Integrating 4 Ts for Effective Management of Talented Employees: A Conceptual

Framework

Dr. Pooja Mehta1, Ms. Deepali Soni2

1 Assistant Professor, Punjab Technical University, Kapurthala (pooja24k@yahoo.com)

Mobile No. 94780-98057

2 Research Scholar, Punjab Technical University, Kapurthala

(contactsoni2014@gmail.com) Mobile No. 9050041571

Abstract

In today’s global era, talented employees are neither fewer nor in scarce. But, the real challenge

is to identify them and manage them effectively. The most valuable asset of any institution,

business or non business, are its talent workers. Talented workers are the key source of

competitive advantage and do phenomenal performance, only if they are managed well. Human

resource managers have to understand their needs & expectations and retain them for longer

period of time for future growth of the organization. The present study is based on a thorough

literature review conducted by carefully studying research articles published in journals of

repute. This paper attempts to focus on the problems and prospects of managing the talented

employees as well as retaining them in the organization. For this purpose the study has suggested

4T integrated approach for managing talented workers in the organizations effectively. These

4Ts include talent engagement, talent promotion, talent management and talent retention. All

these aspects are interrelated to each other and have common objective to give priority to the

core talent of the organizations because it is only talented employees which respond to any

internal as well as external change derived by knowledge and technology. This particular

approach tries to catch attraction towards motivating, retaining and utilizing the talents in

organization for value addition through four Ts of Talent Management namely: Talent

engagement, Talent promotion, Talent management and Talent retention.

Keywords: Talent, talent retention, talent engagement, talent promotion, talent management.

Introduction:

Talented employees are the intrinsic gift for the organization. Talent can be defined as

sum total of ability person has for organization’s growth in terms of their skills,

knowledge, experience , intelligence, judgment, attitude, character, drive ability to learn

and grow with the organization. Talented employees are cerebral for the organization so

management of talented employees is one of the major responsibilities of organization.

They demonstrate exceptional ability and achievement over a range of activities and have

transferable high competence.Organizations operating in dyanamic environment faces

complexity which can be dealt by these high impact personnel( (Abbey, 2003)). This led

to the realization of strategic importance of talent management in maximizing

productivity and efficiency in the organization for longer period of time.

World War II led to the derivation of the concept of talent management (Cappelli, 2008).

Talent management is a process that emerged in the 1990s and continues to be adopted,

as more companies come to realize that their employees’ talents and skills drive their

business to success. Companies develop plans and processes to track and manage their

employee talent through various organizational practices i.e. attracting and recruiting

qualified candidates with competitive backgrounds, managing and defining competitive

salaries, providing Training and development opportunities, Performance management

processes, Retention programs and Promotion results in to value addition to the

organizations.

Talent management system (TMS) is a strategic approach adopted by so many

organization to manage their employee talent for longer period of time.TMS includes a

range of activities the organization practices which includes dimensions like attracting

and recruiting potential candidates with strong competitive background ,providing

competent salary package, delivering healthy working environment ,providing adequate

training and development opportunities, implementing fair Performance appraisal system

to manage employee’s performance management, retention programmes, engagement

activities and providing reasonable promotion platform for grooming career of talented

employees within the organization by creating talent pipeline and reducing dependency

on outside talent. After scrutinizing all the dimension of talent management this paper

emphasizes on developing conceptual framework concluding that there are four main

aspect on which organization has to focus these main aspects are talent engagement

,talent retention, talent promotion and talent management. This Paper represents 4 T

approach of TMS for increasing organizational effectiveness and efficiency.

Review of Literature:

Aiza Hussai Rana and Abdus Sattar Abbasi[2013] in their study “Impact of talent

management and employee turnover on organizational efficiency on telecommunication sector

of Pakistan ”have observed that effectual talent management has prospective scope to reduce

employee turnover and can improve organizational efficiency. Employee turnover is correlated

to organizational efficiency. Talent management has meaningful impact on employee turnover

and organizational efficiency. They have also found that variable like gender, age, education,

experience also influence employee turnover intention and implementation of TMS. They

suggested that corporate cream of the crop call for more vigilant and conscious about practices

that retain best talent.

