Assessing Talent Management as a tool for enhancing Organisational Performance at a Pension Fund in Namibia

Abstract

The aim of this research was to find out whether talent management practices can be used as a tool to enhance organisational performance at a Pension Fund in Namibia. The study also investigated factors that hampered the implementation of talent management practices at the Fund. A qualitative research approach was adopted for this study. A total of ten participants were interviewed from the Pension Fund. This study used purposive sampling as the researcher chose participants appropriately.

Due to the current pandemic of COVID-19 the researcher made use of technology; and therefore, interviews were conducted on Teams, WhatsApp video calls and other methods of video calls. The study was guided by the interpretivist philosophy to gain an understanding of the participants’ perceptions, rather than relying on numerical data (Cresswell, 2013:15). The research design was cross-sectional in nature. To increase the trustworthiness of the data a pilot study was conducted by the researcher.

The findings of the study found that talent management can be used to enhance organisational performance. Another finding was that there was a lack of middle management support in implementing talent management processes. Similarly, there was a lack of accountability by middle management when implementing talent management initiatives. Some of the contributing factors were outdated policies, outdated job descriptions and a lack of succession planning. Recommendations included that the Fund must update current job descriptions of all employees and streamline them with the business strategy. The Fund must appoint change agents, champions and ambassadors made up of departmental management and leadership which will be responsible for talent pooling, talent development and retention through recognition, job rotation, on the job training, e-learning programmes, work-related tutorials, educational courses, and internships. The last recommendation is that the Fund must put more effort into employee recognition programmes.