & Selection & Retention Development
Humanistic People Provide work Provide all Behavior The leader must be
are not that Employees flexibility, a nurturer of

21
 mere maximise the opportunities mental talents, a catalyst
resources release of to perform at innovation and in search of
but Individual, their highest people synergy.
human team and levels. orientation
being company
with talents.
feelings
Diversity A diverse Reflect the Create Treat Intensive training
workforc diversity of opportunities individuals and education
e is a society and for with dignity must be available
potent extend far employees to respect: value to facilitate
competiti beyond fully differences and personal growth &
ve force. traditional participate similarities. development.
concept of and be
diversity. rewarded for
their
contribution
Gender Recogniti Look beyond Align man & Embed a new Energise the
on of a traditionally woman with gender productive balance
multiplici held strong their natural language that in any mix of
ty of man and style and ensures that team, male or
effective gentle strength. female can rise female.
gender. woman types up that ladder.
of talent.
Employee/ Employe Attract and Involve Build personal Invest in employee
Labour es are the retain employees in relationship; out-comes, and
greatest multitalented defining now workers, celebrate their
assets, and multi- processes listen to them, victories,
wielding skilled that will and show you authoritative
both employees grately affect care about their expertise, and let
expertise from all their work success and them get it done.
and vast generations. and career. them as
22
 knowledg individuals.
e to move
things.

Source: Harvey L, Talent Development (2008)

Precepts, such as human capital. Human Development parallels and draws impetus from the
United Nations Human Development Index. Both threads emphasise human needs, albeit
different arrays of these needs. M.U.J. de Silva champions the intrinsic value thread in the
humanistic perspective on talent management, de Silva argues, 'People are not mere
resources, but human beings with feelings, ambitions and thought power' (de Silva 2000). He
calls the 'Human Resources' expression, often use to describe workers, is misleading and
dangerous because, 'People are not resources and resent being treated as such.' The Human
Development thread of the humanistic perspective stresses activities and interventions that
build capacity and develop competencies within individuals, which enable them to fill critical
personal and wider societal talent needs. Competencies necessary to meet these needs are
defined as the knowledge, skills, abilities and attitudes required to perform a productive role
for society (Coleman 2006; Schoonover 1998). Within the organizational context, this means
investing in employees and providing them access to quality education opportunities,
efficient health care, a safe work environment and opportunities for career success. The
competencies acquired and resulting human development will empower employees to better
meet personal needs and also enhance their capacity to contribute to the organization's
success.(Farndale, E., Scullion, H., & Sparrow, P. 2010).

The 'Diversity Perspective' focuses on embedding diversity in all aspects of talent

management. This includes when organizations 'source and select, go to the marketplace,
target future candidates and diverse talent, and communicate with that diverse talent' (Nisen
2008). The premise is that diversity enhances market access and effectiveness. This 'business
imperative', as the Ontario Office of Public Service argues, allows organizations that take
advantage of diversity to better position themselves 'to succeed - to provide better services
more effectively and to have a more engaged and productive workforce' (OPS 2008).

23
The 'Gender Perspective' advances the position that female talent is critical for the synergism
necessary' to achieve and sustain success, particularly in the knowledge economy where
women are expected to make up nearly half of the workforce and a majority of consumers
(Kock and Burke 2008). While every man and woman is said to have varying degrees of both
masculine energy and feminine energy, the call is for a correct synergy of these energies
within organizations. Masculine energy is described as valuable because it provides the task-
focused, strong leadership, direction and steel determination to build business and profit. In
contrast, feminine energy is viewed as valuable because it holds business relationships
together by providing the glue within the culture for stability and harmony. Moreover, the
gender perspective maintains that the desired synergy of masculine and feminine energies
cannot be achieved without adequate female participation in all activities at all levels of the
organization. Thus, it is considered essential that talent management uses innovative and
nontraditional methods to acquire, develop, align and retain female employees.(Beechler, S.,
& Woodward, I. C. 2009).

The 'Employee/ Labour Perspective' views human talents as those knowledge assets workers
use to produce outcomes for the organization. That is, workers know that they are the
organization's greatest assets because they possess the expertise and knowledge necessary for
achieving and sustaining success. As Peter Drucker (1994) observes, 'In the knowledge
society, the most probable assumption for organizations—and certainly the assumption on
which they have to conduct their affairs—is that they need knowledge workers far more than
knowledge workers need them.' From the Employee/ Labour perspective, workers' expertise
and knowledge must be constantly engaged for human talent to make its optimal contribution
in organizations. Likewise, if employees have no involvement in defining, designing and
implementing an activity, they are less likely to support it. The lack of 'employee
engagement' would weaken workers long-term commitment to the organization, making it
even more difficult to attract, develop, align and retain highly talented employees.(Kahn
1999)

2.1.5.3. Outcome Perspective of Talent Management

Table 3 describes the Outcome Perspectives on talent management focus on the roles of per-
sons and the accomplishment of performance outcomes in organizations. They include the

24
 leadership, change management and performance perspectives. The venture and social values
are secondary in these viewpoints to what individual and combined talent can achieve within
and crosswise levels of the organization. (Gelens, J et al 2013).

The 'Leadership Perspective' looks for to elevate the implication of leadership in achieving
high performance in organizations by declaring that the leader's role is as imperative to the
enterprise as the manager's. Leadership, in this perspective, affects everything employees
provides and receives, and must be given a higher priority in talent decisions. This includes
providing an affluent, engaging, dynamic, and convincing learning and performance
surroundings where leadership can grow (Gandossy and Freiberg 2009).

Table 3 Outcome Perspective of Talent Management

Perspective Core belief Recruitment Alignment Retention Talent

& Selection Development

Leadership Talent Screen and Allow all Provide a rich, Believed in, invest
leadership select with employees to engaging, in communicate
encompasse the highest perceive the dynamic, and with, create
s everything probability connection compelling opportunity for
employees for success as between their learning and growth and
experience leader, being work and the performance measured talent.
and receive. retained, and realization of support
remaining goals and environment.
committed. metrics.

Change Use talent Seek out Can be a bit Projects and Change agents
Management managemen mavericks opportunistic assignments develop others
t to instigate and change initially until keep change who align with
change in agents to join change is agents, but them and become
the the embedded. turnover of the next
organization organization. mainstay staff generation.
can occur.

Performance Enable Cast a wide Share, Develop agile Uncover and

Management Talent- net- beyond collaborate, talent within expand ‗hidden‘
strategic organization and create a and across all talents of current
execution and culture/ levels. employees.
25
 geographic social
location network.

Source: Harvey L, Talent Development (2008)

The Performance Perspective originates from the principle that talent must be enabled for
tactical execution that result in improved effectiveness. Findings from a 2006 Gallop survey
of 360 organizations by Knowledge mixture support this belief. Respondents cited
performance management as their organizations' maximum talent management priority for
the next three years (Spirgi 2007). The performance perspective calls for sheding a wide net
when recruiting new talent and increasing measures to discover and expand hidden talent in
current employees. It also holds the strategic development of nimble talent within and across
all stages of organizations (Powell and Lubitsh 2007).

There is also wide agreement that effective talent management requires strong leadership
with an appealing, active and convincing performance environment. Similar to other moves
toward a major objective of the outcome perspectives is 'having the right talent doing the
right work at the right time' (Powell and Lubitsh 2007).

The multiple perspectives on talent management and the sets they comprise are informative
and suggest useful constructs for considering a public sector talent management programme.
Each offers a unique explanation of human talent activities within organizations. In spite of
of the perspective taken, the basic questions of what should be included in a public sector tal-
ent management programme and what needs should be dealt with must be answered by the
organization. Even though the answers will be unique to every organization, the three sets of
perspectives, assessed, provide positive guidance for the query to determine appropriate
talent requirements. (Bedia 2010)

2.1.6. Talent Management Trends: Current Reviews

Business leaders are becoming gradually more aware of the need for their Human resource
functions to turn into more aligned with business values and drive business outcomes. This is
most keen in areas where there has been an increase in mergers, acquisitions and divisions

26
that have not been accurately planned for with regard to HR. In many cases talent strategy has
not been elevated as a critical business issue that impacts risk, business continuity and
organizational performance. (Tarique, I., & Schuler, R. S. 2010). Leaders have not taken
proprietorship of the talent programme, and often talent management processes are not
aligned with the business cycle and strategy. Workforce section, skills and abilities are still
not aligned with new business circumstances. This is leading to key skills deficits emerging
across numerous industries. Organizations have to urgently emphasized areas of weakness in
skills and knowledge and put accelerated development programmes in place to deal with
these capability gaps. There is a need to address the talent issues of an aging population,
which could potentially mean a loss of knowledge and institutional memory. Many
organizations are currently top heavy with baby boomers, and women are still not adequately
represented. Many organizations are repotting that they cannot recruit or grow their own
employees fast enough to support business growth. They are choosing for short or long term
partnering arrangements with organizations that can extra skills and transfer knowledge to
their teams. (Tymon, W. G., et al 2010). Others are outsourcing work or touching work
offshore for cost savings and to areas where large numbers of skilled individuals exist in to
deliver a service to the organization. The global depression has also important inferences for
how talent is managed; not due to the amplified delivery of talent but due to extensive
redundancies. Organizations requirement is to manage the twin and often conflicting
pressures of working more efficiently, even as charting a course to revival. Various survey
reports discover the views of senior HR practitioners to find out the emerging trends of talent
management and also disclose the different solutions for the same. In today‘s scenario we
believe that talent is universal and all people have talent. Chris Watkin (2004) offers one of
the simplest details of the concept. He suggests swapping the word ‗talent with ‗potential‘
and the word ‗management‘ with the words 'identification' and 'development'. The
identification and development of potential is what talent management is all about.

The integrated approach to the process which encompasses attracting, developing and
nurturing and retaining talent is critical for effective talent management. Hence attracting,
developing and nurturing and retaining talents are important objectives of talent management
program. Fernando Kevin Vince (2008) articulated from a strategic business perspective that
Talent management may be defined as a core sub-system of an organization‘s tactical

27
management system, to develop a human resource asset base that is capable to support
current and future organizational growth directions and objectives. Talent management may
be described as comprising three key components as: talent identification, talent development
– internal and external talent development, employee engagement, motivation and retention.
Various basics of talent management are to be discussed such as; the resourcing strategy,
attraction and retention policies and programmes, talent audit, Role development, talent rela-
tionship management, performance management, total reward, learning and development
policies, and career management etc. Talent management strategies are important to keep in
mind while workforce planning, strategically planning for business is being administered.
Mainly we can say there are two kinds of talent management strategies are to be kept in
account i.e. attraction and retention strategies for employees. (Thunnissen, M. et al 2013).

All organization requires policies to face the challenges of current circumstances and human
resource management need new way to think about the same background. Very many
academicians might argue that talent management is just another HR trend, but few trends
seem to have twisted themselves in to a new mean in the labor market. The roots of talent
management can perhaps be traced back to the downsizing and outsourcing trends, including
the slimming down of graduate recruitment scheme. Talent management shifts the focus of
HRM away from people as resources towards employees being men and women who need to
be valued and appreciated for who they are, and hence it completely refocuses the activities
of HRM away from authority and control towards a model of shared
accomplishment.(Colbert, B. A., & Kurucz, E. C. 2007).

The several approaches and varied theories in the literature on talent management offer
diverse perspectives of human talent activities in organizations. These perspectives are
classified into three sets for discussions. The first set is derived primarily from learning on
business enterprises (Enterprise perspectives). A second addresses social movement issues
(Social movement perspectives), which are connected to talent management. And, the third
focuses on roles of individuals and attainment of performance outcomes (outcome
perspectives). Together, these perspectives provide an unreserved body of information that
can notify and add builds for talent management system. (Collings, D. G., & Mellahi, K.
2009

28
 2.2. Creating a Talent Management System

The research carried out on IT organizations revealed that the infrastructure of human
resources systems and processes for the failed organizations was classically confused mixture
of unconnected, incomplete, missing, and conflicting assessment, planning and development
tools, and methods. It further implicated that performance appraisal, evaluation of potential,
competency evaluation; career planning, replacement planning, development and training,
compensation, and selection were unlinked and largely incompatible. The return on the cost
of implementing these split and distinct programme were low, time expenses were high,
reliability was low, and employee frustration was persistent.(Yahya, S., & Goh, W. K. 2002).
There was an immense need to present a valid talent management model that joins the
symbolic dots, to deal with the concerned outlines, and to provide a structure for
implementing specific actions leading to the development of a high ability talent cadre
capable of contributing to continuous excellent competitive performance.

Steps of Creating Talent Management System

Lance A. Berger (2008) has described a highly developed approach to talent management
based on wide research and practitioner experiences. He described tools that one can use to
apply that approach in the organization. These tool falls into a four step process: (i)
developing assessment tools and scales; (ii) developing training and application tools; (iii)
evaluating employees; and (iv) to prepare action reports.

Figure 3 Steps to Creating a Talent Management System

Step 1: Develop Assessment Tools

and scales

Step 2: Develop Training and

Development Tools

Step 3: Evaluate Employees

Step 4: Prepare Action Reports

Source: Lance A. Verger & Dorothy R. Berger (2008).

