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A STUDY ON MEASURING THE TALENT ACQUISITION PRACTICES IN SELECTED

IT COMPANIES IN CHENNAI, TAMILNADU

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Journal of Xidian University ISSN No 1001-2400

A STUDY ON MEASURING THE TALENT

ACQUISITION PRACTICES IN SELECTED
IT COMPANIES IN CHENNAI, TAMILNADU
Dr.BAMINI RAJASEKHARAN,
Professor and Director,
Sri Ramakrishna Business School,
Sri Ramakrishna College of Arts and Science,
Nava India, Avinashi Road, Coimbatore – 641006.

Abstract:
Talent Acquisition practices are very important when an organization has to strategically plan its
business processes. Success of an Organization in most cases is not shown only through their
profits. In today’s changing scenario value of a company, with respect to its market value exceeds
its financial quality. Intellectual capital is a major share in the value of the company. Moreover,
emerging new technology is opening new avenues and opportunities for recruiters that are not just
cost efficient, but are all battered, registered and successful. This paper aims at creating a
discussion about the relationship between talent attraction, talent retention and innovation, as
drivers of business competitiveness. In contrast, IT managers are very specific for an existing open
position. Yet, when asked about their IT skills portfolio (at the organizational or individual level),
both IT managers and IT professionals had difficulty in articulating its strengths and weaknesses.
This is partly because IT is rapidly changing and evolving, often unpredictably. In addition, while
the existing IT skills taxonomies have commonalities, their anchors are arbitrary choices of career
levels, technologies, job domains, task types and responsibility levels.

Key Words: Talent Acquisition, Recruitment, Employees, HR Innovations, Social Organizations

Introduction:
Talent acquisition is the process of planning, sourcing, assessing, hiring, and on-boarding of
qualified and talented individuals into appropriate positions in the organization. The process
applies to all types of employment relationships including full and part time employees, contract
employees, contingent staff, or outsourced worker relationships. The focus of the process is on
attracting talented workers to the organization. Acquiring and retaining the best talent acts as
competitive advantage, but it is equally important and difficult to find the right person for the right
job. The increased competitiveness in the recruitment market has led to organizations spending
more time, effort and resources on developing their recruitment strategy. Talent acquisition is an
important function within HR, responsible for recruiting high quality people through various
sources for given job positions under stringent deadlines and cost constraints.

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Talent Acquisition as: a strategic approach to identify, attract and on-board top talent to efficiently
and effectively meet dynamic business needs”. Talent Acquisition is the besieged
recruitment/acquisition of high performing groups. Organizations are now hiring “talent
acquisition” specialists whose work is to approach and recruit high performing groups from
competitors. This role although similar to a traditional recruiter carries greater prominence and
significance to a business. An organization has to develop talent acquisition strategies which
appeal to top candidates in order to employ them. They also have to sourcing plans that includes
social media and employer branding. Recruitment technology that not only reaches candidates but
also that evaluates analytics of those candidates has to be developed. It is important to identify the
right individuals who will change the company, and build widespread talent recruitment plans that
join business goals and talent objectives. In the present difficult recruitment market, Organizations
face quick changes and unknown changing aspects. There is a big gap between the skill sets
required and the skill sets received. Organizations receive a huge number of applications for some
positions in the organization and an absence of skilled candidates for others. The influence of
employing the incorrect candidate cannot be overstated. At the same time, Organizations are under
tremendous pressure to increase their productivity and reduce costs. At this point it is valuable to
determine how talent acquisition is seen as different from recruitment. Recruitment is the sub set
of Talent Acquisition and includes the activities of sourcing, screening, interviewing, assessing,
selecting and hiring. Recruitment is essentially filling an available position when a person leaves
or is shifted to another function. Recruitment process ends when a suitable candidate is found who
is skilled for the job in question and is involved in the job. Talent Acquisition is a far more difficult
and complex process. It is considered as a more practical approach and complete way to search for
talent that will provide to the whole business success of the organization. Talent Acquisition
requires good networking ability to be able to go after the right talent, who are top performers who
are not dynamically looking for a change in their job. Therefore, talent acquisition is the corporate
employing chant for high level hires today.

