Abstract
Almost every organizational activity brings about a competitive world thus, making a paradigm shift inevitable. It therefore calls for the function of human resource in the organization to understand the category of that shift in order to implement meaningful change. Organizations need to identify the impact of values and work preferences of the young generation of workers in order to employ, develop, retain and prepare staff for future leadership. This study examined the relationship between talent management strategies for Generation Y which included Human Resource Planning, Human Resource Procurement, Human Resource Retention and Human Resource Development and the competitive advantage of commercial banks in Kenya. The study tested four hypotheses that related to independent and dependent variables and a cross sectional descriptive survey design was employed. The target population was a census of all the 43 Commercial Banks in Kenya as indicated in Central Bank’s Annual Report of December 2014 and the unit of observation was six (6) departments in each bank. A sample of 258 respondents was drawn and data was obtained through a semi-structured questionnaire that was self-administered through a drop-and-pick later method. The data collected was analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics with multiple linear regression analysis to test the hypotheses. With the analysis of the data collected on all the variables and the testing of hypotheses, the study revealed that Talent Management Strategies of HR Planning, HR Procurement, HR Development and HR Retention contributed to a fairly good extent (Mean = 3.8) so as to contribute to competitive advantage of Commercial Banks in Kenya with a percentage level of 56.3% (R2 = .563). The results of the hypotheses found that there exists a statistically significant, but negative relationship between HR planning strategies and competitive advantage (β=-0.323, p 0.05). However, there was a strong positive and statistically significant relationship between HR retention strategies and competitive advantage (β=.599, p<0.05). There was also a positive statistically significant relationship between HR procurement strategies (β=.322, p<0.05).The study suggested that Commercial Banks in Kenya should consider Talent Management Strategies for Generation Y when making organizational policies. They should also embrace best HR practices that contribute to the management of human capital in order for them to realize a competitive advantage.
Highlights
The concept of Talent Management evolved around 1990s with an aim of incorporating human resource management developments, which placed more weight on the management of human capital
The study sought to establish if there existed a relationship between talent management strategies for Generation Y and competitive advantage of commercial banks in Kenya
From the findings presented and explanations offered, the researcher concludes that firstly; talent management strategies for Generation Y positively affect the commercial banks’ competitive advantage at a level of 56.3% meaning that this cohort of employees requires consideration when making organization’s strategic policies and decisions
Summary
The concept of Talent Management evolved around 1990s with an aim of incorporating human resource management developments, which placed more weight on the management of human capital. A number of scholars defined Talent Management as a Strategic Human Resource Management process that uses an integrated set of activities to enable the organization to plan for, procure, develop, retain, and motivate the right kind of employees required both at present and in future [27]. The program aims at aligning the workforce so that employees understand how their goals connect to and support to overall organizational goals, enabling the entire team to pull in the same direction. Such goals may focus in enhancing customer service as a key pillar of firm’s competitive advantage. Talent management programmes encompass a wide variety of human resource functions including but not limited to: HR Planning, HR Procurement, HR retention, HR training and development and employee succession planning
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