29
The progress of an organizational talent management plan requires the evaluation of each
employee based on the structure of accepted definitions and measures of competency
performance and potential. These core competencies are expectations of behavior, skills,
values that are vital to the success of each employee and, therefore, to the success of the
whole organization. As core competencies have been resolute and defined, a performance
appraisal and potential forecast worksheet should be developed. (Ashton, C., & Morton, L.
2005). Potential forecast is a prediction of how many levels an employee can attain within the
organization based on his current/past performance appraisals, training and development
needs, career preferences, and real and probable competency levels. In order to make an
improvement programme for individual employees, the organization must chart a set of
suitable training and development options for each selected competency. When a gap exists
between an employee's demonstrated skill in a competency and an organizations‘
requirement, a manager can use training and development to help get rid of the gap. Then the
assessment tools, based on company‘s core competencies created in the first step has to be
created for providing the framework for employee assessment. After each employee is
assessed using the assessment tools, organization and individual action plans can be ready.
There are a limitless number of approaches to the action plans as bench strength summary
and individual competency assessment etc. Bench strength summary describes the key
elements than an organization must believe to initiate action plans to recognize and tackle key
strategic issues. (Berger 2008)

2.2.1. Talent Management Framework

The large groups have adopted an advanced approach for managing its talent designed by hey
consultants. The core spirit of this process is to ensure a continuous availability of talent pool
members for important positions, assigning appropriate development opportunities for
employees, efficient consumption of talent pool, and increase the leadership pipeline of the
business and the group.

2.2.2. Career Stage Classification

Research demonstrates that career progression follows the principles of human development
and that a variety of growth points in life and career have their exclusive set of education and

30
developmental tasks. The movement form one stage to another depends upon qualification,
occupational preference, interests, socio economic factors, physical capabilities,
opportunities, ability to cope with necessities of the job, ability to learn and obtain new skills
and personal priorities. (Aryee, S. et al (1994). The career stage model developed by Walt
Mahler (1990) forms the basis of this talent management framework. This model provides an
exclusive framework to address the huge variety of group's business. The core essence of this
model is the belief that managers at different stages in their careers need to adopt diverse
roles and responsibilities in order to be effective.

The career stage model proposes that every leader goes through six career turns or ways in
his work Lifecycle. Grasping what every passage involves, and the challenges involved in
making each shift, will help organizations construct a leadership pipeline. The nature of the
job, level of density and ambiguity involved with in the job determine the career stage of the
person. Therefore, the number of direct reports is not the primary criteria for career stage
classification. There is a big difference in the work values, skill requirements and time
dimension orientation of managers at different career stages. This requires that the people are
classified appropriately in different career stages so that the expectations at the current career
stage and development plan to help them move towards system at career growth. (Cox, T. H.
et al 1991).

31
Figure 4 Talent Management Framework

Career Stage

Classification

Talent

Segmentation

Potential

Validation

Consensus

Discussion

Individual

Development Plan

Talent Review

Discussion

Source: Hay Consulting 2008

2.2.3. Talent Segmentation & Potential Validation

Everyone has talent. The challenge lies in finding out and identifying the talent. In
competency modeling we can watch that not everyone will require development of the same
competency sets, as competencies and levels of ability vary from one career stage to another.

32
Hence, talent identification and segmentation is an essential part of talent management. Main
aims of talent segmentation process are; to provide a consistent ‗yardstick‘ to measure talent

Table 4 Walt Mahler’s Career Stages

Manage Self First time mangers those are responsible for execution, assistance and
(MS) delivery of tasks. Result orientation, execution, orientation to quality and
reliability are the key skills demonstrated by people at this career stage.
Manage Others Managers of others are people who are required to get work done by other
(MO) people. They generally have supervisory responsibilities and are
responsible for getting support from others to deliver their KRAs. The key
skills that must be acquired include planning and assigning work,
motivating and coaching, and measuring the work of others.
Manager of Manager of managers are responsible for leading mangers that in turn
Mangers have other people reporting to them. Selecting people as first line
(MOM) managers, measuring their progress, and holding them accountable for
management work are skills that must be mastered during this transition.
Function Head A function head is responsible for effective delivery of the functional
(FH) responsibilities at the unit level. A function head is expected to work well
with other functional mangers on a multi-functional unit team and
compete for resources based on business needs.
Unit Head (UH) A unit head requires a major shift in thinking, from looking at things from
a functional perspective to a business perspective. A major challenge at
this carter stage is integrating functions to meet both short and long term
business objectives.
Business A business function head is responsible for the delivery of the functional
Function Head responsibility at the business level. A business function head needs to
create a supportive environment for his team of unit functional heads, and
provide broader strategies and guidelines for effective functioning of their
unit teams to deliver results.
Business Head To lead a business effectively, business heads are expected to be more
(BH) global and visionary thinkers. They must know how to align quarterly

33
 performance with long term strategy, and effectively communicate with
multiple stakeholders.
Group Function Group function head is responsible for delivery of functional results at the
Head group level. They work with their direct reports to grow them as business
leaders and prioritize a portfolio of functional strategies that connects the
business to the group.

Source: Walt Mahler (1990)

significantly across the group, to offer a matrix to plot people on a common framework using
criterion which are common to all our businesses across the group, to help in designing
focused and efficient developmental strategies-abased on the result of this process. The two
criterions on which any group segment the talent pool are performance and potential. Using
the nine box matrix, every individual must be rated on his/her performance, and on his po-
tential to move to the next two career stages. This rating on performance and potential is the
basis for identifying the individual with one of the nine boxes in the matrix. Talent
segmentation process consist three main stepladders;

Step 1: Evaluate Employee Performance Based on the Performance Definition.

Performance is connected to the present job and is relative ‗to others‘ i.e., the data on an
individual's performance for the past two - three years while plotting the individual on the
performance axis. Performance can be rated on the basis of level high, medium and low
performance giving the numbers 3, 2 and 1 respectively.

Step 2: Make the decision of the employee potential.

Potential is defined by the ability to move career stages within a given time span.
Accordingly, high potential employees are individuals who are able to move at least two
career stages within a span of 5 to 6 years and who scores well on various assessment criteria
based on 'on the job', demonstration of the current as well as future career stage
competencies. Potential can change over a long period of time with successful development.

Step 3: Position employees in the appropriate boxes on the 9 box matrix.

34
Hay Consulting has developed standard definitions of performance and potential when
implementing the nine box matrix to ensure accurate calibration of talent across our different
businesses.

Potential assessment is done using the existing career stage and the next two career stage
competencies. Potential assessment is usually associated with determining whether the
individual has ‗what it takes‘ to move forward to position of greater management or
leadership skills and / or positions entailing greater technical knowledge. Performance is
connected to present job while potential is connected to future advancement. In talent
segmentation process management review the trends in performance of the person over the
past 2- 3 years and using the criterion mentioned above categorise the performance rating.
Functional manager assesses the potential using the career stage behavioural competencies.
Then plot the outcome of the classification in the appropriate cell on nine box matrix

Figure 5 The Nine Box Performance Potential Matrix.

High Potential High Potential / High Potential /

Low Performance Medium High Performance
Performance

Medium Potential Medium Potential / Medium Potential /

Low Performance Medium High Performance
Performance
Potential

Low Potential Low Potential / Low Potential /

Low Performance Medium High Performance
Performance

Performance

Source: “ABG Talent Management Process Guide (2007)”

35
 2.2.3.1. Census Discussion/ Development Assessment Centre

Merely identifying talent is not enough. Developing the identified talent is the key for any
organization‘s overall strategic orientation. Heavy investment may also be required in
assessing the talent and also developing vigorous developmental processes that takes care of
the challenges identified during segmentation procedure. The main objective of talent
development .is to maximize potential utilization of an employee and enable him / her to
perform efficiently in the, current role and in future projects as well; to help employees
develop their true capabilities and to attain what they are capable of achieving. An individual
may look forward to develop his functional skills and therefore choose a functional career
ladder. (Robinson, C., et al. 2009). On the other hand, other sets of managers may favour to
broad base their functional competencies and to sharpen general management career skills. In
gratitude of these specific choices which people normally make, it is suitable to identify these
leanings early on and provide developmental experiences and exposure to build up the career
path orientation of the individual.

Development Assessment Centers (DAC) supply a means of gathering relevant information,

under standardized conditions about an individual's abilities to perform different kinds of
managerial and leadership roles. This is a established and trustworthy method of identifying
managerial and leadership potential which has placed the indication of time.(Thornton, G. C.
1982). The development assessment centers helps to provide an objective assessment and a
different viewpoint to line managers to guide them in developing suitable development
initiative for the talent pool members. The focal point of the assessment centers is for
development purpose only, hence the term development assessment centers.

2.2.3.2. Individual Development Plan

An individual development plan (IDP) is a formal document that identifies an individual's

learning and developmental goals. The IDPs are prepared for all managers who are
participant in DACs. This is prepared by the HR head and authorized by the Unit/ business.
This plan includes training, education and development activities (formal and informal) to
obtain the competencies needed to meet IDP goals. To help this objective, the individual
development plans (IDPs) are on paper and implemented for the participants of the

36
development assessment centers. Talent management objective's only to get recognized with
the successful implementation of the development plans.(Hirsh, Å. 2013).

Each of the talent pool members must have an individual development plan. The plan must
focus on developmental actions and exposures that individual must have in the next three
years‘ time span. These developmental exposures must be based on targeted competencies for
existing career stage and next two career stages with the appropriateness for each of the
developmental activities. The basket of programmes and exposures existing as a part of de-
velopment options must be considered while designing IDPs. The capability of an individual
concludes the forecast of future success in the new role at the next career phase which is
largely dependent on the development of career stage competencies. The readiness of talent is
dependent on the person‘s willingness to move and adapt to new roles. Using the criterion of
mobility and learning ability of the talent pool. (Ready, D. A., & Conger, J. A. 2007).

2.2.3.3. Talent Review

To ensure that collective efforts on the talent management process yield outcome for the
benefit of our business, it is important to record, determine and systematically monitor the
outcome of the process over a period. Annual talent review procedure aids the systematic and
periodic review of growth on talent management and development ideas. Talent review
process will provide an chance to the business leaders; to follow up on the progress on IDP
actions of identified talent pool, give areas of success, and give areas to improve, review of
potential and planned development plan for new additions to the pool, review the talent pool
status addition/deletion/resigned/transferred, and finally create action plan to deal with
shortage/surplus in the talent pool. (Klaus, K., et al. 2008). Various formats are used and
prepared for the review like nine box talent segmentation summary for the function,
individual profiles, individual development plans with an updated record of development
plans status, the number of talent pool exits from the function with reason for the same, talent
pool status (movement up, down, exit from the lists, and new additions) etc.

2.3. Building Blocks of Talent Management

The talent management building blocks are assessment tools that are used to build the talent
management plan and create the basis for associated development actions. The blocks are
37
organization competencies, performance management, potential management, 360 degree
feedback, learning and development activities, recruitment and selection etc. They are
necessary for the precise placement of employees into the different investment classes and, in
particular, the identification of talent pool members. By the help of building blocks, the talent
management plan is familiar with the action essential for an organization to align its current
human capital abilities with its current and future organization requirements. Also these helps
to explain the actions an organization can take to improve its employees' capabilities for
meeting the requirements of the talent management plan. The emphasis is on coaching and
mentoring and other developmental activities, since the idea is that the awesome investment
in employee development is made on an ongoing basis through positive dialogue and
feedback from many organization levels. These blocks also presents a set of reward
approaches designed to appropriately assign compensation to employees based on their
current and projected value contribution to the organization. The building blocks would
demonstrate the effectively distributed combination of career development and rewards is a
powerful way to emphasize the three key talent management strategies.

2.3.1. Recruiting and Selecting Talent

Recruitment in the total system of talent management efforts may be modeled as an

element of talent development initiatives directed to support strategic management efforts. If
addresses the competitive dynamics of business enabling the organization to come first in the
market. (Staines, GM 2012)

Talent management has to address both existing and future needs. Similarly recruitment as
part of talent development requirements to be approached with a clear viewpoint of both
current and future talent requirements. Recruitment request, while often rose at operational
level, needs to be approached with a strategy driven equipped perspective. It means that each
time a demand for a key position is raised, the HR leader, in partnership with the line
manager, would need to chart out the expectations from candidate according to business
policy and objectives. (Ruggs E, 2016)

Selecting right people for jobs and placing them in right roles plays a significant role in
determining whether they are giving their best to the organization. Selection strategy plays a

38
very important role in new organizations, especially those which are fastly growing. (Tech, M
2014). A suitable system of recruitment and selection/ placement helps to achieve. Feeling of
satisfaction among the employees that their capabilities are being properly utilized by the
organization and that they are not wasting their talents, Supplying the right type of people to
the needy departments or units within an organization in a short period of time, Minimizing
the wastage of human talent, through providing opportunities for people to apply their
capabilities, High level of employee assurance and by providing them opportunities to work
on jobs that they like and are capable of performing, Accessibility of data about all
employees and their capabilities to make easy human resource administration.

Recruitment is the process of placing potential individuals who might join a organization and
encouraging them to apply for existing or predictable job openings.(Shackleton, V. 2015).
During this process, efforts are made to inform the candidates only about the qualifications
require performing the job and the career opportunities that the organization can offer to its
employees. (Taylor, S. 2014) Whether a particular job vacancy will be filled by someone
from within the organization or from outside will depend on the accessibility of personnel,
the organization‘s HR policies, and the requirements of the job to be staffed. The outside
resources from which employers employ may vary with the type of position to be filled.
Some firms keep detailed statistics by job type on the sources from which their employees are
hired. This helps human resource managers make superior decisions. The circumstance of
labour market may also help determine which recruiting sources an organization will use.
Several studies have recommended that an employee‘s recruitment source can affect that
employee's succeeding tenure and job performance. In general, applicants who find service
through recommendation by a current employee tend to remain with the organization longer
and give higher excellence performance than employees recruited through the formal
recruitment sources of advertisements and employment agencies. (Klotz et al 2013). Informal
recruiting sources may also give way higher selection rates than formal. Relying on only one
or two recruitment sources to secure job applicants could have an adverse effect on protected
classes.

