Crafting employee engagement through talent management practices in telecom sector

Habiba Akter,Sheikh M Hizam,Waqas Ahmed,Ilham Sentosa

doi:10.4102/sajhrm.v20i0.1775

Abstract

Orientation: Solving the dearth of skilled employees and maintaining the engagement policy are key concerns of the Malaysian telecom sector. Therefore, talent management practices have created a mainstream process for telecom employers to be proactively involved in talent engagement. Research purpose: This study aimed to elucidate the vital talent management practices towards employee engagement in telecom sector, incorporating psychological empowerment as a mediator. Motivation for the study: Studies linking talent management with career development, rewards and recognition, training and development, are still not established in terms of employee engagement in the context of Malaysian telecom sector. Research design, approach and method: An online survey was conducted through the purposive sampling technique to collect data from telecom firms in Malaysia. The survey resulted in 242 responses, which were analysed through Partial Least Squares – Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) and PLS-Predict. In PLS-SEM, data were evaluated for hypothesis testing. After hypothesis result was obtained, the PLS-SEM model was assessed for its predictive validity through PLS-Predict. Main findings: The results explored that talent management factors positively and significantly predicted employee engagement through psychological empowerment, except training and development. The PLS-Predict resulted a higher value of predictive power for our model. Practical/managerial implications: This study may lead to practical applications to support human resource management practitioners towards comprehending the impact of talent management practices, either directly or indirectly, in engaging the right talent. Contribution/value-add: This study will fill the untapped area of improving employee engagement by adding psychological empowerment as a mediator between employee engagement and talent management practices.

Highlights

During the 1970s and 1980s, employees’ satisfaction was the key focus area for human resource management (HRM), which had little impact on or no link to organisational productivity
According to Khoreva and Vaiman (2015), social exchange theory (SET) posits that when employers give priority to skilled workers to be involved through talent management practices (TMPs), they reciprocate by engaging at the organisation. To explore this addressing gap, our study aims to examine the relevance of TMP (e.g. career development (CD), rewards and recognition (RR) and training and development http://www.sajhrm.co.za (TD)) towards EE based on SET, incorporated in psychological empowerment (PE) as a mediator and empirically test it among the workforces in the telecom sector in Malaysia
The analytical findings of PLS-SEM show that the R2for the endogenous variables EE and PE were 0.56 and 0.14, respectively. This signifies that CD, RR, TD and PE, could explain 56% of the variance for EE. the findings revealed that 14% of the variance for PE could be explained by CD, RR, TD

Summary

Introduction

During the 1970s and 1980s, employees’ satisfaction was the key focus area for human resource management (HRM), which had little impact on or no link to organisational productivity. Thereafter, the focus went beyond employee commitment, as commitment is a vital factor predicting engagement (Aktar & Pangil, 2018). At the end of the 1980s, employees were encouraged to be engaged in their job roles and as well as being focused on their talents to achieve organisational goals. These were the main conceptualization aspects of employee engagement (EE). Employment engagement emerged for the first time in management theory in 1990. Engagement is often delineated in the management literature as a ‘positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind, which is categorised by vigour, dedication and absorption’ (Schaufeli, Salanova, González-Romá, & Bakker, 2002, p. 74)

Objectives

Results

Conclusion