Review of Literature:
The challenges faced by profit and non-profit organizations are enormous (Kirkland,2007). One
of the most critical challenges for any organization is finding, recruiting, and retaining talented
individuals. According to a Manpower Survey, data gathered from companies representing 33,000
employers from 23 countries, companies worldwide are facing trouble in filling the positions.
Forty percent of the surveyed employers reported problems in filling positions because of a lack
of talent in their labor markets (Manpower Inc,2006). The emphasis has been laid on initiatives
that can be put in place to help organization to retain and nurture the talent (Karthikeyan, 2007).
Despite the great sums of money companies allocate to talent management systems, many still
struggle to fill key positions - limiting their potential for growth in the process. In a 2005 survey
of 40 companies around the world, virtually all human resource executives said that their pipeline
of high-potential employees was insufficient to fill strategic management roles, according to
(Ready & Conger, 2007) In yet another survey, many employees don ‘t know the important facts

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Journal of Xidian University ISSN No 1001-2400

about their company’s talent. Many companies mismanage talent development tasks. Through
employee value proposition, management can attract and retain the talent (Cliffe, 1998). Globally,
fewer and fewer managers and professionals are ready to fill these leadership roles, and companies
worldwide find themselves competing for a smaller pool of talent.

Businesses must have the ability to identify the most talented individuals, provide them with the
necessary training and experience, and retain valuable employees on a long-term basis (McCauley
& Wakefield, 2006) 6. Managing talent cannot be completed within a quarter or a year, because it
involves integrated planning and is not merely the responsibility of the Human Resources
Department, but other factors are included in managing talent (Heinen & O ‘Neill, 2004). Even
though talent management is difficult and time consuming, it is very rewarding. Therefore, this
study aims to investigate managing talents within IT and BPO companies, in order to present
practical solutions in these companies that would be advantageous to all organizations and
practitioners. In our knowledge–based economy, value is the product of knowledge and
information. Companies cannot generate profits without the ideas, skills, talent of knowledge
workers, and they have to bet on people and not on technologies, not on factories and certainly not
on capital. Nearly half of the executives interviewed expressed concern that the senior leadership
of their organizations do not align talent management strategies with business strategies
(Guthridge, Komm, & Lawson, 2006). Global business strategy needs alignment of people and
talent management strategies. Initially, identify the senior business manager with talent specialists.
Next steps were to expand the talent pool, beyond a senior business manager level, implement
development programs for future leaders according to levels of experience and seniority in an
organization, and ensure the company had a customized solution to retain its talent through the
employee value proposition (Gakovic & Yardley, 2007).

The current challenge for IT industry is to match its supply and demand position, and retaining the
experienced persons in the organizations depend upon a number of factors in addition to ―pay
and perquisites". (AS Murti, 2008). There is a strategic imperative for organizations to manage

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talent. Changing demographic patterns mean that more people are approaching retirement than
entering the workforce. Younger generations have different needs and are re-negotiating the
psychological contracts with their employer. They are quick to move if their Organisation is not
meeting their expectations. Retaining and developing key people in the organization will be a
critical success factor in the next five years (Dr Eddie Blass, 2007) India rewards their star
performers and creates a talent pool, that would help in upgrading employee skills and curbing
attrition (Shailja Puranik, 2003).

Kumar, V. Manonmani, A. and Kumar, V. (2018), pointed out the partial effect of employees’
opinion towards career planning and development on satisfaction of the employees towards career
planning and development, holds the other variables as constant. The estimated positive sign
implies that such effect is positive that satisfaction of the employees towards career planning and
development would increase for every unit increase about employee’s opinion towards career
planning and development and this is significant.
The factors driving the popularity of talent management today are - Scarcity of talent, increasing
complexity of the role of leadership and Increased demands in technology (Mark Busine, 2006)
Outsourcing has become a recognized business strategy for enhancing the productivity and
profitability of large companies. Business Process Outsourcing is the most common form of
outsourcing. It comprises transfer of operational ownership of some of the business processes to
an external provider who manages the outsourced business processes according to the performance
matrix prescribed by the parent company (Grossman and Hellmann, 2005). According to
(Whitworth, Kimsey-House, & Sandahl, Bowerman & Collins, Hargrove, Morris, Redshaw,
Crane, 1998), ―as a result of coaching, high performer is less likely to leave an organization and
leaders become more engaged and motivated‖. Nine out of ten managers think that people stay or
go because of money, which is actually not the case. Money and benefits matter, but what the
employees ‘want the most is challenging and meaningful work, good bosses, and opportunities for
learning and development. The major causes of attrition identified by some IT companies were
again the desire for higher education, marriage/transfer of spouse, salary, or when expectation of
going on-site abroad is not met (Harvard Management Update, 1999).