39
 2.3.2. Performance Appraisal

Performance appraisal has traditionally been used as an instrument of controlling employees

through salary administration, reward administration, promotions and corrective action. Many
organizations use performance appraisal, confidential reports or employee service records in
a secret form. (Aguinis, H 2011) The performance appraisal can be defined as a process,
generally delivered annually by a supervisor to a subordinate, designed to help employees
understand their roles, objectives, prospect and performance success, while performance
management is the process of creating a work surroundings in which people can perform to
the best of their abilities. It is a whole work structure that begins when a job is defined.
Formal programmes for performance evaluation and merit ratings are by no means new to
organizations. Performance appraisal can be an effectual instrument for helping people
develop and grow in organizational settings. It could be used as a device of ongoing
education and learning from one another. Through a well organised appraisal system an
employee can make learning spaces for himself in an organization. (De Waal, A 2013)

Performance appraisals may look shallow initially for assessing anybody who is doing a good
job. But in reality, performance appraisals are one of the most flexible tools available to
managers. They can serve many purposes that help both the organization and the employee
whose performance is being appraised. Firstly, from the point of view of administration,
appraisal programmes give input that can be used for the complete range of human resource
management activities.(Bernardin, H. J., & Wiatrowski, M. 2013). Performance appraisals
are used most widely as a basis for compensation decisions. It is also related to a number of
other main human resource functions, such as promotion, transfer, and layoff decisions along
with HR planning. It is significant to recognise that the success of the entire human resource
programme depends on knowing how the performance of employees compares with the goals
established for them. Secondly from the point of view of individual development, appraisal
provides the feed back necessary for discussing strengths and weaknesses as well as
improving performance. (Decramer 2012) The appraisal process provides a chance to
identify matters for discussion, eliminate any potential problems, and set new goals for
achieving high performance. In order to have a clear understanding of the expectations, it is
useful to set goals or objectives under each KPA. In each case qualitative or time bound
objectives could be set. A high-quality performance appraisal takes into consideration how
40
well an individual has performed his role rather than what result she has achieved.
(Dusterhoff, C et al 2014). A good performance appraisal system also has a set of behavioral
dimensions that are important for managerial effectiveness. These dimensions should be
desirable for performing more and more high managerial jobs and universally applicable in
the organization. There are several qualities are likely to meet criteria such as creativity,
initiative, contribution to team spirit, and to the development of subordinates. Rating on
performance and behavior are essential in any appraisal system to generate data. Such ratings
also form a basis for discussions and exchange of expectations. The significant thing in any
appraisal system is not the numbers but the process by which an executive arrives at the
number, and the communication of this process to appraise or the appraiser. (Picher, S. 2012).

A good performance appraisal system should center on identifying the factors that help or
hinder good performance. These facilitating and restraining factors may be either within or
outside the power of appraise. The performance appraisal system should give scope for the
appraiser to recognize the factors. (Aguinis H Joo 2011) .The appraisers role maybe to assist
him identify many more of these factors, know their respective roles in strengthening the
facilitating factors and weakening the inhibiting factors, and work out action plans to that
effect.

Performance appraisal data are helpful in identifying the training needs of employees.
Continually poor performance on certain dimensions can be identified and training and
developmental activities intended at developing the employees on these dimensions can be
planned. (Haas EJ 2016). Developmental activities may take the shape of organising internal
training programmes, sponsoring for outside programmes, delegating higher responsibilities,
job rotation for obtaining new skills etc.

2.3.2.1. Potential Appraisal

Potential is defined by the capability to move carter path within a given time span.
Accordingly, high potential employees are individuals who are able to move at least few
stages of career path initially within a given time duration. Potential is always contextual and
needs to be understood in the context of the manager's age and the current career stage.

41
Potential can vary over a long period of time with successful development. This, however,
depends on what needs to be developed. (Dries, N., et al 2012)

In Indian organizations, it is a normal practice to promote people on the basis of their

performance. Most of the organizations are hierarchical in nature. In such organizations, the
functions and responsibilities depend upon the level at which the role is located in the
organizational hierarchy. When the nature of roles, responsibilities, and functions differ
considerably, promotions only on the basis of past performance are likely to generate
problems. The past performance of an individual can only replicate whether he has been able
to do a given job at a given level successfully or not and is an indicator of the future potential
to the degree of the two jobs that are similar in functions. (Dries, N., et al 2012). However,
when an individual is promoted on the basis of his past performance, an hypothesis is being
made that competence in performing the present role is a sufficient sign of competence to
perform a higher and different roles in the organization. This assumption is not correct in
hierarchical organizations. The capabilities required to perform one role may not be the same
as those required to perform a higher role having different functions. Therefore, past
performance is not essentially a good sign of the suitability of an individual for a higher role.
Due to this inadequacy of the promotion system, a new system of developing employees for
occupying higher positions has been thought of, entitled potential appraisal. (Mattone, J., et al
2013). The main objective of potential appraisal is to identify the potential of a given
employee to engage higher positions in the organizational hierarchy and undertake higher
responsibilities. Keeping in view its own interest, it is necessary for every organization to
identify the potential in every individual to handle higher roles and responsibilities. The
organizations have to make clear cut options from among its employees from their
performance in different roles as well as from replicated settings relating to new roles. A
good potential appraisal system attempts to produce data about employees and their potential
for occupying higher positions from range of sources, and helps the top management to make
decisions about the appropriate persons for a given job. (Bernardin, H. J., & Wiatrowski, M.
2013).

There may be many employees who show wonderful performance but they may not have the
potential to go forward to higher levels. 'Potential' refers to the level of difficulty an
individual could handle if he or she was to attain the knowledge and skills required of a
42
higher position. Developing knowledge and skills in high potential employees is necessary to
their attentiveness for advancement. Management had difficulty in understanding and
accepting that possessing limited potential or no potential is not necessarily a negative
quality, but soon understood the thought. Also it had to be understood that future assessment
could result in different potential determination. (Khoreva, V et al Jan 2015). Talent
management paints a bright picture of many important matters and encourages lively and
productive discussions on how to deal with those issues. While organizational issues might be
perceived, the skill to build a case from demonstrable talent management data is a powerful
tool.

One approach to blemishing talent is through high potential programmes. These arrangements
identify individuals early in their careers who emerge to have the talent and ability to grasp
executive positions and then mold them for those positions. Developmental experiences are
intense on these people, and they are targeted for faster promotions and feature highly in long
term succession plans. High potential programmes are created to identify and then develop
the candidates to fill those fast-track paths. (Church, A.et al. 2015). Now days no equal
problem subsists, as if new generation with new skills are needed in certain industries and
companies, lateral hiring makes it easy to carry them abroad. Promotion paths are now so
open that promising leaders do not need to wait around before they see actual action.
Particular fast track arrangements are hardly ever needed. But companies do not have
limitless resources for development, and they must somehow make a decision which
individuals get the most important developmental assignments. The usual approach has been
to try to predict early in people's careers who has the right substance to become executives.
Historically, these efforts relied heavily on evaluation test. These tests within companies were
roughly never authenticated or examined. They were hard to authenticate because only high
scoring candidates were promoted. Without regular experimentation it was impossible to tell
about improvement. The high scores eventually fared in their careers compared with those
who scored lower. (Zakarevičius, P., & Župerkienė, E. 2015).

Yet, many companies still rely on tests and assessments of various kinds of potential. A study
of companies with high potential programmes found that about one in five selected
candidates when they were hired, before they were even employed. Practically all the
companies made that determination in the first few years on the job.
43
Peter Cappelli (2010) describes in Talent on Demand about seeing problems with
conventional high potential programmes in the current environment. Firstly, as noted, the
difficulty addressed in these programmes no longer exists. Secondly, they represent the most
extreme example of long term career planning, which, for the reasons noted earlier, is not
likely to be functional. Thirdly, these arrangements generate a range of impartiality problems
inside organizations. Telling someone that he is not being recognised or promoted because of
a lack of potential is overwhelming, because it is saying that he has a flaw he may not be able
to do anything about, particularly if the assessments rely on factors like cognitive ability and
personality. It essentially says that he has no future career here. (Levine, R. 2015). Another
concern with high potential programmes is how individuals will move in and out of them. If
it is difficult to fall out of the high potential programme, then it is simple to distinguish the
whole efforts as something like a caste system, driven largely by accidents of birth and
experiences that have nothing to do with job performance.

There are also important permissible issues associated with efforts to assess potential.
Various court rules established the standard that the criteria used to hire should be narrowed
to predicting the ability to perform in the job that is being filled and not prospect jobs in the
organizations. If it is possible to be taken out of these programmes and placed into them later,
as most observers would think is reasonable, then the most applicable criterion for doing so
would be job performance. In practice talent pools have the key attributes that candidates are
moved into and out‘ of the pools based on factors like performance. (Behera, R. 2016). With
succession planning, high potential programmes create expectations for advancement and
also foster divisions in the workplace. These problems argue strongly in favour of
performance rather than potential as the main criterion in assessing candidates for
developmental experiences. (Seopa, N et al. 2015).

Yet it is possible to be a star contributor as an individual and not have the capabilities to be a
leader. If the problem is that the requirements of current jobs do not allow us to observe the
important characteristics and competencies that senior positions required, then we are more
constrained. But there are still alternatives to tests or other indirect measures for assessing
potential, and these rely on the straight forward approach of creating opportunities to observe
actual behavior. (Swailes, S., & Blackburn, M. 2016)

44
 2.3.2.2. Determining Every Employee’s Potential for Growth

Murray M. Daziel (2010) explained in his article that talented business leaders are a rising
challenge for today‘s organizations. In the past where structure, strategies, and even markets
were comparatively static, leadership was fewer compounds. One model for leadership was
sufficient for all most all organization. Those who fit the model were brushed over time.
Previously employees dedicating their whole career to one organization were moved at top in
the leadership scale they weren't going anywhere else- and eventually were moved into
leadership rules. At that time, developing great business leaders was much like developing
great concert pianists. (Staats, B. 2015).The process continues over years as these high
potentials sharpen their skills. Ultimately, the world class performers emerge. Today,
developing star leaders is even more difficult than developing star athletes and artists. For
starters, the days of a single leadership model are gone. Even within a company a variety of
leadership models are needed. And those models are constantly evolving. To add to the
intricacy, todays organizational leaders, even beginners, must strike the ground running and
immediately produce results. While the characteristic that enable people to perform well in
these are not tangible, they can, based on research, be identified and, overtime, be developed
or modified.(Ancona, D 2015). It is obvious that many popular methods for assessing
leadership potential have their limits. Some are unsuccessful to take into account major shifts
in leadership scope, and others easily overlook possible candidates. Add to these the fact that
no one including leaders and potential leaders is ideal. Research has shown that the best
predictors of leadership success are a handful of key competencies that, in various
combinations, most frequently lead to outstanding performance. (Shanafelt, T. D et al 2015)

2.3.3. Talent Development

Whether the focus is on individual competence or organizational competence, developing

competence within the organization, is key to creating a talent management system. Berger
(2004) argues that an organization should develop a list of its core competencies and
assessment tools for measuring them; develop training and development solutions to support
these core competencies; asses everyone against them and forecast potential; and finally
prepare action plans to ensure that the core competencies are covered. Talent management
needs an organizational commitment to continuous professional development. This will be

45
visible through the range of development experiences offered within the organization,
moving away from the traditional classroom training based model to include stringing
together a range of meaningful experiences to build character. (Treffinger, D..J. 1996) these
could include coaching, issue development meetings, job rotation, interim and emergency
assignments, task force assignments, extracurricular activities and so forth. Ken tucker of the
Gallop organization, finds most organizations focusing on individuals weaknesses rather than
their strengths. Developmental plans are then drawn up to address these weaknesses, rather
than people being paired with others with opposite strengths and weaknesses to work in
teams. Some authors believe that institutions now need to be organized so as to bring out the
talent and capabilities existing within their organizations, to encourage people to take
initiative, and to give them a chance to show what they can do, and a scope within which to
grow. (Gagne, F 2015) If one organization is in a situation where it realizes that it doesn't
have the capabilities and potential in house already, it has a little choice but to recruit.

Training has become increasingly vital to the success of modern organizations. Organizations
often compete on competencies; the core sets of knowledge and expertise that give them an
edge over their competitors. Training plays a central role in nurturing and strengthening these
competencies, and in this way has become part of the backbone of strategy implementation.
(Bloom, B 1981). Changing technologies require that employees continuously hone their
knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) to cope with new processes and systems. Jobs that
require little skill are rapidly being replaced jobs that require technical, interpersonal, and
problem solving skills. Other trends toward empowerment, total quality management, team
work, and international business make it necessary for mangers, as well as employees, to
develop the skills that will enable them to handle new and more demanding assignments. The
term ‗training‘ is often used casually to describe almost any effort initiated by an organization
to foster learning among its members. (McFarland, W., & Jestaz, D. 2016).Many experts
distinguish between training, which tends to be more narrowly focused and oriented toward
short term performance concern, and development, which tends to be oriented more toward
broadening an individual's skills for future responsibilities. The two terms tend to be
combined into a single phrase - training and development- to recognise the combination of
activities that organization use to increase the skill base of employees. The primary reason
that organizations train new employees is to bring their KSAs up to the level required for

46
satisfactory performance. As the result of training employees may be ever more effective on
the job and may be able to perform other jobs in other areas or at higher levels. (Garavan T,
2012)

2.3.4. Career Planning and Development

Career management is concerned with providing opportunities for people to progress and
develop their careers, ensuring that the organization has the flow of talent it needs. The
elements of career management are the provision of learning and development opportunities,
career planning and management of succession planning. (Presbitero, A. 2015). For
employees, the aim of career management policies is to give the individuals the guidance,
support and encouragement they need if they are to fulfill their potential and pursue a
successful career in the organization in tune with their talents and aspirations. The aim of the
career management for employees is to provide men and women of promise with a sequence
of learning activities and experience that will equip them for whatever level of responsibility
within their reach. (Weng, Q. X., & Xi, Y. M. 2013). For the organization, the aim of career
management is to meet the objectives of its talent management policies, which are to ensure
that there is a talent flow that create and maintains the required talent pool. Career
management encompasses recruitment, personal development plans, lateral moves, special
assignment at home or abroad, development positions, career bridges, and support for
employees who want to develop. It calls for creativity in identifying ways to provide
development opportunities and enhance employee loyalty. The organization needs to decide
on the extent to which it makes or buys talented people.(McElroy, J. C., & Weng, Q. 2016).

