Talent acquisition due diligence

leading to high employee

engagement:
Case of Motorola India MDB

The journal of industrial and commercial

training

Presented By:
Muhammad Muneeb Ajmal
Abstract:

The organizations are adopting innovative recruitment practices to

find the correct skill sets and competencies in order to meet the
demands of a specific skill set and in given timeline.

To discuss some of these practices and also to investigate talent

acquisition and its relationship to levels of employee engagement.

How due diligence can be inculcated in effective talent acquisition

strategy

The paper highlights the impact of due diligence in talent

acquisition, which is the most crucial problem faced by the
organizations in the present times

Keywords: Due diligence, Recruitment, Employees, Job satisfaction,

Telecommunications
Introduction:
Markets are increasingly recognizing human capital as a source of
value for firms and share holders (Cairncross, 2000

Talent
is rare, valuable, difficult and hard to substitute and
organizations that better attract, select and retain this talent
outperform those that do not (Barney and Wright, 1998)

Technological advances and global competition are the main drivers of

changes in employment patterns. Organizations success is directly
linked to the talent it can recruit. Recruitment is critical not only for
sustained competitive advantage but also for basic
organizational survival (Taylor and Collins, 2000).

Accordingto a survey based on 33,000 employers from 23 countries,

40 per cent of them had difficulty in finding and hiring the desired
talent (Manpower Inc., 2006) and approximately 90 per cent of nearly
7,000 managers indicated talent acquisition and retention were
becoming more difficult (Axelrod et al., 2001).
Literature Review:
Talent Acquisition:

The war for talent has focused on acquiring and

assimilating the best. Human resources play a significant
role in reaching organization effectiveness and performance
(Huselid,1995)

Talent has become the key differentiator for human capital

management and for leveraging competitive advantage
(Bhatnagar, 004)

Only a talent resourcing process, that is well-defined and well-

executed from start to finish yields consistent, compliant
results and is a competitive advantage in the war for talent
(Ronn, 2007).
Literature Review: Cont.

Human capital staffing strateg:

The concept of human capital theory as specified by Romer (1990)

defines it as the amount of total stock of human capital that an
organization, country or economy has

Fitz-enz (2000) defines human capital as the traits one brings to

the job: intelligence, fulfilling work energy, a generally positive
attitude, reliability and commitment.

Staffing is defined as the process of attracting, selecting, and

retaining competent individuals to achieve organizational goals
(Ployhart, 2006). This has been also reflected in extant SHRM
literature. For example, researchers like Dewar and Werbel (1979)
have adopted a universalistic perspective and have argued for a
best practice approach to SHRM (Huselid, 1993, 1995; Pfeffer,
1994)
Literature Review: Cont.

Innovative practices, employer branding & talent acquisition:

Employer branding has become a key strategy (Brewster et al., 2005) to attract
and retain the right kind of talent as people want to work for great brands. It
avoids mismatches between employer and employees that lead to job changes

Bhatnagar (2003) has mentioned amenities like golf courses, swimming pools,
aerobics centre's, gymnasiums etc. and the practices of paid sabbaticals, to
sending its employees to leading international management programmes,
representatives of the organization visiting employees homes and inviting them
to the workplace to get a feel of about what employees do at work. It builds a
sense of pride and belonging-ness to the familie

The word of mouth publicity is most effective way of recruiting. Fortunes Best
Companies to Work For survey suggests that developmentally oriented
organizations are more likely to be seen as attractive employers (Fortune, 2005).
Literature Review: Cont.

Employee engagement:

The attributes of the job/organization and fit with the

job/organization influences intentions and behaviour (Ployhart,
2006) through employee engagement

Employee engagement has a substantial impact on employee

productivity and talent retention (Bhatnagar, 2007)

If organizations maintain congruence between the firms

internal and external image, the employees are able to live
the brand and reinforce corporate values and expectations of
performance among new and existing employees (Ind, 2001).
Research Methodology:

Case Study Method

Organization Motorola
Discussion:
Nokia was a largest competitor taking maximum market share

ED Zender becomes CEO in 2004 and laid focus on reorganization of

company

As the concerned telecom market was experiencing rapid growth,

Zander sensed an opportunity. On 22 August, 2005, Zander established
India as its headquarter for the high growth markets(HGM) which covers
107 countries across Africa, the Middle East, Indian sub-continent, South
East Asia and Australia.

Strategy had to be developed to regain and then to rule the market.

Speed of functioning embedded in the right kind of talent pool was felt
pertinent
Conclusion:
The aim of the current study was to highlight the impact of due diligence in talent
acquisition which is the most crucial problem faced by the organizations in the
present times.

The practices which are used innovatively by one company become table stakes
soon as they are followed by more or less every organization in the industry

One strategy does not support every organization. The better is the recruitment-
culture-need fit, the higher would be the engagement and lesser will be the
attrition

In fact it is also looking at the need to carry out employee branding (Berthonet al.,
2005), where signaling theory may provide an important theoretical framework

Very few academicians (Joo and Mclean, 2006) have looked into the theoretical and
operational plan of employee engagement.
Recommendations:
Suggest that organizations should make efforts to build effective,
practical and holistic talent strategies that are not only able to attract
talent but also address employee engagement and the retention of key
skills thus boosting the productivity and business performance

Resourcing the best candidates from a bigger talent pool rather than the
available applicants would result in a more efficient talent acquisition

Organizations should not ignore that during talent acquisition the

personal goals and values of the applicant should match that of the
organization to make a better cuture-fit

Managers should strive to create an environment which induces passion

among the employees about their work and leads to the behaviour that
organizations need to drive better results

Organizations should follow the contingency approach as given in the

SHRM literature in designing their human capital practices
Thank You!