Talent management practices in business organisations: a case of Uganda Breweries Ltd.

Abstract

The study sought to assess the role of talent management practices at Uganda Breweries limited. It was based on the foundation that, talent management plays a significant role in human resource management and effective organisations. However, this requires empirical assessment and evaluation of the rationale of talent management and its success in the organisation. The study was guided by the objectives, which included: analyzing the rationale for talent management, analyzing the challenges affecting talent management practices, examining the various strategies applied to ensure talent management and to establishing possible mechanisms for cultivating effective talent management in UBL. The study used a cross-sectional survey design with both qualitative and quantitative approach. Primary data was collected from 76 respondents using close ended questionnaire and interview guide. Results on rationale indicated that talent management facilitates recruitment of right people, identification of talented employees, effective assessment of the employees, promotion of right employees, effective job placement and deployment of employees and effective succession planning for potential employees to fit in new job roles and effective forecasting of the employee job needs at UBL. The tools applied for talent management include promotion schemes for identifying right people in the right jobs, competitive salary scheme/ scale, employee engagement seminars, bottom top feedback communication, recognition of the best performers, equal opportunity policy and team building activities at UBL. The challenges were lack of top management to support, lack of commitment to develop employees’ capabilities and careers, lack of integration with human resource systems, poorly designed and implemented performance management systems, lack of stability in management and poor strategic plan alignment to hinder promotion of effective talent management at Uganda Breweries. Finally, the mechanism for Talent management mechanism adopted by UBL were prompt payment of salary, providing employees with allowance, use of information communication system, recognition of talented staff, job security, provide challenging tasks and equal opportunity. The study recommends that organisation leaders and managers should focus on equal opportunity to staff, prompt payment of competitive salaries with the allowance, and bottom top communication, recognition of best performers, team building to enhance human resource management system to support organisation efficiency.