Peter Cappelli[2008] in his research considered talent management analogous to creating talent

pipeline preparing talent for next higher position and this is very important step towards

organizational efficiency. They said that if there is any vacancy in organization it should be filled

with internal talent instead of outside talent. He suggested that organization should try to attach

talented employees with them by giving them exigent work assignment to engage them

increasing their commitment to the organization.

Munammad Imran Haniff and Shao Yunfei[2013] in their published research paper entitled”

the role of talent management and HR generic strategies for talent retention” has examined

through applying qualitative as well as quantitative technique that It can be concluded on the

recommendations and findings of the above research that the input for retention factors are best

salary packages in industry , potential development with desired KSA, higher motivation level ,

training and development, satisfaction of employees , retirement benefits, fair performance

appraisal system , trust and integrity, personal relationship with supervisor. They suggested that

talent management practices play integral role in keeping the talent intact with the organization

along with all other HR practices. The force of talent management strategies has notable

possessions on output, efficiency and productivity of both organization and employees.

Morton (2005) said that talent management is fundamental key to engage employees in

organization. Effectual talent management helps organizations to achieve the objective of

retaining talented employees .He realized that there are various issues on which organization

have to keep their focus e.g. attracting and retaining new talent, level of job satisfaction, salary

,organizational climate ,job stress, facilities provided ,work life balance ,management attitude

tinted by employers from different managers rationing in different public and private sector

organizations.

Dr. Muhamamd Aslam Khan, Schehar Bano, Qazi Habib Ur Rehman and Asad Afzal

Humayoun have recognized schematized talent management as a core business issue.They

studied various factor impact on talent management. They revealed that talent management helps

organization to keep their talented employees engaged to increase productivity as various

research proved that employee engagement enhances loyalty and productivity of organizations.

Management at all level must be reorganized with the energy of talent management practices this

helps an organization to recognize and keep spotlight on new competitive state of affairs. They

recognized the importance of accompanying pay with social recognition or adding value by

providing timely feedback, training if required, boosting their morale; motivate them as

employees wish for motivation on continuity. Leaving of employees from organization within

short span of time was found surely challenging for organizations. Implementing Talent

management strategies for sorting out turnover problem have many supplies. Manager should

work upon the solution for the main reason for this turnover of employees realizing the value

of running their core talent, and have implemented practices which encourage the talent

management as the main concern because of enhancements in knowledge based economic

society. Researchers highlighted the consequences of talent management and suggested various

strategies to ensure the retention of key talent, employee engagement and value addition.

Deepti Sinha and Sachin Sinha[2008] have made research on talent retention in academics area

and found out that teachers are the mediator of institute for students and if they are changed in

every semester then it reflect negative image of organization and create big empty space in the

mind of the students. Teaching profession is the most important professionals its social value in

causative towards betterment of society is large so retaining best professional with a high quality

by ensuring good environmental condition for growth making them fully effective is need of an

hour especially for management institutes. In this way various talent management strategies must

be implemented in the organization.

R. V. Dhanalakshmi and Dr K BalanagaGurunathan[2014] in their study “Talent

management as a strategy to influence employee engagement and its effect on the organizational

outcome” found out that there is a strong correlation of talented employees performance with

talent management practices considering various organizational variables like turnover,

satisfaction, individual employee performance and value of the organization and employee

engagement is one of the most important outcome of talent management practices for higher

employee amount produced and customer engagement levels, as well as revenue growth.

