ABSTRACT
This phenomenological study focuses on the talent management strategies being
administered by a large investor-owned utility company based out of Southern California.
Talent management is linked to a host of activities involving planning for key leadership
transitions within an organization. Talent is the force that drives business success and
brings value to an organization.
This study examines the workforce challenges facing this large investor-owned
utility company, to determine how talent management strategies are being developed and
deployed, in the wake of new market forces, shifting demographics, and the anticipated
loss of institutional knowledge from the baby-boomer generation, the largest segment of
the current U.S. workforce.
Three research questions are addressed in the study:
1. What are the lived perceptions of the HR professionals who create talent
management strategies; senior executives and managers who support these
strategies; and managers who have been identified in the succession planning
pipeline at this large investor-owned utility company?
2. Are the current programs satisfying the need and demand for developing a
pipeline of talent?
3. Are the current programs in place delivering on its promises in preparing
candidates in assuming higher level positions?
Through the process of data collection, answers to those questions provides
insight into the lived perceptions of talent management strategies being developed and
deployed to confront a changing landscape of the 21st Century being experienced by this
large investor-owned utility company.
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The essential recommendations that come from the analysis of the data are to:
1. Motivate, develop and mentor high potential employees to build a healthy talent
pipeline.
2. Integrate and collapse talent management strategies at all levels.
3. Build a talent management competency to target managers for value added
training to aid the department in meeting its challenges in learning how to
effectively navigate through a new utility landscape of the 21st Century.
4. Establish effective communication channels with a simple and repeatable message
that is:
a. Effective
b. Strategic
c. Integrated
5. Engage in the war for talent and devise effective tactics to compete in the 21st
Century.