Talent Management: Conceptual and Theoretical Understanding

Background & Evolution Of Talent Management

Talent management has become a buzzword in the 21^st century. McKinsey & Company (1997) coined the term “the war for talent” on talent management practices and beliefs. McKinsey quoted “better talent is what will separate the winning companies from the rest”. In the 21^st Century, the war for talent has become a business reality. As defined by Gartner” Talent management is the attraction, selection, and retention of employees, which involves a combination of HR processes across the employee life cycle”. DDI defines talent management “as a mission-critical process that ensures organizations have the quantity and quality of people in place to meet their current and future business priorities”. Talent Management is a term that has quite a flexible definition, and that’s important as it offers a chance for evolving the definition along with organizations. It means what talent management is today; was not the same 20 years ago. Thus, the concept is not confined to hiring the right person at the right time, but it goes beyond exploring the undetermined and outstanding abilities of employees, fostering, and developing them to attain the expected result.

Acquiring the best talent from the industry may be an immense concern for the organizations at present but retaining them and most importantly, helping their smooth transition according to the culture of the organization and motivating them to deliver their best performance is a more immense task. Harvard Business Review (2008) mentioned that Talent Management is a matter of forecasting the demand for human resources and then determining a strategic proposal to meet it. It is acknowledged as a much broader concept meant at attracting, retaining, creating, and developing talented employees. Many researchers through their research findings quoted that high potential employees of the company may leave the company when they notice a lack of overall development opportunities, lack of payment as per the market standards, and non-recognition. It has become critical for companies to attract a pool of talented employees for the company's success. Fundamentally, Talent Management promotes the management of skills, ability, and competency of employees within an organization. The focus of Talent management was always the most talented employees of the organization. Different approaches were adopted by the companies to identify the high potential candidates. One of the popular approaches was the implementation of management grids with 9-box which helps in the assessment of employees based on their potential and performance. Top to bottom order has the employees with the maximum performance and abilities at the top and lowest performers and potential employees at the bottom.

Over a period, Talent management became the management of all employees and not just limited to the high performers and high capabilities. This leads to better engagement levels which help employees to take a closer look at their careers and to take charge of their careers. Talent management has evolved over a period. Some of the stages of Talent Management are stated below