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Talent management in health care: identifying and retaining talent at Medisch Spectrum Twente

Sleiderink, D.E.M. (2012) Talent management in health care: identifying and retaining talent at Medisch Spectrum Twente.

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Abstract:This research focuses on talent management – in particular on the identification and retention of talent – within Medisch Spectrum Twente (MST), The Netherlands. MST employs about 4000 employees, has several locations within the region and is one of the largest non-university hospital in the Netherlands. MST wants to implement talent management in the future, in order to ensure continuity and to achieve several business goals. According to Silzer and Dowell (2010) talent management is “an integrated set of processes, programs, and cultural norms in an organization designed and implemented to attract, develop, deploy, and retain talent to achieve strategic objectives and meet future business needs”(p. 18)However, before implementing a policy MST wants to carry out an exploratory research in order to investigate how talent can be identified and retained. To be able to answer the main research question ‘How can MST identify and retain talent?’, a literature study was carried out. The literature study provided information about how talent can be identified and retained. Based on the literature study it was stated that in order to identify talent an organization must define talent including competencies, motivation, and performance. Furthermore in order to define talent, an organization must formulate criteria of talent. Based on the literature the following generic criteria were found; a talent is creative, a self-starter/initiative, shows leadership behavior, has high levels of expertise, shows ability, aspiration, and engagement. After formulating a definition and criteria of talent, a method for identifying talent should be developed and implemented. A common used method for the identification of talent is the development of a competency profile. Tools for the investigation of criteria of talent are a competency profile, talent reviews and 360-degree feedback. In order to retain talent it was stated that talent has certain needs which, when fulfilled, have a positive influence on their intention to stay at an organization. These needs were distinguished into extrinsic needs - which will lead to no dissatisfaction with their jobs - and intrinsic needs - which will lead to motivated talent and satisfaction within jobs. When the extrinsic and intrinsic needs of talents are fulfilled, it will lead to organization commitment. Subsequently, when organizational commitment is accomplished, retention of talent will result. Based on the literature it can be concluded that both the identification of talent as the retention of talent depends on the organization. The whole identification process - definition and criteria of talent and the used method and tools for the identification - is influenced by the organization context, the organization strategy and the nature of the work. Whether the needs of talent - which will eventually lead to the retention of talent - will and can be fulfilled depends on the organization. The organization has to investigate and decide if they can and will fulfill the needs of talents, this decision is among other things influenced by the organization context, the organization strategy and the nature of the work. After the literature study, a field study was conducted. The field study included two parts, in part one interviews were conducted with business managers in order to investigate how talent is identified at MST. In the field study it became clear that MST has no generic definition of talent, no generic criteria of talent, and MST does not use methods for the identification of talent. However, based on the results of the interviews it can be stated that a generic definition of talent at MST must include the following: ‘he/she does and can do more than is expected from him/her’ and ‘he/she performs above average’ . With regard to generic criteria of talent at MST, the following criteria must be included: - he/she has compassion/thinks and change along with the organization, - he/she is proactive/ (self)-initiative, - he/she is creative/thinks outside the box, - he/she is energetic/enthusiastic, - and he/she is entrepreneurial/innovative. Managers have some doubts about whether there are objective methods for identifying talent. In part two, interviews with current talents at MST were conducted in order to investigate what their extrinsic and intrinsic needs are. Based on the results, the top five most important extrinsic needs of talents at MST are relationships with colleagues, followed by work conditions, job security, promotional opportunities, and salary. The top five most important intrinsic needs of talents at MST are autonomy, followed by opportunities for development and job satisfaction, challenge, recognition and task significance. From here one can conclude that the most important extrinsic and intrinsic needs fall within the category ‘job’. Therefore it can be assumed that talents at MST consider job specific/context needs as the most important. Furthermore, talents were asked about suggestions which can improve their job design/work context. When analyzing the results of this question, it can be concluded that the talents at MST want to be provided with clear career paths and promotion opportunities, more opportunities for development (education/training), and that they are being coached by MST in order to develop themselves better. The interviewed talents were also asked to rank needs based on importance. The results of these rankings were remarkable since they were in some cases the opposite of literature. Therefore these results made it questionable whether respondents were talents. These results indicate how important it is for an organization to have a commonly shared definition, criteria and a method to identify talents. Since MST does not has a commonly shared definition, criteria and a method to identify talents, the business managers have inadequate guidelines to identify talent. This can explain the assumption that not all respondents are talents. Based on the results several recommendations were given to MST in order to identify and retain talents. These recommendations contain formulating a generic definition of talent, formulating generic and context specific criteria of talent, implementing a method for the identification of talent, inventory of the extrinsic and intrinsic needs of the identified talents, fulfilling the needs of talent and at last to set a budget for talent management.
Item Type:Essay (Master)
Clients:
Medisch Spectrum Twente
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:85 business administration, organizational science
Programme:Business Administration MSc (60644)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/61758
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