Talent Management

Talent Management

In the era we live in today, talent management has become inevitable, and thus a conflict has emerged between organizations over owning and employing talents to serve their goals, and they have begun to propose the necessary mechanisms to provide an appropriate organizational environment for the growth of these talents, which makes talent management one of the most important priorities for many organizations at the present time [1]. The intensity of competition and the increase in challenges facing organizations and the requirements of the modern era of quality and excellence have led these organizations to seek to possess a high and distinguished type of talented human resources with high capabilities and superior skills, as they are the resource capable of creativity, innovation, excellence and leading the organization to success, and this resource requires dealing with it in a special way, which is what led to the emergence of the concept of talent management [2].

First: Stages of the emergence of talent management

The stages of talent management are as follows[3]:

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The first stage: Qualification management: It was in the seventies to eighties of the twentieth century, when performance was measured by productivity, and the human resources function was a business function, and it was called personnel management because it only qualified individuals to serve the organization’s goals and comply with the tasks assigned to them while showing loyalty to their organization. The worker sells his time to the organization, and he signs contracts with it for life, while the career path is based on experience and seniority, and we find that individuals in this stage are given the name “the first generation.”

The second stage: Competency management: This management emerged in the eighties of the twentieth century and is still of interest to many organizations to this day, as this stage witnessed many changes and complexities and intensified competition, which imposed a new reality for it represented by its increased interest in human resources and considering them the most important resource for it, and the management that governs it moved from a mere business function to a business partner, as the interest became more about the processes of creativity and innovation and highlighting the capabilities of individuals and investing their intellectual energies in order to be able to confront all these complexities, and the individuals of this stage were called the “second generation”.

Stage Three: Talent Management: The term “talent war” has become popular as an expression of the intense competition between organizations to attract talent. The term “talent management” first appeared in 1998 through an article published by David Watkins as an evolution of the concept of human resources management. Individuals in this stage are now called “third generation” individuals, as organizations have become convinced that the talents of individuals are what qualify them to face all the complexities and uncertainties of the twenty-first century.

According to the previous figure, talent management appears as an additional stage in the practices of organizations. It does not replace competency management, but rather complements it, meaning that the three models coexist with each other. This does not mean using the tools of the first models in talent management, as confirmed by one of the most famous business leaders, Jack Welch, CEO of General Electric, who stated the following: “A strategic mistake that managers make is that they try to implement third-generation strategies with second-generation means and a first-generation mindset.”

Second: The concept of talent management

Talent is an important topic, as the era in which we live now is an era of amazing knowledge and genius that is based on overcoming barriers, changing the familiar, and creating new and always evolving creativity. This is not possible for developing societies except by relying on the role of each individual in general and the talented in particular. The progress and advancement of nations is dependent on the progress of their thought and scientific and technical production. As for the concept of talents in language and terminology, they are:

Linguistically: Talents, their linguistic meaning as stated in (Lisan Al-Arab), is taken from the verb (wahba), meaning to give something for free. Talent, then, is the gift of something without compensation. As for the word talented in the language, it also comes from the root (wahba), so it is the person who gives something without compensation.

Technically: Talents are a distinct and intrinsic ability, but they are characterized by privacy. Talents differ from hobbies. Talents exist in the individual since his birth, but they crystallize through training and acquiring knowledge. As for hobbies, we can gain them and generate them within the souls of children, but we must take into account the issue of their closeness and compatibility with the child’s capabilities and desires. Talent plays a positive role in a person’s life, as it helps him to achieve his self [4].

As for the term talent management, it was coined by (David Watkins) in (1998) when he published his article entitled “The War for Talent”, after which a group of researchers later published a book entitled (The War for Talent). This management initially emerged to improve the recruitment process and develop the skills necessary to meet current organizational needs, and over time it evolved along with its increasing responsibilities, and was integrated with the organization’s goals and strategies[5]. Many definitions of talent management have emerged, the most important of which are the following[6]:
-It is the process of developing, unifying and integrating all human capital management practices that are adopted within the organization in order to better ensure the attraction (and attraction) of human elements that possess distinct capabilities, skills and knowledge to work within an organization.
-It is the systematic process of attracting, developing, engaging and retaining high potential individuals who are of special value to the organization.
-They are systems designed to improve the processes of recruiting and developing individuals, retaining those with the required skills, and preparing them to meet current and future organizational needs.
-It is one of the basic functions of human resources management and has a major strategic role in organizations.
-Working to ensure attracting the best human resources that possess intellectual strength and distinguished talents to work within organizations, and then empowering, developing and retaining them, with the aim of achieving effectiveness and efficiency in performance within the organization.

