This chapter will discuss the conclusions drawn from the findings of the study. It will attempt to link the findings to the literature around talent management discussed in chapter three of the study. The chapter will close with a list of tangible recommendations for the City of Cape Town municipality to guide their future implementation of talent management strategies.
6.1 Conclusions
The study’s ‘research partners’ provided varying responses that led to the conclusion that people in management have not “put their fingers on the talent management pulse” of the City of Cape Town at the time of the study. Simply put, it is generally an acceptable standard within talent management landscape that management should keep turnover in check and devise means to curb this ever-worsening phenomenon in the public service.
It has been evident throughout the literature visited in Chapter 3 that effective talent management means all managers in an organisation on board. Ibarra (2005) has come on to strongly advocate for succession planning that the researcher feels the City of Cape Town should attempt to implement some of his strategies around this.
Talent management faces a serious problem here because once these employees leave, they depart with immense institutional knowledge and experience that they should have shared through processes like succession planning and career management as scholars like Ibarra (2005), Meyer & Botha (2004) and others have suggested in the literature chapter of this study.
55% and 45% of the research participants respectively, on the system for talent identification system at the City does leave one with no option but to safely conclude that communication and certainly the selling of new processes at the City of Cape Town is not done appropriately or effectively. Thus, the fact that 55% of the research participants denied such a system is testimony to suggest that City’s internal communications need to improve to ensure smooth flow of information within the
“The small local authority have the challenges that the bigger local authority has because like the City of Cape Town for example it so big, it has 23 000 people, we’ve got so many depots and work stations, you got a tremendous structure...so the integration and the interaction at the various levels is very bureaucratic...”
What comes out from the above response is the fact that bureaucracy at the City of Cape Town is worsened by the size of the organisation and this makes the implementation of talent management to be exposed to problems.
6.2 Recommendations
It has been stated earlier that research question 6 will be utilised primary to inform the recommendations in this subsection. The following are the recommendations that this study would like the management of the City of Cape Town to consider.
It is worth noting here that, the move by the City of Cape Town to form partnerships like CHEC is a commendable move worth replicating around all municipalities in South Africa. Forums like CHEC are essential for municipalities like the City of Cape Town to assist in the early identification of key talent suitable for their employ.
It has also been evident throughout the research that exit interviews ought to be conducted for each and every employee lost to the City of Cape Town to avoid speculation on the reasons why people leave. Head of departments and line managers should be instrumental in taking the lead in these interviews and maintain records in their departments.
It is highly recommended here that City of Cape Town needs to look at the issue of work life balance as a matter of urgency. It became apparent in the study that one of factors leading to talent loss at the City is the fact that employees felt stressed that they could not handle the pressures of the job and that impacted on their families.
This can be achieved by regular interviews by managers on job evaluation and
In the domain of talent management, the HR professionals at the City of Cape Town must be active in the management of this process. The City should achieve this by making sure that HR professionals handling the domain of talent management should have capabilities like; able to design reward systems; able to shape the organisation;
able to craft a culture; able to enact and personalise a culture in their departments.
The study also recommends that the City of Cape Town be broken down into multi talent pools as it has been observed that its size does hamper the management of the talent management domain. This will enable the City to train and appoint “talent managers” in different units within the municipality. On this recommendation, one respondent suggested:
“We should go back to the previous method where we worked in what we called the 7 Administrations which made up what is now the inner city, that worked more efficiently because everybody knew everybody to a certain extent, you could go to your lower level of workers, they understood the processes, the organisation has 25 000 employees and it’s too big, so communication channels break down”.
It is also recommended that the City of Cape Town appoint some of the research participants in spearheading talent pools mentioned above as it is the belief of the researcher that since they have provided suggestions regarding talent management at the City of Cape Town, they may be beneficial in the implementation of their suggestions.
The above recommendation will then lead to the formulation and implementation of a talent retention strategy that will be adopted by the different “talent managers” form the multifaceted units and departments within the municipality.
The study wishes to recommend a follow up research study to be conducted that will look at the implementation barriers of talent management at the City of Cape Town as embodied in the Integrated Talent Management initiative discussed in chapter four
Moreover, future research that this study recommends is the possibility researching on the succession planning and management at the City of Cape Town or local government in general as it is increasing becoming evident that different municipalities around the country engage retirees.
On numerous occasions during the data collection process, the researcher had to explain what TM is all about. The study wishes to finally recommend further research on assessing competencies of handling TM of senior managers and managers in local government in South Africa.
In conclusion, it will be wise to close this study with the suggestions of one of the ardent researchers in the talent management domain in Rothwell & Kazanas cited in Dijk, (2009:528) who have suggested the following steps that can assist the City of Cape Town and local government in general to create talent management strategies that would link individual competence to organisational success. The steps are:
• formulate the talent objectives, including a review of current talent initiatives;
• examine the leadership of the organisation to determine its commitment towards talent management (and the extent to which intention towards talent development and retention is reflected in all administrative structures and processes);
• review the organisational structure to determine whether talent will be supported;
• review performance and reward systems to determine whether talent will be encouraged;
• budget for resources to implement the talent strategy;
• communicate organisational intent towards talent attraction, development and retention;
• develop functional objectives for talent implementation.
It is the sincere hope and belief of the researcher that these self explanatory steps, once followed and made suitable for the City of Cape Town municipality, will go a long way in ensuring that the City manages talent to continue deliver services to the local population.