Investigate Attitudes towards Talent Management in an IT Organisation

IT Organisations are encountering challenges such as skill shortages, changing demographics, globalisation and changes in technology, which are impacting how talent is attracted, evaluated, developed and managed. Studies around talent management typically focus on the subject from an employer’s viewpoint or from those who are already being actively talent-managed. This research contributes to closing the gap in the literature, as it examines talent management at all levels of an IT organisation and aims to create talent management scales. Senior management seem to highly value talent management, but the appreciation of talent management may dilute down through the organisation. This prompts further questions, such as whether people face any barriers to talent management and who they feel is ultimately responsible for their development. Using a quantitative analysis on an IT organisation, three scales were created; Perception of Talent Management, Barriers to Talent Management and Talent Management Responsibility. Findings indicate that there are differences in the perception of talent management at various levels of the organisation. Interestingly, lower levels of the organisation have a higher perception of talent management, which is in conflict with the literature. Differences in perception were also found depending on the number of direct reports, but no differences were found between People Managers/Non People Managers, between Departments or by Age. Additionally, different levels of the organisation view talent management responsibility differently, while there were no differences identified in regards to barriers to talent management within the organisation. Any talent management strategy would need to be driven from the top of the organisation to ensure consistency and alignment at all levels. Organisations need to be adaptive and plan ahead in order to remain competitive in the talent management domain