Third: The importance of talent management

Today, business organizations in the knowledge economy have become more dependent on the capabilities, innovation and integration of their employees. Competitive success has become a function of the organization’s capabilities or capacities, in a way that enables its unique talents of employees to contribute to creating opportunities for cooperation, communication and interaction with others. Some researchers also point out that talent management is a management of strategic importance and helps achieve excellence in business performance in organizations. What is noted about the importance of talent management is that it focuses on individuals with a perceived importance of intangible resources in the knowledge economy. The significant shortage in the field of administrative talents and the pressure to compete had a significant impact on increasing the need and importance of talent management [7]. Talent management also represents the energy that drives talents and pushes them towards creative and distinguished work and increases the attractiveness of the organization. It also helps them develop the direction of their professional tendencies and skills, thus providing appropriate opportunities to fill jobs with the best competencies and at the required speed. All of this leads to raising their level of satisfaction and ambitions, and reduces the risk of their transfer to other organizations. Organizations’ adoption of talent management also leads to building the capabilities of employees, and at the same time, effective performance that builds competitive advantage depends on the efficiency of these individuals. And their capabilities[8].

Fourth: Dimensions of talent management

When looking at the successive developments in the global economic system, we see that competition today has intensified between institutions, to the point that survival and success have become a strategic goal for these institutions. There are institutions that seek to attract talented employees, while others seek to retain them. This is called the war of talents, through investing in human resources and establishing a system to manage these talents. In general, the talent management system can be summarized in the following dimensions (elements) [9]:
1-Attracting Talents: The organization must seek to build a good brand and position in order to attract workers to it. This is summarized in providing positive results that can be measured quantitatively and qualitatively, and as a result, it will be able to attract the best individuals to it.
2-Talent Selection: The organization should implement a new talent selection program, using appropriate tools to select the right individuals based on competencies, talents and high performance.
3-Talent Retention: These talented and essential individuals should be held on to, as they are the ones who will drive the organization to future success and whom it cannot afford to waste. The cost of replacing an employee who is profitable to the organization and who adds value to it is very expensive, and the organization needs to design strategies to retain talent such as a system of rewarding high performance and providing development opportunities.
4-Recognizing talents: This is done by providing evaluation reports to employees about their work, knowing their ambitions and interests, trying to discover their strengths, and encouraging them to discover their latent talents and express them.

Fifth: Determinants of talent management

There are several factors that help and contribute to the success of talent management, which are as follows[10]:
-The connection and compatibility of talent management with the organization’s strategy and enhancing its position in the organization’s senior management as a partner.
-Comprehensive talent management for all administrative levels, as it is not only related to renewing future leaders, but rather to all levels, which makes performance consistent in every organization.
-Invest more in developing talent pools rather than across all functional segments, by defining the scope and range of talent required to implement strategies.
-Placing the right talent in the right place, by making sound decisions in hiring, promotion, following up on the career path and succession of individuals, and focusing on the actual tasks in the workplace.
–Integrating elements and tools that enhance success and make the work environment more conducive to showcasing talents, using multiple types of frameworks and tools different from those found in traditional human resources management.

There are also several challenges facing talented employees, the most important of which are [11]:
1-Feeling bored in turning ideas into actions.
2-Confusion about tasks and inability to control oneself.
3-Too many ideas and not enough time to develop and implement them.
4-Difficulty dealing with things that they are not interested in.
5-Not being sure of the success of the work and always looking for another way to make it successful.
6-Being creative when others want you to be.
7-Convincing others of the usefulness of ideas.
8-Pushing others to see what is going on in their minds and appreciate it properly.
9-Leading others and not being able to realize the goal.
10-Difficulty controlling the feeling of disappointment due to taking a long time to understand and absorb ideas by other employees.
11-The inevitability of maintaining the level of achievements achieved to match their expectations and the expectations of others.
12-Difficulty using and benefiting from talent.
13-The huge amount of ideas and their disappearance in the event of the inability to apply and implement them.

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