Deliberately training managers for future that may never happen is considered a waste of
time. There may also be policies for dealing with the patterned manager who has got so far
but will get no further. Some mangers in this position may be reconciled to reach the end of
the ‗rat race‘ but continue to work effectively. Others become bored, frustrated and
unproductive; especially rising stars on the wane. (Guan, Y., Zhou et al 2015). The policy
may be to provide for steps to be taken to reshape their careers so that they still have
challenging work at the same level, even if this does not involve promotion up the hierarchy.
Alternatively, the policy may need to recognize that some managers will have to be
encouraged to start new careers elsewhere. Career planning uses all the information provided

47
by the organization assessments of requirements, assessments of performance, potential and
management succession plans, and translates it into the form of individual career
development programs and general arrangements for management development, career
counseling and mentoring. (Wang, Q. et al 2014)

It is possible to define career progression in terms of what people are required to know and be
able to do carry out work at progressive levels of responsibility or contribution. Formal career
planning may he ideal, but there has been a shift from managed career moves to more open
internal job markets. The process of internal job application has become the main way in
which employees manage their careers. (Reichelt, M. 2015).

2.3.4.1. Features of Career Planning

A career is a sequence of positions or jobs held by a person during the course of his working
life. It is not a series of work related experiences but a sequence of attitudes and behavior
associated with work related activities over the span of a person's life. (Lent, R. W.
2013).Career planning is the systematic process by which one selects career goals and the
path to these goals. From the organization's viewpoint, it means helping the employees to
plan their career in terms of their capacities within the context of organization's needs. It is
managerial technique for mapping out the entire career of young employees. The main
characteristics of career planning are; a process of developing human resource rather than an
event, not an end in itself but a means of managing people to obtain optimum results, a
continuous process, It is an individual responsibility and Integration of individual and
organizational needs. (Rothwell, W. J. et al 2015).

There are several important terms used in career planning such as; Career goals, Career Path,
Career Anchor etc. These terms provides the basic drives that give the urge to take up a
certain type of career. Career Development which is the personal movements an individual
makes to achieve his career plan. (Renn, R. W. et al 2014). Mentoring is the process wherein
an executive or senior employee serves as a teacher, advisor, guide, friend, philosopher and
confident to the new entrant. In Career Counseling; Guiding and advising people on their
possible career paths and what they must do to achieve promotions. Finally, Career
Management is the process of designing and implementing plans to enable the organization to

48
satisfy employee needs and allow individuals to achieve their career paths. (Spurk, D.et al
2015).

Thus the career planning is beneficial to both the individual and the organization. It
contributes towards the development and utilization of individuals. It also facilitates
organizational development and effectiveness. If the organization is to survive and prosper in
an ever changing environment, its human resource practices must be continuously developed.
(Demulier, V. et al 2013). Career planning has now become an essential prerequisite of
effective human resource management, productivity or improvement and organizational
growth.

C.B. Gupta (2010) has suggested the measures that can be taken to make career planning
successful such as; top management support, expansion, clear goals, motivated and
hardworking staff, proper selection, proper age balance, fair promotion policy, management
of career stress, Internal publicity, and continuity in developmental activities.

P.C. Tripathi (2007) described the important steps involved in career planning arc as under;
Preparation of a manpower plan showing future replacement needs and long term potential of
different categories of employees. Building career paths or ladders for each category of
employees.

2.3.4.2. Career paths

Advancement on the career paths may be time bound, as and when vacancy arises, based on
seniority, merit or both. Career Path needs to be planned by Identifying employees who have
the necessary ability and willingness to climb up the ladder, Exposing employees to different
functions/roles to enable them to find out their best career options, Making employees aware
of the competencies needed for different career options, Formulating and implementing
training and development plans, appraisal interviews, counseling etc, Periodically reviewing
the career development plans. (Joseph, D. et al 2012).

49
 2.3.4.3. Career Development

Career development is essential for implementing career plans. It consists of activities

undertaken by the individual employees and the organization to meet career aspirations and
job requirements. The most important requirement of career development is that every
employee must accept his/her responsibility for development.(Lent, R. W.et al 2013).

Career development involves following activities

1. Career need Assessment: Career needs of employees can be judged by evaluating their
aptitudes, abilities and potential. Organization should assist employees in assessing their
career needs and in identifying their career goals. Depth interview and simulation exercise
may be used for exploring potential and developing future career goals for executives.
2. Career Opportunities: Career opportunities that can be met should be identified through
job analysis. Job description, job specification and job redesign reveal lines of advancement
for employees.
3. Need Opportunity Alignment: In the next step, employee needs are aligned with
available career opportunities. The organization can design appropriate development
programmes to help employees integrate their development needs with organizational
opportunities. Some programmes are such as; individualized Techniques (special
assignments, coaching, job rotation, job enrichment etc.), Performance appraisal,
management by objective (MBO), and career counseling.
4. Monitoring Career Moves: It is necessary to maintain a record of career movements of
employees and to monitor their progress towards the predetermined career goals. This will
enable the human resource department to identify discrepancies and to adopt corrective
measures the right time.
5. The talent management approach wants individuals to stay within the organization and
be developed for critical roles in the future. In this model the organization wants to take
responsibility for ensuring that the individual is developed and ready for the career move, and
they want to guide the career path of the individual in the direction that they need. There is a
fine balance that needs to be achieved. Each manager is responsible for developing his or her
people, and each individual is responsible for seeking out new challenges and actively
managing his or her career within the open labour market within the group. If organizations

50
want to manage the careers of their talent they need to clearly articulate the ways in which
their roles will change, both laterally and hierarchically, .based on the organization's
requirements, and what the behavioral implications of that will be. (Blustein, D. 2013). This
provides clarity with regard to shared anchor points, and helps high potentials navigate
through the transitions and undertake appropriate development with a clear understanding of
what they need to do differently to be successful as their role changes. Mentoring and other
developmental activities play an important role in career development and management of
others. Central to the idea of career development is the role of competence development
itself.

2.3.5. Succession Planning

One variant of career planning is succession planning. Unlike the career planning which
covers executive at all levels succession planning is usually done for some senior positions
only. It aims at identifying those individuals who stand a chance of succeeding an executive
on his retirement. Those individual are variously known as stars, task trackers, listers, new
generation leaders or high pats. The plan gives a comparative view of these individuals in
terms of their age, present performance and promotability. It may use different colour tabs to
indicate the current level of an individual promotion potential. The plan is generally regarded
as highly confidential. Some economic and market situation are tough to predict but
organization‘s succession strategy needs to be build on the best visualisation of the future that
can be constructed it is similar to organization‘s product expansion, marketing and sales
strategies will be. Pepsico lists as a key leadership attribute ―seeing round the corner‖ – the
ability to create a fair estimate as to what is coming. (Coward, L. A. W. 2012).

It is easy to recognize and develop people‘s competence- specific skills, knowledge and
behaviors – but connection skills and capacity are often ignored because they are not as
simple to measure and quantify. Yet data point out both competence and connection are
critical for successful leaders.

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Figure 6 Key elements of Competence

Competence Connection

Business Aptitude Trustworthiness

Clarity Depth

Responsibility Empathy

Internal Attunement External Attunement

Source: Foss, N. J., & Knudsen, C. (2013).

Above figure 6 shows the key elements of competence and connection such as aptitude,
reliability, clarity, depth, accountability, empathy, internal attunement, and external
attunement. When developing people for succession, a mix of experience, coaching and
proper learning provides a vigorous and comprehensive approach to eagerness. 70/20/10 is
not necessarily the right combination of components for everyone but a mix of all three is:
experience - (some companies do nothing more than that) moving people from one
assignment to the next to insure they get the right width and intensity of experience. Outside/
executive coaching — (some organizations focus on this) developing a one-on-one plan
where individuals work on precise areas that have been identified. Formal learning
experiences - some organizations provide standard or exclusive formal learning situations
either as the one way to provide development or to supplement/replace certain experiences.
Where the true magic happens is when these are done in performance and complement each
other. (Chamorro-Premuzic, 2014).

2.3.6. Competency Mapping

A Competency is defined as a behaviour or set of behaviours that describes excellent

performance in a particular work context (e.g. job, role or group of jobs, function, or whole
organization). These characteristics help in the various ways; clarifying workforce standards
and expectations, aligning individuals, teams and managers with the organizations' business
strategies, and creating empowerment, accountability, and alignment of coach, team member,

52
and employer in performance development. (Joshi, A., et al 2013). As top executive expect
HR mangers to assume a broader role in overall organizational strategy, many of these
managers will need to acquire a complementary set of competencies. These competencies
consist of business mastery (business acumen, Customer orientation, external relations). Over
the past thirty years, using competencies has become universal within human resource,
integrated into activities from managing performance to determine compensation. Most of the
companies HOW have competency models, and an entire industry exists to help HR pro-
fessional create, implement, and measure them. (Nayak, M. K. 2016). The confusion about
competencies' meaning and value likely stems from their amorphous definition over time.
Popular definitions of competencies vary significantly, includes; The Internal characteristics
of an individual that produce effective and superior performance, A list of behavioural
characteristics related to job tasks, A set of observable performance dimension, including
individual knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviours, as well as collective team, process,
and organizational capabilities, that are linked to high performance, and provide the
organization with sustainable competitive advantage.

Competencies now appear in nearly every talent related practice, from performance reviews
to career development plans to training programme. All too frequently, they take the form of
highly detailed, multilayered models that split a job or activity into the smallest possible
parts. The logic is that by identifying every possible skill or behaviour related to a job‘s
performance, it is easier to develop, incent, and evaluate those activities. The interpretation of
competencies varies widely, so the definition may be 'the little common behaviour in an
organization that contributes to its competitive advantage.' This definition is purposefully
broader and at a higher organizational level than most. (Neiworth, L. et al 2014).

2.3.7. 360 Degree Feedback

360 degree appraisal is basically a multi rater appraisal and feedback system. Almost every
distinguished company is using this in some form or the other. In this system, the candidate is
assessed periodically by a number of assessors including his boss, immediate subordinate,
colleagues, internal customers and external customers. The assessment is made on a
questionnaire specially designed to measure behaviours considered as critical for
performance. (Zakarevičius, P., & Župerkienė, E. 2015).The appraisal is done anonymously

53
by others and the assessment is collected by an external agent or specially designated internal
agent (as HR department). The assessment is consolidated; feedback profiles are prepared and
given to the participant after a workshop or directly by his boss or the HR department in a
performance review discussion session. Due to the innumerable variations possible in 360
degree feedback and appraisals, and its potency as a competency identification and
development tool, it is important to understand the process and its dynamics. (Nowack, K.
M., & Mashihi, S. 2012).

360 degree appraisal systems have certain advantages. These advantages are not substitutes
for those of traditional appraisals but in addition to them. Normally 360 degree feedback
system should be viewed as supplements to the regular KRA based appraisal systems rather
than as replacement of the same. 360 degree system adds objectivity and supplements the
traditional appraisal system. It is more objective than a one person assessment of traits and
qualities. It can serve all the purposed served by the traditional appraisal system, it helps
focus on internal as well as external customer satisfaction. (Donnon, T. et al 2014). 360
systems have the potential of pointing out the supervisory biases in the traditional appraisal
system; it is more participative and enhances the quality of HR decisions, also it provides
scope for the candidate to get multiple inputs to improve his role, performance, style and
ideas. It is suitable for new organizational cultures being promoted by most world class
organizations (participative culture, competency based performance culture, team work,
leadership culture, empowering culture, learning culture, quality culture etc.)

The 360 degree feedback system can be a very sensitive issue. A person not well prepared for
it could be thrown out of balance. It can also create some new issues in an organization. If not
designed and conducted well, it has the potential danger of the candidate developing wrong
perceptions about one or more of his assessors and developing new attitudes towards them. It
is therefore necessary and important to manage the process well and make it foolproof.
(Espinilla, M. et al 2013)

Tremendous changes have taken place in the global economic environment. These changes
have made impact on the Indian industry. Today‘s corporate world can be characterized as
highly competitive, technology and system driven, customer centered, acting with speed, cost
and quality conscious, fast changing and highly competitive. In such situation, Indian IT

54
companies need to have highly competent top level managers to lead them. The top team of
each company needs to perform leadership and institution building roles very effectively.
They need to balance short term targets with long term organization building concerns. They
need to inspire and develop their staff. (Colomo-Palacios, et al 2013). They need to be
customer driven and quality driven. Each individual manager plays a critical role in the
company. He can be a good change agent by constantly improving himself in relation to the
roles he is playing, styles with which he is playing, delegating and making the right impact on
others through his behavior.

The process of 360 degree appraisal can be broken into three stages or levels i.e. planning,
implementation and results stages. At each of these stages, various factors involved in the
360 degree feedback process can be identified along with their role and contribution. It is
argued that successful management of all of these factors can contribute to effective usage of
this process.

Though 360 degree appraisal feedback is an effective mechanism for individual growth,
development, and learning, its effectiveness in that regard will depend upon the attention paid
to factors outlined, particularly purpose, preparedness of raters, rates, organization etc. which
play a critical role at different stages of the process. 360 degree feedback can help build better
talent faster and therefore improve an organization‘s results, few see these benefits, and for
obvious reason. The typical 360 degree process relies on a self-motivated manager who
readily accepts the feedback, commits to self-improvement and moves forward with an action
plan. Typical 360 degree reports are difficult to understand, do not focus managers on the
right actions, and do not provide practical advice about what to do next. Why so few leaders
improve purely as a result of receiving 360 degree feedback is not hard to understand.
Despite these challenges, we can strongly support the 360 degree assessment process because
we believe that it is a simple and powerful way to achieve the business objective of aligning
people's behaviors with organization needs.(O'Boyle, I. 2013).

