EVALUATING TALENT PROGRAMMES: SOME ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS
Stephen Swailes,
Professor of Human Resource Management, The BusinessSchool,
University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield, HD1 3DH
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Working paper submitted to the Leadership and Management Development track of the UFHRD Conference, Universidade Lusiada de Vila Nova Famalicao, Portugal, May 2012
EVALUATING TALENT PROGRAMMES: SOME ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS
Abstract
The growing literature on talent management has been mostly silent in relation to the ethical questions and problems that it can lead to. After summarising the idea of organizational talent, this paper applies a range of ethical theories to the operation of talent programmes and in doing so develops a framework for ethical evaluation. The framework could influence the design of talent programmes by human resource practitioners and hopefully will lead to further ethical analysis in this area.
INTRODUCTION
Talent management fits with a ‘hard’ view of HRM; take the best employees and give them special training and development to maximise their contribution to the organization. First brought to popular attention in The War for Talent (Michaels, Handfield-Jones and Axelrod, 1997), the topic now has a substantial following that has gathered pace in both practitioner and academic literatures in recent years (Berger and Berger, 2004; Bjorkman, Fey and Park, 2007; Collings and Mellahi, 2009; Iles, Preece and Chuai, 2011; Lewis and Heckman, 2006; Lorsch and Tierney, 2004; Ready and Conger, 2007; Tarique and Schuler, 2010).
Interest in talent is maintained by discourses of scarcity as leading companies continue to report that finding and keeping ‘top talent’ is difficult (Beechler and Woodward, 2009; Ready and Conger, 2007; Towers Watson 2011; World Economic Forum, 2011). Despite the expanding literature on talent, however, we have not found any papers that deal specifically with the ethical issues and concerns that arise when talent programmes are implemented. There has been progress in understanding the ethics of HRM in general and of the biasing factors in particular HRM practices (Greenwood, 2002; Legge, 1999; Pinnington, Macklin and Campbell, 2007; Winstanley and Woodall, 2000a) but, so far, the ethics of focussing on an elite group of high potential and performing employees has been overlooked.
As such, this paper aims to initiate a debate around the ethics of talent. The contribution of the paper is to show how a range of ethical frameworks widely used in business ethics can be used to analyse elitist approaches to talent management as a way of helping practitioners make decisions about the systems they are designing or operating. The paper first establishes what is meant by talent management before turning to an ethical analysis of practice. The paper is pluralistic in relation to the ethical frameworks considered since the aim is to provide HR practitioners with ideas for talent programme evaluation rather than advocate any particular ethical viewpoint. A framework for the ethical evaluation of talent management is developed which can be used to guide organizational decisions relating to programme design.
Talent and talent management
Despite some ‘terminological ambiguity’ around its meaning (Tansley, 2011) the common denominator that links descriptions of talent is that the talented deliver or have the potential to deliver a much greater contribution to the business compared to others (Lubitsh et al., 2007). ‘High performance’ and ‘high potential’ are commonly associated with talent (eg., Collings and Mellahi, 2009; Farndale, Scullion and Sparrow, 2010; Lubitsh et al., 2007; Makela, Bjorkman and Ehrnrooth, 2010, Tarique and Schuler, 2010) and, although the meaning of ‘high’ is left to the organization, it usually represents the top few per cent of employees in a particular grade who, if they left, would be hard to replace.
Talent management in contrast relates to a set of processes concerning ‘the strategic management of the flow of talent through an organization’ (Iles, Preece and Chuai (2011, 127) involving the selection, development and deployment of high value people (CIPD, 2009). Linked to the identification of individuals is the identification of the strategically important positions that they will occupy (Collings and Mellahi, 2009). Talent programmes typically involve the modelling of organizational images of talent and evaluation against them. Selected participants experience a formal programme that typically includes teamwork, job rotation, self-development and executive mentoring(Gupta and Wasylyshyn, 2009). In all, the talented can enjoy a different ‘human resource architecture’ to that experienced by the majority of the workforce (Collins and Mellahi, 2009).
ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS
Dehumanizing
As a Working Paper we simply note that excluding employees from talent programmes could be seen as suppressing opportunities to express individual identity and authenticity. If the excluded are harmed by exclusion then there is an ethical problem and talent management could be seen as dehumanising if it denies individual human agency (Haslam, 2006). The excluded may simply respond by doing what they think the organization expects of them which is to underperform.
