Banking on talent. Talent Management within the Swedish banking sector

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to describe and compare the Talent Management initiative as it portrays in three major Swedish banks This is achieved by reviewing academic literature on the subject and by conducting interviews with Talent Management practitioners from each of the three banks. The first section presents the basis of the thesis and what our main focus is. We describe why Talent Management is an engaging subject and what is interesting about it in the banking sector. In section two we conduct a literature review where we present previous research work on the topic. The third section presents the methodology used by the authors to complete the thesis. Section four presents the results of our interviews. In section five we discuss the empirical results in comparison to the literature. The sixth section has our conclusions and suggestions for further research. Our empirical results show that one of the main reasons of starting a TM initiative at the studied banks is to ensure qualitative succession for key positions in the company. The current focus appears to be on potential executives at the group level. The banks, although differing in exactly how TM and TA are executed, all use a rigorous selection process to ensure that the candidates participating has the required talent to succeed. Finally, all banks focus their evaluation on what talents to enrol in the programs while measurements concerning the programs’ impact are left hanging. Our study provides valuable implications to HR-practitioners; it highlights the perceived value of TM as seen by those working with it, it points out that it is indeed difficult to measure TM’s impact, and that finding a way to do this effectively is key to see whether or not it adds value to the business strategy or not.