2.4. Employee Engagement

Employee engagement is an effective tool to help every organization to strive to gain

competitive advantage over the others. People is one factor that cannot be duplicated or

55
imitated by the competitors and is considered the most valuable asset if managed and
engaged properly. This point has been emphasized by Baumruk (2004), in that employee
engagement is considered to be the most powerful factor to measure a company‘s vigor.
Katz and Kahn (1966) have referred to the concept of engagement in their work related
to organizational effectiveness. However, it was mentioned in general as one of a number
of needs to be developed to provide an innovative and co-operative work environment
leading to performance and effectiveness. Kahn (1990) introduced the concept of
employee engagement, giving his now famous definition quoted in the introduction,
namely, ―the harnessing of organization members‘ selves to their work roles; in
engagement, people employ and express themselves physically, cognitively, and
emotionally during role performances‖. Kahn added that three psychological
engagement conditions are necessary for an employee to be rightly engaged
meaningfulness (work elements), safety (social elements, including management style,
process, and organizational norms) and availability (individual distractions).

Employee engagement brings forth numerous advantages for the firm. Employee engagement
is a tool which could be deployed in the organization so that the talent is appropriately
deployed and harnessed effectively. It helps in building employee commitment and helps
employees perform better in their roles. It leads to focused efforts and better outcomes. It
translates into greater innovation, commitment to organization, positive energy and higher
productivity. It also leads to lower attrition levels and absenteeism. Engaged employees love
their jobs, believe their employer, company goals and the manner in which they conduct their
business (Smartmanager.com, 2012). They exhibit high levels of passion and creativity and
they believe they create value and management.

It is also important for top management to understand how disengaged employees affect an
organization. Disengaged employees look at their jobs as trading time for compensation.
(Smartmanager.com, 2012). They do little beyond the minimum effort required to complete
their job. They exhibit little passion or creativity typically going through the motions of
completing their duties. They do not see their job as a long term association with the
organization. Disengaged employees also have an impact on other employees as they tend to
spread negative energy. Actively disengaged employees typically constitute only 15 percent

56
of the workforce but can have a disproportion- ate effect on the positive contributions of
engaged employees (Smartmanager.com, 2012).

In a survey conducted by Gallup in 2006, it has been estimated that decreased productivity
and performance fostered by actively disengaged employees cost US businesses around $328
billion annually (Gallup Business Journal, 2012). This is because the employees do not
contribute to their level of potential and talent. So investment in such people does not get
back the desired returns. Gallup study (Gallup Business Journal, 2012) indicates that engaged
employees inspire company innovation and are most likely to contribute to innovations. They
are more productive, profitable, and safer, create customer relationships and stay longer with
the company than less engaged employees. There is a distinct difference between behaviors
displayed by engaged and disengaged employees. 70 percent of engaged employees indicate
that they have an understanding of how to meet customer needs while as only 17 percent of
non-engaged employees say the same (Morgan, 2012). 78 percent of engaged employees
would recommend their company‘s products or services against 13 percent of disengaged
employees. It is quite clear how the employee behaviors impact the organization‘s business.
Gallup has classified employee engagement into three categories: Engaged employees,
disengaged employees, actively disengaged employees

All the three categories of employees display different behaviors. There is certainly an
overlap between disengaged and actively disengaged employees. Engaged employees work
with passion and feel a profound connection with the company. They drive innovation and
move the organization forward. Disengaged employees are essentially, ―checked out‖ from
the organization. They are putting their time but neither energy nor passion into their work.
Actively disengaged employees are not just un- happy with their work but are also busy
acting out their unhappiness. They undermine what their engaged co-workers accomplish.

Mercer defines engagement as a psychological state in which employees feel a nested

interest in the company‘s success and are both willing and motivated to levels that exceed
stated job requirements. According to Aon Hewitt, Report (2011), engagement is defined as
the state of emotional and intellectual involvement in a group or organization – the extent to
which organization has captured the hearts and minds of its people. Gallup Consulting relates
it with involvement and enthusiasm for work.

57
There are numerous models available for employee engagement and different business firms
have their own thought patterns around the same. For example, Eyre (2012) also mentions
that offering developmental opportunities is also one of the key ways for managing talent.
Motivating the key talent is one of the most important aspects of talent management. Stevens-
Huffman (2011) remark that for employee engagement to occur, there are two important
aspects which need to be looked into. The first is enablement, which exists when employees
have the necessary support and tools to work efficiently and effectively over time; the second
is energy, which comes from a healthy work environment that supports employees‘ physical,
social and emotional well-being.

There are several factors which help build employee engagement in an organization.
Santhoshkumar and Rajasekar (2012) in their study on automobile and IT industry in India
found seven important factors: (1) creativity and innovation; (2) leadership; (3) teamwork; (4)
interpersonal sensitivity; (5) personal motivation; (6) association; and (7) team-spirit to
contribute to managing talent.

As the emerging markets have growing business opportunities, there are foreign direct
investments (FDI) which lead to more recruitment opportunities and increased search for
talented employees. In India for example, there are lot of R&D centres of IT firms which are
perpetually looking for research talent. Microsoft, IBM, HP Labs, Accenture, Intel, Infosys,
and TCS–they all compete to hire computer science graduates and PhDs. It is a very tough
battle to attract and retain talent. The MNCs compete with the local firms to attract talent. D‘
Ameco (2088) quotes Accenture, ―Some 97% of the 438 million people to be added to the
global workforce by 2050 will come from emerging regions‖.

As per the Aon Hewitt Report (2011), best employer organizations have higher employee
advocacy. The best employers also display the following characteristics like strong
organizational alignment, better growth and development opportunities, address needs by
employee segments, strong belief in importance of HR function, culture of reward and
recognition. Aon Hewitt Report, 2011

The line managers play a very important role in engaging employees in an organization.
Bratton and Gold (2007) state, ―At the heart of the learning climate or learning environment

58
lies the line-manager-employee relationship. A line manager can create a positive approach to
lifelong learning‖. The interactions between the line managers and his team members play a
major role in employee engagement. His behavior, feeling and attitude play a key role in
generating positive interactions for the employee. The role of coaching and mentoring is
extremely important for any manager. The ability of a manager to help the employee
understand his potential and come up with a developmental plan is a big enabler for an
employee. It makes a tremendous impact on the performance management of an employee.

As contrast to coaching, mentoring is more of a long term approach. Mentoring is the help
given by one person to another person to find new meaning in work and life (Clutterbuck and
Megginson, 1995 in Bratton and Gold, 2007). There are several other factors which
contribute to employee engagement. People who do not feel properly rewarded reported
being less engaged and productive at work (Mielach, 2012). To engage employees in a
manner that is meaningful and motivating requires an understanding of innate human drives
and what people value and view as important (Mielach, 2012). The research conducted by
Gallup Business Journal (2012) explores the role that workplace friendship play in promoting
innovation. About three fourths of engaged employees strongly agreed that they felt more
comfortable sharing new ideas with colleagues who they treat as their friends.

Recognition of employees also play a key role in engaging employees meaningfully. In a

research conducted by socialworkplace.com (2012), it has been found that 69 percent of
employees would work harder if they are recognized for their performance. 49 percent of
employees would leave their jobs for a company that recognizes performance. 89 percent of
the engaged employees believe that their managers would advocate them for them in front of
their customers and upper management (social workplace, 2013).

The compensation factors also matter. The share options offered to employees or other
bonuses are also ways to demonstrate recognition of employees. Child care facilities, flexible
work hours are all elements that demonstrate a caring attitude of the employer and ways to
engage with employees.

71 percent of Indian workers are ‗not engaged‘ or ‗actively dis- engaged‘ in their work. This
means they are emotionally disconnected from their workplaces and are less likely to be

59
productive (Gallup, 2011) Gallup‘s employee engagement index is based on worker
responses to 12 actionable workplace elements with proven linkages to performance
outcomes, including productivity among others.

Gallup‘s engagement ratio is a macro-level indicator of an organization‘s health that allows

executives to track the proportion of engaged to actively disengaged employees.

―Actively disengaged employees erode an organization‘s bottom line while breaking the
spirits of colleagues in the process. Within the U.S. workforce, Gallup estimates this cost to
be more than $300 billion in lost productivity alone. In stark contrast, world-class
organizations with an engagement ratio near 8:1 have built a sustainable model using our
approach. As organizations move toward this benchmark, they greatly reduce the negative
impact of actively disengaged employees while unleashing the organization‘s potential for
rapid growth.‖ (Gallup, 2012). The determinants of employee engagement connate a healthy
working atmosphere that reflects on the social impact created by the organization (Anita,
2013). Organization‘s make efforts to build effective, practical and holistic talent strategies
that not only able to attract talent but also address employee engagement (J. Bhatnagar, 2008)

Organizations productivity is measured not in terms of employee satisfaction but by

employee engagement. Employees are said to be engaged when they show a positive attitude
toward the organization and express a commitment to remain with the organization.
Organizations that believe in increasing employee engagement levels focus on: culture,
continuous reinforcement of people-focused policies, meaningful metrics, and organizational
performance. Employee engagement is the thus the level of commitment and involvement an
employee has towards their organization and its values. An engaged employee is aware of
business context, and works with colleagues to improve performance within the job for the
benefit of the organization. The organization must work to develop and nurture engagement,
which requires a two-way relationship between employer and employee. Thus employee
engagement is a barometer that determines the association of a person with the organization.
HR practitioners believe that the engagement challenge has a lot to do with how employee
feels about the about work experience and how he or she is treated in the organization. It has
a lot to do with emotions which are fundamentally related to drive bottom line success in a
company. There will always be people who never give their best efforts no matter how hard

60
HR and line managers try to engage them. 'But for the most part employees want to commit
to companies because doing so satisfies a powerful and a basic need in connect with and
contribute to something significant.

DDI (2007) defines engagement as ‗the extent to which people enjoy and believe in
what they do and feel valued for doing it.‘ Enjoyment is when people tend to receive more
pleasure and satisfaction from what they do if they are in jobs or roles that match both their
interests and their skills. Some individuals thrive in a team environment versus one in which
they work more independently. Some people like jobs that require travel, while some prefer
not to travel at all. Others like a high-risk/high-reward bonus plan, where others prefer a more
stable, predictable salary. Belief is when people feel they are making meaningful
contributions to their jobs, their organizations, and society as a whole; they tend to be more
engaged. The connection between what people does every day and the goals and mission of
the organization is crucial to engagement. Value is when People want to be recognized and
rewarded for their contributions. Rewards and recognition come in many forms, including
competitive compensation packages, a healthy work/life balance, and V.I.P. Sales trips. But
perhaps more important is the heightened sense of worth that employees feel when their
leaders take just a few minutes to let them know that they are doing a great job and that their
contributions are valued and appreciated.

Figure 7 DDI’s Engagement Value Proposition

Engagement
Drivers

Work Environment

Engaged
Employees

Organizational Success

Source: Developmental Dimensions International (2008)

61
Figure 7 shows DDI‘s (2008) engagement value proposition, which includes four sequential
components. Top of the model, engagement drivers are the levers that organizations can use
to build a more engaging work environment. Together, these three drivers lead to the
formation of an engaging work environment. Once created, the engaging work environment
has a positive impact on employee behaviors and attitudes. In particular, an engaging
environment builds loyalty in employees by meeting their personal and practical needs, thus
encouraging them to stay with the organization. The second component of our model, an
engaging work environment, consists of five key elements; aligned efforts and strategy,
empowerment, team work/collaboration, growth and development, and support and
recognition. The right work environment should, of course, lead to a heightened sense of
employee motivation, which, in turn, leads to enhanced effort. The same things that drive
motivation and enhanced effort also increase employee loyalty to the organization. The power
of employee engagement is that it is closely connected to business results. Employee
engagement plays a strong role in business success. In particular, engagement can find
support in the Service Profit Chain and the Balanced Scorecard. Both of these conceptual
models demonstrate the power and impact of people practices and human capital on company
performance. For employee engagement, DDI classify the primary business outcomes into
four categories; satisfied loyal customers, increased retention, higher profits and profitability,
and revenue growth.

The release of Gallup‘s twelve question survey increased the value of employee perception
worldwide. He claims that a twelve question survey could predict key business outcomes
such as employee turnover, customer satisfaction, and company profitability. It moved
suggest on to that the holy grail of human resources had been found. There was quantitative
proof that employees' attitudes had a measurable financial impact. The Gallup research raised
awareness about engagement‘s potential. Gallup's research showed that organizations with
top quartile engagement grew earnings faster that organizations with below average
engagement. It also found that earnings per share for top quartile organizations were 18 per
cent higher during the study period than for competitors. Marc Effron and Miriam Ort (2013)
suggest that most talent management practitioners believe that increasing engagement
achieves the business objective of improving key financial and operational results. Part of the
engagement debate might be fueled by the different nomenclatures that practitioners and

62
academics use. The most frequently cited definition of engagement in the academic literature
is a ‗persistent and positive affective motivational state of fulfillment in employees,
characterized by vigor, dedication and absorption.‘ Other issues arise from the different
processes that academics and practitioners utilize to justify their research claims. Their
viewpoint is that increasing engagement benefits the business in a multitude of ways. First,
there is a causal link between engagement and business results. Second, there is no better way
to comprehensively listen to employees and convey that you want to listen than to regularly
solicit their input. Third, the data received will provide mangers with specific, valuable
information about how to better manage their business. These points convince us that the en-
gagement process is one of the most powerful tools you have to build a highly effective
organization.