Implementation of talent management system:

In current years, Implementation of Talent Management System has turn out to be precedence

for organizations. This is by reason of dearth of talented staff. In 2011, it was observed that

despite the high rate of joblessness as a result of the economic depression ‘more than 52% of

employers believed that competition for talent was even greater as the pool of obtainable talent

to hire fell sharply in 2010 by 41% and in 2009: 20%’ (Cannon and McGee, 2011).Three-

quarters of the employers surveyed by the CIPD decided that development of high-potential

employees is one of their organization’s main objectives, while 61% refer to cultivation of

future senior managers and leaders as another objective (CIPD, 2009). There is a general belief

that globalization and the expansion of knowledge economies are foremost to a shortage of talent

(Ford at al., 2010). The present working managers and business leaders has not augmented in the

past planning to lead to a make strategies to recruit and retain the best talent. Today’s personnel

is more movable as compared to the long-ago (Ford at al., 2010). This aspect has placed pressure

on employer to have TMS in the organization. Many experts fall out that talent development will

characterize organizational success for the future, and in the current surroundings, which is

wrought by the recent economic slump talented employees, can create a difference.

Drivers of TMS:

Talent is a swiftly mounting source of value addition to the organization.

The context of doing business is more dynamic and complex.

Organization and markets both are expecting more and more.

Evolution of employee’s demographics making Organizations to face “war for

talent” these days.

Employee expectations are also changing.

Implementation of talent management lies on the following heads:

Ensure the improvement of the skills organization requirements.

Address the skill dearth’s for future condition.

Increases organizational performance and ensures a competitive advantage.

TMS is a prime factor in attracting and retaining talented individuals.

Brings innovation to the organization.

Helps in creating sustainable development in the organization.

Helps in getting right data.

Maintain employee engagement culture enhancing commitment towards the organization.

Builds talent pipeline.

Conceptual Framework of TMS as 4T Approach:

Relationship of talent Management with engagement towards organizational efficiency:

It has been observed that higher level of employee engagement results in to longer time retention

of employees in the organization as a result, Engagement has a considerable sway on

organization and employee productivity and talent retention. Employee Engagement and Talent

Management if united can construct or shatter the bottom line (Lockwood, 2006).Regarding the

study done by the Corporate Leadership Council (Driving Performance and Retention through

Employee Engagement, 2004), employees who are devoted perform 20% better and are 87% less

likely to leave. The process of construction of Employee Engagement organization work culture

is continuing fostering culture of encouragement, expansion and knowledge, hold up,

contribution and recognition (Lockwood).these all require participatory working environment

which comes along with work experiences (Lockwood 2006). Even though monetary benefits

possibly will attract employees, studies showed realization of importance of workforce

engagement as a aspect more than satisfaction and satisfied employees remain happy with

monetary benefits and atmosphere of organization. This gratification may perhaps cause

dithering to show any extra achievement; thus, it creates a workforce who is at ease with the

present state of affairs.

TALENT ENGAGEMENT (T1)

TALENT PROMOTION (T2)

TALENT RETENTION (T3)

TALENT MANAGEMENT

SYSTEM (TMS) TALENT MANAGEMENT (T4)

Organizational efficiency

On the other hand, engaged workforce make evident standing qualities like:

1. Innovation & creativity

2. Taking individual responsibility to make things happen in favor of dynamic condition of

economy.

3. Authentic aspiration to make the organization flourishing as well as the lineup.

4. Having an emotional tie to the Organization and its strategic plan.

Employee engagement has a collision with the efficiency of the four key talent management

processes of talent development, talented employee performance Management, Talent

Recruitment and Promotion of talent.

Talented employee Performance Management and Engagement

According to the Institute of Employment Studies (IES), there is a apparent positive relationship

between those who have made contribution to their job in an appraisal and those that show

evidence of higher levels of engagement. This appraisal process let the employee know their

training needs and development gaps and organization work for the formulating and

implementing developmental strategies sincerely. Their development is being taken seriously.

The secret of an effective performance appraisal for particularly talented employee are a

unambiguous set of position-specific attribute dimensions.

Talent Development and Engagement

To a great extent many indicators of sound leadership and personnel management used in 360

reviews and those established Engagement Diagnostics. For example, 360 reviews importune

input from direct reports (in general on capabilities such as maximization of potential and

communication) providing a grade for that manager against these capabilities.

