Talent management in European SMEs

Organizations are investing significant efforts and resources into recruiting, developing, and retaining key talent with the potential to contribute significantly to performance. However, the talent management (TM) process is difficult and despite all the efforts, many organizations struggle to effectively manage these valuable people. The main objective of this research is to examine the implementation of TM in SMEs in Europe. Our research responds to calls for more evidence of how TM is implemented across different contexts and which approaches are more prevalent. Europe is a dynamic collective of countries with distinctive political, social and economic histories that frame the present context in which SMEs operate. We present the findings from two case organizations in post socialist economies, one in Slovenia and the other in Poland. This research shows that in these post socialist contexts there is a strong need to approach TM from the perspective of SMEs, where their size and contextualized knowledge of their internal and external environment elicits local solutions to TM challenges. Furthermore, this demonstrates the value of foregrounding the individual needs and aspirations of talent when designing and implementing TM practices in SMEs, in order to create a sustainable future for all stakeholders