2.4.1. Attributes of Employee Engagement

There are the ten most important attributes which lead to better employee engagement named
10 C‘s as follows;

Table 5 Attributes of Employee Engagement

Attributes Details
Communicate Managers should clearly indicate their expectations from and about the
employee. They should also provide feedback to the employees regarding
their work and performance.
Career Management should provide meaningful work to the employees along with
career growth opportunities.
Confidence Good managers should induce and boost confidence in an employee.
Control Managers should let the employees utilize the control which they have on
their job and career.
Clarity Managers should have a clear vision of what job is to be done and how it is
to be done. Also the managers should effectively communicate these
visions and plans.
Collaborate Good coordination and relationships should be maintained within a team.
Managers should motivate their employees to work in and as a team. He

63
 should also take steps to cultivate trust among the team members.
Compliment Give recognition to the employee for the job well done.
Connect Managers should make their employees feel valuable and important. Show
that you care.
Contribute Give opportunities to employees to contribute in the management decision
making process. Ask for suggestions, new ideas, and ways of improvement
Credibility Managers should set examples for the employee by imbibing and teach
others to practice ethical standards and practices. He should maintain
company's reputation

Source: Hallberg, U. E., & Schaufeli, W. B. (2006)

2.4.2. Categories of Employee Engagement

According to the Gallup the Consulting organization there are there are different types of
people; engaged - Engaged employees are builders. They want to know the desired
expectations for their role so they can meet and exceed them. They're naturally curious about
their company and their place in it. They perform at consistently high levels. They want to
use their talents and strengths at work every day. They work with passion and they drive
innovation and move their organization forward. Not Engaged - Not-engaged employees tend
to concentrate on tasks rather than the goals and outcomes they are expected to accomplish.
They want to be told what to do just so they can do it and say they have finished. They focus
on accomplishing tasks vs. achieving an outcome. Employees who are not-engaged tend to
feel their contributions are being overlooked, and their potential is not being tapped. They
often feel this way because they don't have productive relationships with their managers or
with their coworkers. Actively disengaged are the 'cave dwellers.' They're 'Consistently
against Virtually Everything.' They're not just unhappy at work; they're busy acting out their
unhappiness .They sow seeds of negativity at every opportunity. Every day, actively
disengaged workers undermine what their engaged coworkers accomplish. As workers
increasingly rely on each other to generate products and services, the problems and tensions
that are fostered by actively disengaged workers can cause great damage to an organization‘s
functioning.(Bedarkar, M., & Pandita, D. 2014).

64
In recent years, research has shown that employers want employees that will do their best at
work, even ‗go the extra mile‘, and employees want good work, jobs that are worthwhile and
'turn them on'. With this shift, there has been an increasing focus on staff satisfaction as a
component of staff engagement. Engagement is a combination of commitment to the
organization and its values, plus a willingness to help out colleagues (organizational
citizenship). It goes beyond job satisfaction and is not simply motivation. Engagement is
something the employee has to offer: it cannot be ‗required‘ as part of the employment
contract. There are many individual and organizational factors that determine whether
employees become engaged, and to what extent they become engaged. (Simons, J. C., &
Buitendach, J. H. 2013).Although CIPD (2008) research found that there is no definitive list
of engagement drivers, the main drivers of employee engagement are: Having opportunities
to feed your views upwards, Feeling well-informed about what is happening in the
organization, Believing that your manager is committed to your organization, Have a strong
desire to be a member of the organization, Give that extra effort to contribute to the
organization's success.

Smart organizations work to develop and nurture engagement as the benefits speak for
themselves. It is important to note, the employee engagement process does require a two way
relationship between employer and employee. Employees who are engaged with the
organization tend to display particular recognizable primary behaviours. They will speak
positively about the organization to co-workers, potential employees and customers. .
(Pandita, D. & Bedarkar, M., 2015).

Robinson (2004) and Penna (2007) both advocate a model of engagement which incorporates
job satisfaction, feeling valued at work, communication and training & development.
Robinson argues that satisfaction with the job of work alone, will not produce a satisfied and
engaged workforce, but it is a contributory with many other factors. This phenomenon can be
seen in some positions where the actual job itself is intrinsically satisfying but the place of
work is not, for example academics or specialized maintenance trades operating in large
organizations. In these situations, the employee feels the organization does not value the job
they do, but they, personally, take great pride in their work, regardless of the company culture
and working environment.

65
Penna‘s model (2007) adopts a similar position. This model indicates that staff is seeking to
find ‗meaning‘ at work. Penna defines ‗meaning‘ as fulfillment from the job. Fulfillment
comes from the employee being valued and appreciated, having a sense of belonging to the
organization, and feeling as though they are making a contribution, and is congruent with the
underlying theoretical framework.

Figure 8 Penna’s Hierarchy of Engagement (2007)

Meaning

Leadership,
Trust, Respect
Promotional Opportunities

Learning/ Development

Pay, Working Hours and conditions

Source: Penna (2007)

Penna‘s model is also remarkably similar to both Maslow‘s hierarchy of needs and
Herzberg‘s theory, with ‗hygiene‘ factors at the base of the triangle and ‗satisfiers‘ towards
the top. As an organization successfully meets each of these engagement factors, Peena
states that the organization becomes more attractive to new potential employees and becomes
more engaging to its existing staff.

Attracting and keeping good staff is critical to business success. These approaches have
highlighted the importance of understanding employee satisfaction and therefore raise issues
about how to measure, monitor and improve this within an organization

66
 2.4.3. Factors Affecting Engagement

There are variety of factors of work environment, the job itself, the type of leadership, and
individual personalities influence engagement.

The Job Itself: - The way employees' work is organized will meaningfully drive their level of
internal motivation, which will contribute to engagement. Richard Hack-man and Greg
Oldham tells us that the job itself may be a key factor in achieving higher engagement. This
means that individual engagement is likely to be higher if employees have jobs that give
them; entire areas of work to complete, work that they believe is meaningful, the chance to
use different skills, feedback about their effectiveness, autonomy in how they Organize their
work etc.

Individual Personalities: - Some personality traits provide a natural level of engagement, so it

is easier to get certain people over the threshold into an engaged state than others. Re-
searchers have found that various factors drive the natural engagement level, including how
frequently people are in a positive mood, how dedicated they are to getting things done, how
willing they are to shape a work environment, and how much they enjoy work for the sake of
work. Employees with higher level of each of these traits are more likely to be engaged in
almost any work environment, independent of any actions to influence their engagement.

The Work Environment:- Frederick Herzberg's two factor theory, which states that separate
factors drive satisfaction (motivation factor) and dissatisfaction (hygiene factor) at work.
Herzberg theorized that employees' satisfaction depends on the workplace delivering the
ability to achieve results, be recognized, do interesting work, and have responsibility and
opportunities for advancement. He proposed that satisfaction on these dimensions would
increase one's motivation to perform.

Leaders can influence employee engagement in many ways. When employees feel that their
leaders care about them, they are more likely to be satisfied. Leaders with a transformational
style increase the confidence of their followers, which increases their motivation. Even more
powerful are charismatic leader, those who inspire followers by appealing to their emotions
and values. They increase engagement by transforming the nature of work by making it
appear more gallant, morally correct and meaningful.
67
Engagement is highly correlated with business outcomes like customer satisfaction and
profitability. Which factor drives is the subject of intense interest, something is beginning to
debate. Researchers found that correlation between employee engagement and business
outcomes, even conservatively expressed, is meaningful from a practical perspective.
Academia is actively debating the precise definition and impact of engagement. While the
item is important to get right, we find striking similarities in the various definitions offered
and general consensus that organizations benefit when employees reach this state. Effron
described that the building blocks of engagement well enough to help us measure and
increase engagement.

Although there is little empirical research on the factors that predict employee engagement, it
is possible to identify a number of potential antecedents from Kahn's (1990) and Maslach et
al.'s (2001) model. While the antecedents might differ for job and organization engagement.
According to Kahn (1990, 1992), psychological meaningfulness can be achieved from task
characteristics that provide challenging work, variety, allow the use of different skills,
personal discretion, and the opportunity to make important contributions. This is based on
Hackman and Oldham's (1980) job characteristics model and in particular, the five core job
characteristics (i.e. skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback).
Jobs that are high on the core job characteristics provide individuals with the room and
incentive to bring more of themselves into their work or to be more engaged. From a SET
perspective, one can argue that employees who are provided with enriched and challenging
jobs will feel obliged to respond with higher levels of engagement.

68
Figure 9 A Model of the Antecedents and Consequences of Employee Engagement

Source: Alan Saks (2006)

In this model, antecedents of employee engagement are given at very first stage. Alter
experiencing these antecedents (job characteristics, perceived organization support, rewards
and recognition, procedural justice, and distributive justice) employees are got engaged with
their job and organization. And this model shows that antecedents which are tending to
employee engagement both are resulting in consequences of engagement i.e. job satisfaction,
organizational commitment, intention to quitn organizational citizenship behavior etc.

 Organizations that believe in increasing employee engagement levels focus on:

Culture, Continuous Reinforcement of People-Focused Policies, meaningful metrics,
organizational performance. Employee engagement is the thus the level of
commitment and involvement an employee has towards their organization and its
values. An engaged employee is aware of business context, and works with colleagues
to improve performance within the job for the benefit of the organization.
 There are the 10 most important attributes which lead to better employee engagement
named 10 Cs as follows; communicate, career, confidence, control, clarity,
collaborate, compliment, connect, contribute, and credibility. There are varieties of
factors of work environment, the job itself, the type of leadership and individual
personalities- influence engagement.

69
  DDI has initiated process of engagement survey in organization which consists of few
phases of the engagement initiative and key elements in it: activities prior to launch of
employee engagement survey, survey development and execution, review of result
and action planning, and execute and take action.

The determinants of employee engagement connate a healthy working atmosphere

that reflects on the social impact created by the organization (Anitha, 2013).
Organization`s make an effort to build effective, practical and holistic talent strategies
that not only is able to attract talent but also address employee engagement (J
Bhatnagar 2008).

2.5. Talent Management and Employee Engagement

Hence research should answer one of the key questions which growing firms will have to
address is how to attract, manage and engage their employees? Which strategies for employee
engagement would work better? What are the best practices which can be emulated by the
other firms? What are the models or frameworks which could be deployed for managing
talent and employee engagement? Some key literature work on Talent Management and
Employee Engagement is illustrated below

Authors & Future Scope of

Year Objectives Findings Research
Craig D.(2016) The purpose of this The paper goes on to In a South African
paper was to explore share the post- context, this is
how learning intervention impact compounded by
programs focused on results of a case study educational and
personal and career organization, on culture, skills crisis
empowerment can engagement, learning resulting in many
build these skills, and performance. work entrants not
increase engagement, being sufficiently
enhance performance prepared for the
and impact culture new world of work
positively for ensuring
employee
engagement..

70
Saravanan P., The study addresses The researchers found Framework Needed
Vasumathi A., the issues and that years of experience for managing
Subashini R. challenges faced by is an important employees based on
(2016) HR professionals on independent variable in demographics w.r.t
their day-to-day predicting the level of employee
activities in the IT stress faced by HR engagement can be
industry. The authors professionals than the researched in
conducted a study for other independent future.
the sample size of 75 variables.
HR professionals
from an Indian IT
firm.
Evangeline E.T., The main objective of By focusing on Two variables were
Gopal Ragavan this article is to leveraging the right analysed i.e. culture
V.P.(2016) conceptualize the Organization culture, and motivation on
instigating force of Employing Intrinsic as employee
Organization Culture well as Extrinsic engagement. Future
and Employee rewards, companies can can be looked at
Motivation on improve engagement HR interventions
Employee and financial impacting
Engagement which performance thereby Employee
ultimately turns out to leading to retention. Engagement.
be a key competitive
advantage to the firm
beating the
competition in
attracting top talent
Howaldt J., Oeij Workplace innovation Employee Engagement Culture of co-
P.R.A., Dhondt is complementary to has been studied as operation,
S., Fruytier technological and workplace innovation. leadership, and
B.(2016) business model Variables like culture, implementation of
innovation, and a leadership and change changes were
necessary ingredient can impact employee studied under
for successful engagement. workplace
renewal, in that it innovation and
addresses a type of social innovation.
management that
seeks collaboration
with employees
through dialogue and
employee engagement

71
McFarland W., The purpose of this Talent development The link between
Jestaz D, (2016) paper was to suggest a interventions may talent development
relationship between improve workforce and employee
talent development engagement in engagement was
and organizational organizational change not being explored.
change, and to invite and invites more
more research on this thinking and research.
topic

Zeynep Merve This study aimed to There were few studies Organizational
Ünal, Tülay investigate the that include statistical Vigour and
Turgut (2015) relationship between findings on Employee Organizational
person-organization Engagement. The study Dedication were the
value fit and aimed to contribute to two constructs
employee engagement literature in studied with
engagement, as well this regard. person-
as to develop a new organization fit.
scale for measuring
organizational
engagement.

Swatee Sarangi The study aimed to A contribution of this Future studies may
& Aakanksha examine the role of study has been to throw capture sectoral
Vats (2015) emotional intelligence light on the extent of differences. The
as an individual impact of emotional same research
antecedent of intelligence on question can be
employee employee engagement. tested through
engagement. This is multiple sources
hypothesized drawing like employees and
from literature that their supervisors.
emotional intelligence
plays an important
role in shaping
positive workplace
feelings, attitudes and
behaviour.

