The impact of inclusion in the talent pool on the psychological contract of high potential employees

Abstract

This research stems from the need by organisations to retain their key talent in the context of the change in the psychological contract manifesting in the emergence of boundaryless careers. Employees have ceased to be loyal to one organisation and this has marginalised employers as they still need to retain their key talent as a source of competitive advantage. Most organisations have segmented their workforce to develop talent pools of high potential employees to meet the organisation’s current and future critical skills needs. Hence, this study investigates the impact of inclusion in the talent pool on the psychological contract. Various instruments in the literature study were used to measure the psychological contract of employees in the talent pools in comparison to those not in talent pools. These include the transactional and relational psychological contract instrument by Millward and Hopkins (1998), organisational citizenship behaviour by Coyle-Shapiro (2002), trust by Robinson and Rousseau (1994) and turnover intention by Blomme et al. (2010). The study presents findings from 195 employees from three different organisations, about 50% of whom were in talent pools. The study shows that both groups of employees in and outside talent pools consider their psychological contract with their employers as less transactional. Although being part of the talent pool has a positive impact on the relational psychological contract and organisational commitment, it does not necessarily translate into trust and the intention to stay with organisations. Employees in talent pools are not different to those not in talent pools with regard to trust and the turnover intention. The report offers insights aimed at managers to understand the psychological contracts of their employees within the talent pools to avoid unnecessary violations and to explore new value propositions that are aligned to those contracts. Copyright