Because in-group members can attribute more ‘human essence’ to their in-group associates and consider people in outgroups as less human (Leyens et al, 2003), the particular nature of separation used in talent management, praising ‘stars’ while downplaying the contributions of others, enhance the potential for division (Pfeffer, 2001).
Fairness
Assessment of performance and potential lies at the heart of talent identification yet is prone to biasing effects. These include rater involvement in previous appointments (Schoorman, 1988); impression management (Wayne and Liden, 1995) interpersonal regard or liking (Lefkowitz, 2000), internal politics (Buckley at al, 2001; Longnecker and Ludwig, 1990) and the social and geographic distance between raters and ratees (Mellahi and Collings, 2010). Particular appraisal schemes create a construction of the individual that has meaning for the organization (Townley, 1993) and that meaning may relegate the individual’s distinctive attributes and thus suppress the talents that they want to demonstrate. Unless individual expression fits with the organizational ideal then it is in danger of being overlooked. Only when individuality resonates with organizational descriptions of talent does it stand a chance of being recognised.
The masculine nature of management (Miller, 2009) presents another threat to the progress of women as the potential to hold future leadership positions is a central feature of talent searches. Leadership is traditionally described in masculine terms (Billing and Alvesson, 2000), elevating the value of characteristics such as being tough, competitive, analytical, unemotional and task-oriented. The way people talk influences how they are seen and the context of where they talk influences a person’s perceived fit in that context and hence their perceived talent. Women use different speech practices to men and in leadership situations their talk is more likely to reflect and accommodate the concerns of others (Baxter, 2011). As leadership is masculine, and since leadership potential is a component of talent searches, then talent searches appear to have an in-built bias towards men. Other potential biases to note are personal attractiveness (Hamermesh and Biddle, 1994; Biddle and Hamermesh, 1998), attractive personality and high standards of personal grooming (Robins, Homer and French, 2011). The implications for organizations in this respect are clear – to recognize multiple sources of bias and counteract them as much as possible.
Ethical tests of talent management
Opportunities for employee development form part of the overall package of care from employers and talent management can be seen as a special case of caring for a small cohort of high achievers. In selecting an elite group for special treatment an employer could be accused of favouring one group over others and this becomes a problem if it is considered that it is not showing equal responsibilities to all. However, the use of talent development programmes could equally be considered to be a case of the organization discharging its common responsibilities to all because it is doing everything it can to enable the talented to demonstrate their powers the outcomes of which should benefit the majority. Indeed, it could be argued that an organization was failing in its duty of responsibility if it did not prioritise high potential employees and single them out for special treatment.
Duty ethics
Kant’s duty ethics (eg., Altman, 2007) associate moral worth with doing the right thing and doing it only because it is right and so exploring the interests that lie behind elite talent programmes gives an insight into their moral worth. In considering the rights and wrongs of talent management, using talent management to benefit the organization does not itself justify the act. Kant would ask whether talent management is right or wrong in itself; the consequences of talent management to the organization, even if positive, are unimportant from this point of view. The selection of an elite would cause problems in judging it a right thing to do but this judgement would be moderated by the goodwill or intention behind the act.
When organizations implement management development programmes they are perhaps influenced by thoughts of improving operational performance. They may also be concerned that high impact employees will leave if they feel that they are not invested in. There may also be external pressures and influences to provide management development such as benchmarking or from external quality audits and reviews. Being able to demonstrate training and development strategies for high performers also helps to boost the organization’s image in the labour market and is an important part of the concept of employer branding (Berthon, Ewing and Hah, 2005; Younger and Smallwood, 2007).
There may, therefore, be a strong element of self-interest running through the motivations and intentions to develop individual employees and, as such, a large part of employee development provision would fail the pure Kantian test of doing things only because they are right; that is, ‘for the sake of duty not simply in accordance with duty’ (Legge, 1999, p156). If the intention is to raise prosperity for all employees then the organization would be considered as doing the right thing and further questions arising from duty ethics considerations are; would you want other, similar organizations to operate a talent programme in this way (the rule of universality), would you want to be included in a talent programme like this one (the rule of reversibility) and are people in the programme being treated as ends not means to an end (rule of respect for humans). Any ‘no’ answers to these questions compromise talent programmes in terms of duty ethics considerations. Kantian ethics, with their emphasis on pure reason, however present difficulties for management practitioners who have to deal with the pragmatics of organizational competition and survival (Winstanley and Woodall, 2000b).