72
Fatma Jaupi, The focus of this The analysis shows that Employee
Shyqyri Llaci research is to study the effective engagement
(2015) the relationship of communication leads to research studies are
employee engagement EE. Gender has no role interesting to be
with organizational to play in EE. Males and analysed under the
communication. Females are engaged view of other
Moreover, the equally. factors that might
research investigates influence, as for the
the relationship of the role of the
demographic leadership, different
determinants with styles which is
employee engagement more correlated and
in Albanian bank linked.
sector.
Payambarpour The research looked Strategic HR
S.A., Hooi L.W. at the impact of talent functions and
(2015) management on Organizational
organizational Performance leads
performance in to Employee
multinational Engagement
corporations through
applying management
development and Emphasises the
strategic HR inputs, importance of
and to evaluate the engagement as a
mediating role of mediator of the
employee engagement relationship between
in the strategic HR strategic HR and
inputs and organizational
organizational performance in the
performance talent management
relationship. context.
Sharma R.R., The study aimed at The study bridged the Talent Management
Sharma N.P. assessing the role of knowledge gap by and work
(2015) perceived gender operationalizing the engagement using
equity and locus of construct of perceived gender equality as a
control in employee gender equity and variable.
well-being at the studying its role in the
workplace and work engagement and
ascertaining if work employee well-being.
engagement mediates
between perceived
gender equity, locus
of control, and
employee well-being
(measured through
optimism, general
satisfaction with life
73
 and work, and
executive burnout).

Akram Al Ariss, The article Technology will

Wayne F. contributed to filling More diverse, remote, serve as an enabler
Cascio b,1, Jaap the knowledge gap by and virtual workforces for effective TM;
Paauwe (2015) offering a research with different attitudes With the increased
agenda at multiple toward work; and diversity of people
levels and in multiple New methods of and employment
contexts. working and new relationships, it will
relationships between be very important
users and suppliers of to create unity
talent. within diversity by
emphasizing shared
organizational
values.
Kumar H., The objective was to The secret ingredient in Gamification as
Raghavendran develop a game employee engagement is tool to promote
S. (2015) "Maverick" to initiate gaining the ―emotional employee
deeper goals includes: share of wallet‖ of engagement
shifting culture and employees to drive
behaviour, talent meaningful, enduring
discovery, brand organizational change.
building and
meaningful
engagement. The
impact of the program
on a broader
organizational culture
parameters were
assessed through a
survey. The survey
results validate the
impact of the
program.

74
Tiwari B., The purpose of this Engaged employees act engaging and
Lenka U. (2015) paper was to propose as Brand Ambassadors. branding employees
a conceptual It provided an outlook for employee
framework to build for building and engagement
talent hub through branding organizations
engaging and as a talent hub through
branding employees valuing and engaging
in the organizations. employees to ensure a
Firms are required to prolonged succession
address the needs and for business success.
expectations of their
employees through
the involvement of
top management, and
provide challenging
tasks and
opportunities to
enhance employees‘
professional, social,
and personal
competencies. Such
employees feel
motivated and become
highly engaged
toward their job and
organizational goals.
Morley M.J., It looks at various It then introduced the Global mobility,
Scullion H., dimensions of talent five key ideas of talent talent identification,
Collings D.G., and intellectual capital management that development and
Schuler R.S. comprise the issue and deployment, along
(2015) highlights the with the national
contributions that they and organizational
make to furthering systems and
aspects of the debate on structures necessary
talent and intellectual for its effective
capital from a variety of engagement,
perspective management and
retention have
become a critical
focus for academics
and practitioners.

75
Enright S.M., It highlighted the Pulsing surveys Future lies in the
Troyani L., importance of provided pharmacy incumbent on
Jorgenson J.A. employee engagement leaders with a better leaders to
(2015) to the ultimate success way to address their proactively measure
of a business, and to specific employee engagement and to
introduce the concept engagement needs. seek out solutions
of pulsing surveys as to identified
a more effective problems that will
measurement of drive higher levels
employee engagement of productivity and
than traditional survey satisfaction among
methodology. their employees by
emphasing on
Talent Management
Pittenger L.M. This study analysed The findings indicated Perceived
(2015) the relationship that the relationship environment was a
between emotional between achievement factor which was
and social orientation and the negated. Can be
competencies and the perceived interpersonal explored further.
quality of the IT environment was
professional's positive and the
perceptions of the relationship between
interpersonal influencing others and
environment in an the perceived
organization as they interpersonal
relate to employee environment was
engagement. negative.
Tejaswi The present study To maintain engaged Further research
Bhuvanaiah and aimed at describing workforce, needs to focus on
R. P. Raya Engagement concept, organizations need to factors that are
(2014) its distinctiveness implement strategies integrated
from relative concepts such as building a organization such
and its diminishing positive and supportive as HRM practices
nature which are very healthy work instead of focusing
essential but environment, facilitating on personal need
associated with employees with satisfaction. As
certain ambiguity. In appropriate resources, individual need
addition to this, the continuous monitoring may differ with
current paper to keep out of ambiguity each other in an
accumulated findings in workplace which may organization and
of various studies to bring happier come implementation of
explain the positive productive workforce such practices may
behaviours associated which in turn leads to not enhance
with an engaged sustainable engagement levels
employee thereby organizational success. of entire workforce.
suggesting
implications to
enhance and maintain
76
 Engagement levels of
workforce.
Dr. Pratibha To understand the the data and analysis Talent Management
Garg (2014) impact of employee was conducted on two practices can be
engagement on organizations TCS and studied further as a
employee satisfaction Infosys and their scope to measure
satisfaction was carried employee
out engagement.
Nurul Ezaili
This study aimed to The findings of Pearson Studied variables
Alias , Norzanahdetermine the correlation analysis like managerial
Mat Nor,relationships between indicate talent support, reward and
Roshidi Hassan talent management management practices recognition for
(2014) practices (managerial (managerial support, employee
support, employee employee career engagement. Other
career development, development, and sectorial studies
and rewards and rewards and and other variables
recognitions), recognitions) have can be studied for
employee positive correlation with future scope of
engagement, and employee engagement. studies.
employee retention It was also found that
within IT employee engagement
organizations in has positive correlation
Selangor. with employee retention.
Barkhuizen N.et This research The results showed no This research
al, 2014 investigated the significant relationship highlighted the
relationship between between Talent importance of the
Talent Management, Management and effective
Work Engagement Service Quality application of
and Service Quality Orientation Talent Management
Orientation of support practices for
staff in a South support staff in
African Higher higher education
Education Institution. institutions and the
outcomes thereof
on positive work
related behaviours
such as work
engagement and
service quality.

77
Negin The study provided An implication of their Future research
Kordbacheh et statistical evidence in study was that should aim at
al, (2014) support of the meaningful work is a examining the
conceptual framework basic human need that relationship
of Chalofsky and leads to engagement in between employee
Krishna (2009) work by addressing the engagement and
regarding the question of ―why are we intrinsic motivation
relationships between here?‖ They further within
meaningfulness, suggest that meaning organizations.
intrinsic motivation, making is an intrinsic Assessing direct
and employee process emerging from measures of
engagement. This the collective being of intrinsic motivation
research also provides organizational members. and engagement is
a deeper likely to produce
understanding of the more valuable
relationship between results.
employee engagement
and age, specifically
focusing on the
differences between
older and younger
workers.
Ali Abbaas et al The purpose of this Frontline employees Future studies can
(2014) paper was to who have high job also be tailored to
investigate the engagement and investigate the
relationship between organizational effects of employee
the two measurements engagement will have engagement and
of employee high level of affective organizational
engagement (job commitment and commitment, using
engagement and normative commitment. multiple
organizational high employees‘ job respondents in a
engagement) and engagement can given organization.
organizational meaningfully affect Future research
commitment employees‘ continuance could also re-
measured by three key commitment. examine the
measurements which conceptual model
are: affective used in this study
(emotional) with a larger
commitment; sample size so that
continuance the outcomes can
(maintenance) be generalized to a
commitment; and larger population
normative
commitment, that is in
the context of
Jordanian banking
sector.

78
Victor Oladapo This study sought to The study further Further research is
(2014) understand the revealed that job suggested to inspect
challenges and security, compensation, what, if any
successes of talent and opportunity for programs or
management advancement were not practices help
programs and the found to have predictive improve the present
reasons why some value for employee factors that HR
companies choose not retention rates. personnel perceive
to have a program. to be fundamental
This study also tested to employee
the predictive power retention. Further
of job security, research is also
compensation and recommended to
opportunity on examine the
retention rates. usefulness of talent
management
programs on other
important aspects
within the programs
themselves.
Sarika Sushil The objective of this · Sound and effective Other factors of
(2014) paper was · The system of employee welfare
significance of communication should can be explored for
employee engagement be there. future research for
and · Maintaining measuring
· How job enrichment harmonious relations employee
helps in improving between the employer engagement.
employee engagement and employees.
· Sound grievance
redressal system.
· Proper arrangement for
health and safety
provisions
· Flexible working
schedule
· Maintaining congenial
and quality of work life.
Sowath Rana et The purpose of this It is proposed that The significance of
al, (2014) paper was to propose employee engagement is this research is that
a theoretical model related to three major it offers a logical
that links the major organizational ground on which
antecedents, outcomes: job empirical indicators
outcomes, and performance, turnover and hypotheses
moderators of intention (inverse could be identified
employee relationship), and and tested so as to
engagement. organizational verify the theory.
citizenship behavior.

79
Ala`a Nimer This paper focused on The findings of this Future research can
(2013) the antecedents that study conclude that be assessed on
influence employee employee engagement different sectors as
engagement in food for the food and this study only
and beverage service beverage department in focussed on F & B
departments, and the hotel industry is sector in Jordon.
literature reviewed highly significant to the
indicates that there is hotel industry.
a significant
relationship between
employee
communication,
employee
development, rewards
and recognition, and
extended employee
care.
Ahmad Zairy The study predicted The theoretical gap and This study suggests
Mohd Soieb et leadership styles and later the research that employee
al (2013) OCB on Employee framework which based engagement is a
Engagement with on Social Exchange consequential
Conflict Management Theory (SET) and Path- construct that is
as a mediating Goal Theory (PGT) was clearly
variable. explained by the commendable of
relationship between future research.
perceived leadership One area in need of
styles and organizational investigation is the
citizenship behaviour on predictors of
employee engagement. engagement in
different
generations.
Sebastiaan The purpose of this Work-role fit and job Future research
Rothmann study was to enrichment showed the should focus on
Coen Welsh investigate the strongest relationships interventions such
(2013) antecedents of with employee as using selection
employee engagement engagement, while tools to screen
in the context of a rewards, co-worker individuals with a
developing country. relations, resources, low job-role fit or
supervisor relations and to foster
organizational support communication
showed moderate between
relationships with supervisors and
employee engagement. subordinates. It is
important in future
research studies to
make use of large
samples, and to
ensure that the
80
 samples are
demographically
representative
Rajendran The purpose of this The finding of this It will be beneficial
Muthuveloo et study was to find the research approves that for the future
al, 2013 antecedents that employee engagement is research to include
influence employee very important to the other variables to
engagement, as the organization, the results measure employee
organizational shows that the engagement and
performance antecedents of employee conduct the
deteriorated due to engagement is influence research in
high turnover and employee engagement undeveloped
related issues such as and has significant country. In
high absenteeism, low impact on the level of addition, since
loyalty and engagement among the employee
productivity. This employees. development is the
exploratory research most significant
was conducted among contributor towards
employee working in employee
manufacturing sector engagement the
to test the relationship future research can
between the study in depth on
antecedents the influence of
comprising of employee
employee development on
communication, employee
employee engagement.
development, reward
and recognition and
extended employee
care.
Vanka Sita, Broadly the study It explored how This study is in one
Anitha Pinapati examined competency competencies can aid cultural context
(2013) management as a tool and assist talent wherein the focus
for talent management management in an IT was exclusively on
in Indian IT setting. Theoretically, it the IT sector in
organizations. contributed to linking India. Cross-
these two concepts to cultural studies and
highlight the outcomes cross-
achieved in the process. organizational
studies could be
explored in future
researches in the
area of competency
management and
talent management.

81
Anitha J. (2013) The purpose of this The variables that had The future scope of
paper was to identify major impact were the study is quite
the key determinants working environment wide from different
of employee and team and co-worker perspectives. This
engagement and their relationship. Employee study can be
predictability of the engagement had conducted at
concept. It also significant impact on various levels of the
studies the impact of employee performance organization, say,
employee engagement large scale and
on employee MNCs to
performance. strengthen the
model.
Muhammad The research was The key retention The impact of talent
Imran Hanif and conducted to highlight factors are best salary management
Shao Yunfei the role of talent packages, capacity strategies has
(2013) management with HR building with required remarkable effects
generic strategies to and desired skills, on human resource
retain talent, reduce training and perceived outcomes
employees‘ turnover development, managers especially on
and to achieve realizing how to output, efficiency
perceived HR motivate their sub- and productivity of
outcomes of a firm by ordinates, satisfaction of organi-zation and
implementing employees with employees.
succession planning, organization decisions,
employer‘s branding, retirement benefits, how
motivation and to appraise the force,
development policies trust and integrity,
effectively and personal relationship
efficiently. with one‘s manager,
employee development,
fairly compensation and
benefits and nature of
the job
Vinnie Jauhari, This case study gave It provided a framework Framework for
Rajesh Sehgal, insights into the of understanding on how Talent Management
Pooja nature of employee employee satisfaction practices impacting
Sehgal(2013) engagement practices relates with engagement employee
a firm can engage and the relationship with engagement can be
with. It also gives customer satisfaction studied in future
insights into talent and organizational
management practices growth. It also brings in
in the context of multiple perspectives
emerging economies from various studies on
with specific employee engagement
reference to Infotech- practices.
a leading IT firm in
India with global
operations.
82
Marian The purpose of this The two crucial actors in The study was a
Thunnissen paper was to identify TM – the organization first step in opening
(2013) and explain what and the talented the ―black box‖ in
happens in practice in employee – have a TM, but several
TM, in order to different perception of questions on the
contribute to the the intended and actual TM process still
building of a broader value of TM. remain unanswered.
and more balanced The researcher
theoretical framework therefore
for TM in which the encourages more
impact of the research on the
organizational context multiple levels in
and its interrelated the TM process,
actors are taken into and the factors that
account. cause variability.
James Sunday The purpose of the The analyses revealed The study therefore
(2012) study was to examine that talent management recommends that
the effect of talent has positive impact on talent management
management on the organizational scheme should be
organizational overall performance. It used for all
performance. also revealed that talent categories of staff
management scheme has within the firm that
impact on the have special talent
performance of the and that firms
multinational and the should separate
national firm but the between their talent
small and medium scale management
firms have not been scheme and the
gaining from this new total human
technique within the recourses
Nigerian business management style
environment. of the firm.
Mohd. Hassan This empirical Findings of the study Other aspects of
Jafri (2012) research aimed to support the assertion HRM practices
investigate the that HRM should focus on the
influence some HRM practices contributes in future engagement
practices (training and creating employee measures
development, engagement in
performance organizations. This
evaluation, work- life means that the better
balance and reward & HRM practices of
benefits) on employee organizations, more will
engagement. be the engagement level
of employees.