Research Objectives
1.To study the talent acquisition process of IT Companies in Chennai
2. To examine the extent to which IT Companies has adopted and implemented best practices.
4. To study the extent to which they have adopted new and sophisticated methods.
Research methodology
The entire study will be focused on IT firms of Chennai in India. To collect Primary Data,
structured or semi-structured questionnaire was designed to collected data from HR managers as
well as employees of IT firms. Mainly Top IT companies in Chennai, Tamilnadu were selected
and from them around 100 HR managers had filled questionnaire and interview. Besides primary
data, secondary data were collected form books, magazines. Analysis of collected data is done

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using appropriate software and statistical tools like tabulation, charting, percentage, averages and
statistical tests etc. as will be appropriates for the collected data. The following Hypothesis was
tested H01: There are high performance talent acquisition systems Talent acquisition practices are
critical links in an organization’s talent supply chain. Some companies are using increasingly
sophisticated approaches to workforce planning and talent acquisition as part of their strategic
business planning process. Talent acquisition initiatives focus on meeting both the short- and long-
term workforce needs. These areas are often the most visible services that HR provides, yet many
HR organizations struggle with developing an effective approach that meets business needs. Some
companies are investing heavily in building talent acquisition capability, but most organizations
approach these areas in limited ways — focusing primarily on meeting the talent needs of today,
with very little emphasis on tomorrow. While most organizations have foundational recruiting
programs and processes in place, workforce planning and talent acquisition processes are often not
integrated and technology is underutilized. Despite these challenges, most organizations report
being able to attract the talent they need.

Table 1: Distribution of Talent Acquisition Practices

Statements Strongly Agree N Neutral Disagree Strongly Chi- df P
agree N (%) N (%) N (%) disagree square value
(%) N (%)
To improve business 62(62.0) 12(12.0) 10(10.0) 12(12.0) 4(4.0) 112.4 4 4 0.00**
results
Anticipated changes in 35(35.0) 34(34.0) 12(12.0) 5(5.0) 14(14.0) 37.3 4 0.00**
skills of future
managers
Company Growth 26(26.0) 34(34.0) 23(23.0) 8(8.0) 9(9.0) 25.3 4 0.00**
Sustain the organization 37(37.0) 23(23.0) 18(18.0) 19(19.0) 3(3.0) 29.6 4 0.00**
due to retirement of
current managers
Merger/acquisition 34(34.0) 13(13.0) 23(23.0) 23(23.0) 15(15.0) 15.2 4 0.00**
Change in the 27(27.0) 25(25.0) 29(29.0) 18(18.0) 1(1.0) 26.0 4 0.00**
management structure
***p>0.001

Table .1 represents the detailed distribution of talent acquisition practices are used in IT
companies. It was further noted that: Respondent showed significant difference χ2 =112, on to
improve business results at 0.01 level of significance. Respondent gave maximum responses as
strongly agree (62.0%), agree (12%), disagree (12.0%), neutral (10.0%), and minimum responses
on strongly disagree (4.0%). Respondent showed significant difference χ2 =37.3, on anticipated
changes in skills of future managers at 0.00 level of significance. Respondent gave maximum
responses as strongly agree (35.0%), agree (34.0%), disagree (12.0%), strongly disagree (14.0%)
and minimum responses on neutral (10.0%). Respondent showed significant difference (χ2 =25.3,
p<0.01 on company growth at 0.01 level of significance. Respondent gave responses as agree
(26.0%), strongly agree (34.0%), neutral (23.0%), disagree (8.0%) and strongly disagree (9.0%).

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Journal of Xidian University ISSN No 1001-2400

Respondent showed significant difference χ2 =29.6, on sustain the organization due to retirement
of current managers at 0.01 level of significance. Respondent gave responses as strongly agree
(37.0%), agree (23.0%), neutral (18.0%), strongly disagree (19.0%) and disagree (3.0%).
Respondent showed significant difference χ2 =15.2 on Merger/acquisition at 0.01 level of
significance. Respondent gave responses as strongly agree (34.0%), neutral (23.0%), agree
(13.0%), disagree (15.0%) and strongly disagree (15.0%). Respondent showed significant
difference χ2 =26.0, on Change in the management structure at 0.01 level of significance.
Respondent gave responses as strongly agree (27.0%, agree (25.0%), neutral (29.0%), disagree
(18.0%) and strongly disagree (1.0%). Proportion of all factors of talent acquisition practices are
used in IT companies.

Conclusion:
Talent Acquisition has emerged with a lot of innovative changes and the worlds getting ready for
a talent hunt with all its innovative strategies in the global perspective. In developing countries
there is a huge potential seen. It is important to be able to attract the right talent when required.
This would help all organizations compete globally. Companies capitalize in talent management
to select and retain the best candidate for each job since they say that business success is
mechanical by the total talent quality of their workforce. Open Recruitment is a new ideological
structure that allows these fundamental threads to be mixed in a coherent model. When an
organizations talent management system develops in a manner described in this article, companies
will be averse to go back to the stop-gap proceedings of recruiting and retention.

The real challenge would be how we are able to incorporate all the sub systems & help them in
achieving the ultimate goal-exceptional performance. In a high-performance driven industry like
IT, this becomes all the more important. People have to be groomed to get in tune with the
performance culture. Creating an environment that stimulates the creation of knowledge, its
sustenance & its dissipation throughout the organization will be the challenge for organizations.

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