The impact of talent management practices on business performance

Abstract

Talent management practice within an organisation is an international human resources strategy that seeks to identify, develop, deploy and retain talented and high potential employees. Although talent management practices may be applied in South African companies, they can only contribute optimally to business performance if both top management and employees are aligned on its objectives and implementation in the organisation. However companies are often unaware of the extent of misalignment between the perception of employees and top management. Using a combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches, this study examined the perceptions of Talent Management Practices of 42 employees and seven top managers in a major South African mining company with reference to international best practice. The study then compared the perceptions of employees and top management on six themes of talent management practices. The empirical results revealed that the perceptions of the employees were misaligned with international best practice, particularly on the themes of implementation and the instruments used to identify high potential employees. Furthermore, there was misalignment between the perceptions of employees and top managers, particularly on the themes of transparency, competency models and communication. Company talent strategy focussed more resources on perfecting the Talent Management Practices on the Executive Talent Pool rather than throughout the organisation. Furthermore, top managers were more focussed on the implementation of the strategy itself rather than on measuring its impact on business performance.