83
Susan Abraham A descriptive study Correlation results Job satisfaction is
(2012) was done to examine showed that Job an antecedent to
the effect of job satisfaction and employee
satisfaction on Employee engagement engagement.
employee engagement are related.
among 30 employees
of a private insurance
company at Cochin.
Geetha Jose, On the basis of This study strongly Furthermore,
Sebastian existing literature, this proposed that the degree investment in
Rupert conceptual paper of employees‘ employee
Mampilly attempted to define an satisfaction with human development is
(2012) ‗engaged employee‘ resource practices is an believed to
as the one who is antecedent of employee facilitate greater
optimistic, highly engagement. This obligation by
focused on his work, relationship is proposed employees towards
enthusiastic and based on social the organization
willing to go an extra exchange theory and the and therefore
mile to contribute to norm of reciprocity. increase
sustainable employees‘
organizational success motivation to work
on a long term basis. hard to support
The article proposes a organizational
relationship between effectiveness
employees‘
satisfaction with
human resource
practices and their
level of engagement
in the organization.
This relationship is
explained based on
social exchange
theory.
Staffan Nilsson, The purpose of this Employability was Emphasis need to
Per-Erik conceptual paper was central to employee led HRD systems to
Ellstro`m (2011) to illuminate the performance and focus on on-the-job
problems that are organizational success. training and
associated with In this paper, the authors development
defining and suggest a model in programs and
identifying talent and which talent includes promoting
to discuss the individual, institutional, workplace learning
development of talent and organizational- and individual
as a contributor to social dimensions. graduate
employability. development (e.g.
career planning,
coaching,
mentoring, and job-
84
 related learning).

Edward Mone et This paper has The five performance PMS was the only
al, (2011) conceptualized the management activities factor considered
relationship between are listed as follows; for this research.
five major both the performance Other aspects of
performance management activities human resources
management activities and the associated can be researched
of interest to the behaviors are • Setting for further studies.
authors and the performance and
manager behaviors development goals
(direct or indirect • Providing ongoing
predictors in this feedback and
study) associated with recognition
both performance • Managing employee
management and development
employee • Conducting mid-year
engagement. and year-end appraisals
• Building a climate of
trust and empowerment
Richa 1. To study the HRD The findings of the Further studies can
Chaudhary et al climate existing in study provided support be carried out
(2011) Indian Organizations. for the assumed analysing the
2. To study the hypothesis that HRD impact of other
occupational self- climate and variables on
efficacy of Indian occupational self- employee
managers. efficacy significantly engagement which
3.To study the predict employee remained
engagement level of engagement. unmeasured. Also
middle and senior the nature of
level managers in industries can be
Indian Organizations. varied and sample
4. To study the impact size be increased to
of HRD Climate and improve the
Occupational self- generalization of
efficacy on Employee the results.
engagement in Indian
organizations

85
Opas This paper The findings revealed An evaluation of
Piansoongnern investigated talent that robust talent talent development
et al (2011) management management planning, programs should be
strategies and well supports of top organized for
employee engagement management, fair salary, assessing transfer
implemented in three good safety and health of talent
leading cement insurance, training development
companies in opportunity, career programs for
Thailand ranged from advancement, ensuring employee
the largest to smallest organizational unity, a engagement. An
ones. balance of work and organization should
daily life, and other realize how its
environmental factors talents use and
were crucial factors that apply what they
keep talent rooted to have learned from
organizations. the programs.
Anita Weyland The article dealt with The paper explained Engaging and
(2011) defining who how understanding what developing
Generation Y are – motivates Generation Y Generation Y
how they behave and and accommodating this employees may
what motivates them. does not require huge seem like an
Based on these amounts of extra effort, onerous task.
insights, it then just a different way of Additionally
explores what this thinking and will companies that are
means for an increase their open to some of the
organization‘s culture, performance within elements that
its working companies and Generation Y can
environment, the ultimately corporate teach are likely to
learning and success. have distinct
development methods advantage over
it deploys plus its their competitors
overall management
and especially its
leadership.

86
M. Sandhya The ways to look at For managers, work of Managers should
Sridevi,Solomon Employee employee engagement enhance two-way
Markos (2010) Engagement starts at day one through communication,
effective recruitment ensure that
and orientation program, employees have all
the work of employee the resources they
engagement begins from need to do their job,
the top as it is give appropriate
unthinkable to have training to increase
engaged people in the their knowledge
organizations where and skill, establish
there are no engaged reward mechanisms
leadership. in which good job
is rewarded through
various financial
and non-financial
incentives, build a
distinctive
corporate culture
that encourages
hard work and
keeps success
stories alive,
Richard Doherty This paper aimed at The paper demonstrated Gives certain
(2010) discussing the tactics how to engage employee current practices
to address employee from career begins right pertaining to 2
engagement using until it ends. It offers companies and the
regular appraisals, guidance on using the ways to engage the
social media sites and latest techniques and employees.
recording of employee technology to keep
performance and employees engaged.
interests.
M. Brad Shuck The purpose of this Post analysis, three Other functions of
et al (2010) paper was to examine themes emerged: Talent Management
an employee‘s unique relationship can be researched
experience of being development and for measuring the
engaged in their work. attachment to co- impact on
workers, workplace Employee
climate and Engagement
opportunities for
learning.

87
Ivan T. Research evidence Most current Further research to
Robertson, Cary covering the separate perspectives on explore the
L. Cooper concepts was employee engagement relationships
(2009) reviewed and included little of direct between
evidence of the relevance to well-being engagement and
benefits that both and reflect a narrow, psychological well-
engagement and well- commitment-based view being is required.
being confer on of engagement. This
organizations is view focuses too heavily
presented. on benefits to
organizations. A broader
conception of
engagement (referred to
as ―full engagement‖),
which includes
employee well-being, is
a better basis for
building sustainable
benefits for individuals
and organizations.
David G. The specific Talent management Framework for
Collings, Kamel contribution of the through (1) helped strategic talent
Mellahi (2009) current paper was in researchers to clarify the management will
developing a clear and conceptual boundaries assist and motivate
concise definition of of talent management future researchers
strategic talent and (2) providing a on talent
management. also a theoretical framework management.
theoretical model of that could help Future research
strategic talent researchers in framing efforts in the area
management is been their research efforts in could empirically
looked at.. the area. test the model
presented in the
current paper.
Swaha The research focused The study revealed that Rewards were the
Bhattacharya on the prevalent the I.T sector gave much only variable used
Preetha reward systems in importance to the use of to access employee
Mukherjee three Information rewards, which engagement.
(2009) Technology (I.T.) definitely contributes to
organizations and the attracting and retaining
role of rewards in employees, making
employee engagement them feel more valued
as expressed by the and thus increase
I.T. professionals. ‗engagement‘. .

88
Hughes J.C., The purpose of this The benefits of an HRM practices in
Rog E. (2008) article was to clarify effectively implemented relation to
what is meant by talent management evidence-based best
talent management strategy included practices are a key
and why it is improved employee to engaging the
important recruitment and workforce. To
(particularly with retention rates, and better understand
respect to its effect on enhanced employee talent management
employee recruitment, engagement. or to improve
retention and employee
engagement), as well recruitment,
as to identify factors retention and
that are critical to its engagement future
effective research should
implementation. focus on ways to
amend TM
strategies to
engage.
Srivastava P., The purpose of this By reflecting This was a
Bhatnagar paper was to discuss recruitment and culture qualitative study
J.(2008) some of these need fit, an environment which could be
practices and also to is created at the further enriched by
investigate talent workplace where empirically
acquisition and its employees feel more measuring person-
relationship to levels passionate about their organization fit and
of employee work and exhibit the its impact on the
engagement. behaviours that level of
organizations need to engagement.
drive better results.
Athey R. (2008) The purpose of this In today's competitive This article
paper was to speak of talent market, it is not categorizes
the importance of sufficient for companies connections into
connecting people in to follow a traditional three main types:
the workplace. It "attract-retain" talent people to people, to
describes the types of management strategy. A a sense of purpose,
connections that foster "develop-deploy- and to the resources
employee connect" strategy seems they need. It
development and to better engage and presents leaders
engagement, and meet the demands of the with a solid
proposes methods and workforce. Of these framework,
tools that help three components, research-backed
strengthen these "connect" is emerging as ideas and leading
connections. the most important but practices to connect
least understood. people for
performance.

89
Wildermuth., This paper addressed Logically, engagement If this is true,
Pauken (2008) the environmental and will not be impacted by performance
leadership factors that a single training improvement
contribute to program, regardless of professionals might
employee its quality. Enhancing consider the
engagement. Next, the engagement is a long- following
purpose of this paper term proposition. interventions:
is to add the job and educate the leaders;
person to the focus on career
engagement equation development;
champion work-life
balance; encourage
relationships can be
looked in future
Falletta S.V. The dotcom era from Varying definitions and The lack of a
(2008) roughly 1995 to 2000, measurement tools standard definition
coupled with the war limited the extent to and reliable
for talent, ushered in which research on measurement tools
the concept of employee engagement has left
employee can be generalized practitioners dazed
engagement. This led beyond specific firms' and confused as to
to the development practices. Moreover, what employee
and validation of a many of the survey engagement
number of branded instruments available actually is, and how
and competing comprise merely a few to accurately
definitions of items related to measure it.
engagement, employee motivation,
copyrighted survey commitment, and
instruments, and retention, omitting
concomitant items and important strategic
questions by survey levers and primary
consulting firms and drivers that ultimately
from membership- impact employee
based research engagement.
consortia and think
tanks.

90
Bhatnagar J. With talent
The findings of the case The present study
(2008) management looked at interventions indicated that a
becoming an area of
of employee good level of
growing concern inengagement and engagement may
the literature, this
dialogue. Establishing lead to high
paper seemed to
talent pools and retention and
investigate talent
identification of talent grooming of future
management, through talent matrix is leaders for the
employee engagement
highlighted. A basic HR organization.
and talent pipeline
architecture is
development. emphasized. Global
managerial diversity
with rotational
assignments in different
markets is another
finding of the case
which grooms future
leaders for the
organization
Rampersad H.K. the ways to encounter This article introduced a The article also
(2008) disengagement among new concept entitled focused on the new
the employees Personal Balanced tasks of managers
Scorecard that will help to continuously
organizations treat this improve the quality
problem and the of life of their staff,
demanding and often not only at the
frustrating road towards workplace, but also
sustained employee in their spare time
engagement. on the basis of the
methods and
techniques.
Bobby Medlin, This paper examined Results indicated that This study
Ken Green the relationship organizations that identified
(2008) between goal-setting, feature formal, engagement as
optimism, and structured goal-setting another means to
engagement and the processes leads to higher enhance worker
impact on individual levels of employee optimism. In
employee engagement. Higher addition, it
performance. levels of employee identifies
engagement lead to structured, formal
increased employee goal setting
optimism. processes as an
additional
mechanism for
managers to
improve the level of
engagement of their
employees.
91
Bhatnagar J. The purpose of this 3 factors were identified
Future studies in
(2007) paper was to which had an effect on India may look into
investigate talent employee engagement this area and
management and its organizational culture, construct an
relationship to levels career planning along independent scale
of employee with incentives and of employee
engagement using a organizational support. .
engagement,
mixed method focusing on the
research design. antecedent
variables and
testing them for
theoretical
underpinnings.
Glen C. (2007) The purpose of this Reiterates the need for More emphasis on
paper was to identify senior ownership of the talent strategy
key new dynamics in talent strategy. models for
the talent pool; employee
identify the role of engagement can be
opportunity in the studied.
development of
organizational talent;
distinguish between
the effectiveness of
image and leadership
behaviors in the
attraction and
retention of key
organizational talent;
touch on the key
talent management
areas which are well
managed by
successful
organizations:
Brain Heger this paper looked at framework was formed the model can be
(2007) the internal OD incorporating the EVP tested in other
process for linking affecting Employee sectors or domains
EVP to Employee Engagement
Engagement and
business outcomes

92
Alan Saks The purpose of this Results indicate that
Future research
(2006) study was to test a there is a meaningful
could include a
model of the difference between job
broader range of
antecedents and and organization
predictors that are
consequences of job engagements and that
linked to particular
and organization perceived organizational
types of role
engagements based on support; job
engagement. Along
social exchange characteristics and
these lines, future
theory. procedural justice
research should
predicts attempt to flesh out
organization
engagement. the types of factors
that are most
important for
engagement in
different roles (e.g.
job, organization,
and group).
Little, Beverly; Explaining Employee Employee Engagement Other variables like
Little, Philip Engagement and the Constructs Job Talent initiatives
(2006) constructs of Satisfaction, can be studied
employee engagement Organization further
Commitment, OCB, Job
involvement

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