Talent Management
Research Study: Talent Management in the Indian Social Sector
The research on talent management seeks to understand how social impact organisations (SIOs) approach ‘talent’. The research aims to examine ‘what is’ in terms of the current talent management practices in the sector and ‘what ought to be’ in terms of the principles or norms that need to be developed for the emerging sectoral ecosystem. The overarching rationale for this research comes from the end objective of enabling organisations, philanthropists, foundations, and, the talent ecosystem, to develop a deeper understanding of ‘talent’ in the context of the Indian Social Impact Sector as well as identify key attributes of talent management practices in SIOs that nurture organisational talent towards impacting sustainable, scalable solutions for social change.
Given the paucity of data and knowledge on the current talent engagement practices and norms, a lack of understanding of some of the deeper underlying questions on the perceived value of social impact sector for the society and the systemic nodes that permit talent in the social impact sector to stay vibrant, adaptive, effective and positively influential for meaningful impact, the research will make significant contribution to addressing these knowledge gaps. Towards this end, the research will contribute to an in-depth understanding of the several factors in relation to organisational talent that prevents the sector from achieving the desired end goal.
The proposed study shall be executed across three phases:
Phase I of the proposed “Talent in Social Impact Sector” study will seek to co-create a Research framework that brings together different research pieces proposed above. A scan of the existing literature on talent in Social Impact Sector will highlight multiple efforts by experts to understand talent in the social sector space. While these attempts give us a sense of unique nature of talent engaged in the sector, a comprehensive work towards understanding the social impact sector itself and talent management within that will help initiate a more informed discussion with foundations, philanthropists, funding groups, enabling organisations, social Impact organisations and development professionals.
Phase II of the study shall involve commissioning of two key research topics on ‘salary / compensation benchmarking’ and ‘existing talent management practices in the Indian social impact sector’. The studies while in progress aims at releasing two to three publications every 3-4 months towards supporting generative discussions around talent in the sector. This phase of the research will also be supported with in-depth qualitative pieces on ‘talent’ and ‘talent management practices in organisations’ in specific categories of SIOs.
Phase III of the study shall work towards triangulating the future need of talent in the social impact sector as well as co-creating a narrative of normative in talent management practices with key stakeholders in the sector through a series of convenings/ workshops and dialogues. Both these pieces will draw heavily from research topics pursued in Phase I and II of the study.