Virtue ethics
Virtue ethics (Hartman, 2008; Solomon, 1992) are more concerned with a person’s character than with rules and utilise the Aristotelean notion of ‘practical wisdom’ which, in business ethics, can be taken to mean making decisions, which are shaped by past experience, in relation to goals and for the betterment of an organization and/or its stakeholders. Classical virtues are very practical in the way that they influence a person’s decisions and behaviour (MacIntyre, 1985) and include courage, fairness and temperance and, in a business context, can be extended to include being technically competent, moral, caring and hard working (Whetstone, 2003), By allowing morality and self-interest to occur together, virtue ethics provide a different perspective on the morality of elitist talent management.
Virtue ethics emphasise the notion of flourishing as the highest good and in the context of modern organizations flourishing can be seen as the actualisation, by individuals, of certain behaviours as might be expressed in the ways that the competences and capabilities of the talented are expressed. These can include the ability to develop other people, the ability to take courageous decisions that consider the interests of others and the ability to come through regular tests of character. The ‘talented’ can be seen as that vital few who provide leadership and future betterment to a majority of the workforce. They are the aristocracy in the sense that aristocracy means being led by the ‘best’ people; best in this case meaning the most virtuous. While individuals in elite talent development schemes may be there in part to pursue their own ambitions for power and wealth, so long as these motivations are tempered by the primary virtues of courage, justice and moderation then they are morally good (Sorrell and Hendry, 1994). Indeed, an organization in effect uses its own descriptions of talent to associate itself with leadership of a certain character.
The Aristotelean rule that something is ethical if it allows the full development of a person’s inherent potential could cast elite talent management in a favourable light but it is constrained by work-life balance, ie, what is happening in the person’s total life-world. If, in order to continually perform at a high level, a person’s work rate is so high as to damage their health or their relationships with their dependents such that they begin to manipulate others to meet their targets then there are ethical problems as their once virtuous behaviour is compromised. A further requirement for Virtue ethics is that people do really have the potentialities that can be developed and that they can be identified. It is here where an organization’s description of talent (eg in a competency framework) and its ability to fairly assess people against the framework fall into sharp focus. Organizations should ask to what extent their descriptions of talent, albeit shaped by particular operating cultures and norms, match generally accepted schema of virtues in business contexts (eg., Whetstone, 2003).
Distributive justice
Distributive justice theory (Rawls, 1972) which is based on the primacy of justice in societies and social organizations provides another way of looking at elitist talent management. From a Rawlsian perspective, talent management can be seen as a way of distributing development opportunities on the basis of each person’s contribution to the organization. It seems likely, , that some employees who are excluded from opportunities might feel that they have worked just as hard but somehow failed to be recognised and so consider that they have suffered an injustice. Rawls’ position would be, however, that most people would not object to some inequity so long as the inequality (in this case having more social and economic benefits) is not based upon the efforts of those who are excluded from a talent programme. For our purposes, so long as employees in a talent programme benefit from their own efforts and contributions, and not because of the efforts and contributions of others, then a talent programme fits with distributive justice theory. Furthermore, for the majority to accept a level of ‘conditional inequality’ and provide their cooperation, it is necessary for everyone to benefit in some way (Hosmer, 1987), for example through enhanced job security. In this arrangement, inequalities would be working for the benefit of all, including some who might be considered low performers or those who are in jobs that have very limited potential to contribute to the economic growth of the organization where talent is much less likely to be identified, for example, part-time, low-skilled employees.
Another feature of distributive justice is the ‘equal opportunity’ principle such that people would not agree that some groups should have more opportunity to develop their talents than others (Schumann, 2001). As this is about equal opportunity not equal distribution of outcomes, the implication for talent programme designers is to ask, even though most employees fall outside the programme, is the organization providing opportunities for them to develop their talents and abilities? Although they are not in the talent pool, is the organization providing opportunities relative to their position, contribution and potential? