In Search of Balance between Talent Management and Employee Engagement in Human Resource Management

Introduction

Talent management is regarded as a top priority by organisations as an approach for fundamentally convalescing human capital productivity to coerce superior values for an organisation. The main objective of the chapter is to provide a relational perspective on employee engagement by demonstrating how developing talent management strategies can be applied. Talent management practices have been developed and adapted through the 1990s ended with a call-to-arms to fight the ‘war for talent’. While the war for talent cooled in the early stages of the 21st century, it is still dampened in the economic doldrums. The real battle to attract, develop, engage and retain talent to keep organisations operating efficiently and competitively is still an important consideration. The looming demographic time bomb has made talent management a top priority for organisations. Evolutionary, and in some cases revolutionary, changes are underway that will permanently affect how we approach talent management. Strategists of talent management must prepare for what is likely to be a roller coaster ride. Cost cutting and boosting productivity are corporate mainstays, while people related costs have risen to more than two-thirds of organisational spending. Increasingly, workforce optimisation is viewed as a significant driver of shareholder value and bottom-line results. As the importance of people to the bottom line grows, the rules for managing people are dramatically changing (Ariss, et al. 2014).