The Effect of Talent Management Practices on Employee Performance among Real Estate Companies in Kenya: A Case of Suraya Property Group Limited

A Research Project Report Submitted to the Chandaria School of Business in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of Master of Science in Organizational Development (MOD)The purpose of the study was to examine the effect of talent management practises on employee performance. The study was guided by the following research questions: To what extent do training and development affect employee performance, to what extent do talent retention strategies affect employee performance and finally to what extent do performance management systems affect employee performance. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design. The population of the study was 95 employees of Suraya Property Group Limited. This study adopted a stratified sampling technique to select a sample size of 76 respondents. A structured closed ended questionnaire was used to collect primary data. Data was analysed both for descriptive statistics (frequencies and percentages) and inferential statistics (correlation analysis). Data was presented using tables and figures. The findings on the extent to which training and development affects employee performance revealed a statistically significant relationship between training and development of employees and employee performance. Majority of respondents believed that systematic training is essential for enhancing employees’ performance, while at the same time believed that a suitable work environment that enhances employees’ creativity is important for employees’ performance. The findings on the extent to which talent retention strategies affect employee performance showed that there was a statistically significant relationship between talent retention strategy and employee performance. Majority of respondents believed that when an organization identifies and prepares potential employees to take up responsibility of key staff leaving an organization, this leads to enhanced employee performance. Majority also believed that when an organization has well-articulated succession plans that enables employees to perform managerial roles, this enhances employees’ performance at Suraya Property Group Limited. The findings on the extent to which performance management systems affect employees’ performance indicated that there was a statistically significant relationship between performance management systems and employee performance. The majority of respondents believed that when an organization has proper appraisal evaluation and communication processes for employees, this leads to enhanced performance. Majority also indicated that employee performance is enhanced when employees are fully involved in the appraisal process. This study concludes that training and development is an essential component of organizations’ talent management strategies that enhance employee performance. Training enhances the necessary skills and knowledge required by the employees to perform their duties while development is essential in long term employee competence performance which is also critical to overall employee performance. Succession planning, career development and employee motivation are some of the talent retention strategies that when used by organizations, they do enhance employee performance. Talent mechanisms put in place by organizations do not only enhance employees’ current performance but guarantees employees’ future performance. This study concludes that performance appraisal systems are important to employee performance. How managers within organizations involve employees in the entire process of performance management system including designing of the evaluation tool contributes to the acceptance and use of performance evaluation to enhance employees’ performance. The study recommends that programs should be designed by both managers and employees. Employees are critical component that determines the success or failure of an organization’s training programs therefore, should not be ignored. Equally, when designing career development, it is important that Suraya Property Group Limited examine what other organizations in the sector are doing to enhance career development of employees. The concept of employee involvement in the entire process of performance appraisal should be made mandatory. The more employees are involved in designing a performance management system that will be used to evaluate them, the more they will want to support the system