Recruitment & Selection and Engagement

The IES study confirmed that where a realistic job foretaste is provided to candidates, those who

Afterward coupled with the organization had higher level of engagement. In terms of recruitment

processes of the organization, to which extent organization make use of assessment centers to

locate clear anticipations as to the nature and requirements of the position – certainly not just a

job position description.

Talent promotion and Engagement

The IES study noticed that those who have a individual development plan for talented staff show

signs of higher engagement level in progression of employees to higher position removing the

dependency on outside talent. Exceptionally over and over again a perceived lack of

opportunities or career paths leads to dissatisfaction with the employer. Realistic career planning

sustain helps in putting up into the hands of the employee chances to grow and develop, pick up

new skills and knowledge. In work group people are assigned tasks that let them use their best

skills.

Talent Management with engagement towards organizational efficiency:

Employees can be engaged in challenging task through emotional and cognitive drive. Emotional

drivers of employees towards organization helps in building healthy work relation to other

employees and Cognitive drivers of employees make employee aware of their mission and role

in their working environment. Drafle and Kossen (2002) found that employees rate having

opportunities to learn and grow at work as one of the most important factors for employee

satisfaction, retention & engagement. Research by Butler and Waldrop (1999) indicated that the

top factors for Employee Engagement are: challenging work assignment, career progression,

relationship with other; and supportive Management. In conclusion, research undertaken by other

researchers like Buckingham and Coffman (1999) and Lawler (1996) which showed that

effective Organizations are those that empower and engage their talented workforce, build

working group in the organization , and develop human proficiency at all levels.

There is an escalating body of convincing research that has associated various talent

management and employee engagement practices with bottom line results. Hunter et al. (1990)

acknowledged that good leadership quality has been found to account remarkably an

Organization’s performance Engagement has been related with a number of important

Organizational outcomes that are directly related to talent Management such as making easy

practices of recruitment, retention and employee turnover. Other important Organizational

outcomes associated with increased levels of employee engagement with talent management

system comprises of higher level of employee performance and productivity and customer

engagement levels with revenue growth.

Relationship of talent Management with promotion or progression towards organizational

efficiency:

Senior manager often face the dilemma regarding which is better approach promote from within

or hire externally ?but research shows it is better to promote within assuming the leadership

involved in creating talent pipeline can supply the right talent in the right roles at the right times.

All these cannot be done at ease there is strong demand of an hour that companies need to

prevent the departure of high potentials and carefully groom them for future higher position

.Every organization should have a strategic, thoughtful succession plan, ensuring it has trained,

experienced talented employee ready to move up when high-level positions become available.

Many organizations equate the concept of talent management with talent promotion &

succession management believing that TMS must take in far broader portion of the employee

population. The ability of an organization to contend depends upon the performance of all its key

talent, and its ability to develop and promote that talent (making talent pipeline).

Talent Management with talent promotion towards organizational efficiency:

Available talented employees can be promoted within the organization by managing effective

TMS. It helps in creating talented employees for next higher position cutting the cost occurring

in hiring outside Talent. Studies made by Matthew Bidwell reveal that employer are not realizing

that how much more they were paying to bring in workers from the outside. In fact, after

scrutinizing seven years of employee data, from 2003-2009, from the U.S. investment banking

unit of a financial services firm, which included information on 5,300 employees in multiple

jobs, from traders and research analysts to support staff Bidwell found that not only do external

hires get paid more, but for their first two years on the job, they receive significantly lower

marks in performance reviews. External hires are also much more likely to get laid off than are

those promoted from within. Employees remain encouraged when they get the opportunity to

grow with the organization with passage of time. Talent promotion give rise to talent retention

and result in to increase productivity and performance of organization. Study made by Neetha

Mary Avanesh[2011] on IT Sector identified the outcome of promotion of talent in the

organization in terms of improve talent retention, satisfaction, better image of business increase

competence Level, widening market share ,new business expansion, better ROI improving

organizational efficiency.

Relationship of talent Management with Retention towards organizational efficiency:

Study made on Accenture [2001] found that organization strategy regarding retention of

employees mainly start from US, Europe, Asia than Australia. Retention is considered to be

cornerstone for organizational efficiency and divided in to social, mental or physical facet. Social

facet can be made by engaging employees in group task providing them platform to develop

relationship with others internally as well as externally. Mental Facet includes the satisfaction

regarding job position characteristics i.e. flexible work hours, challenging work assignment

where talented employee can use their knowledge and improving their as well as organizational

performance and physical facet can be satisfied by workplace condition and fair compensation

policy. But mainly two category of factors are considered to have more influence on retention are

organizational factor that are Management support, organizational justice, employer image,

working environment and human resource factor are employee value match with organization’s

value , training & development platform , fair remuneration & recognition , job security and

career advancement opportunity and promotion aspect. By observing these entire factor TMS is

best suited to retain talent in the organization integrating engagement, promotion and retention at

their core giving rise to develop 4 T approaches of TMS.

Talent Management with talent retention towards organizational efficiency:

Talent retention is always good for employee as well as employer .As it boosts motivation level,

satisfaction, loyalty towards organization o the part of employee and on the part of employer

contains cut cost, improving image, increasing productivity. This made retention strategies an

important deliberate aspect for the organization. Talent management strategies help in achieving

a considerable retention in the organization.

Strategies to implement 4 T Approach of TMS:

Starts TMS with the business strategy: TMS should support the strategy of organization .Start

by looking at the drivers of organization —is it sales? Research and development ?

Manufacturing? Create a sustained talent pipeline in those parts of the business? Next, identify

key player to assure that developing and promoting talent for higher roles that have noteworthy

impact on the organization's ability to achieve short- and long-term results. To assure that the

strength lies in talented employee meets the organization’s needs. Base the talent pipelines on

where the business is currently and also prepare for future scenarios.

Hire not only for now but for the future also: Many business leaders said "What we got here,

won't get there”. Looking at present talent pool is not enough but need to look at hiring practices.

Managers should know clearly that what types of skills and abilities need and hire to those at all

levels in the organization. People don’t suddenly develop the potential to lead. Talent should be

assessed not just on current needs but on future potential. Talent and the organizational needs for

talent should be reevaluated regularly.

Identify, develop, and promote “high-potential” talent: Talented employees in present job

cannot be considered talented for next higher level. TMS identify the difference. Talented

employees have the capability to keep on larger, more complex levels of responsibility and often

do it promptly. Talented employees are often insatiable learners. They take on new tasks and are

able to master them quickly. In addition to this, they are engaged on an emotional and rational

level with the organization. They aspire to rise into and succeed in more senior, critical positions.

They want to be leaders and considered as promotable talent. If in any organization senior

executives can’t name at least three talented employees then it is considered to be an inefficient

TMS.

Apply assessment tools at all level in the organization:

Competency Assessment

Performance Appraisal

Potential Forecast

Succession Planning

Career Planninng.

Targeting organizational culture as an important driver of TMS Approach.

Secure management’s commitment to make the talent management model work.

Evaluate the results of talent management system on a regular basis.

Discussion and conclusion:

Given the high level of importance to the concept of talent management over the past decade, it

is to some extent inconsistent that it remains relatively poorly defined and implemented in the

organization. After extensive review of literature it is right to state TMS is a key driver of an

organizational success and efficiency and to play business leaders role effectively one cannot

ignore the result of TMS towards organizational efficiency. The contribution of this paper is

many fold; to develop insight regarding already talent management system ,to depict

relationship of various HR practices like retention ,engagement, promotion with talent

management system and to develop conceptual framework of TMS as 4 T Approach in order to

increase organizational efficiency through enhancing morale, satisfaction, lower employee

turnover ,more productivity. The paper aims to aid future research in the area of talent

management system though helping to clarify the conceptual framework of talent management

and mentioning all four inseparable business practices engagement, promotion ,retention and

management of talented employees.

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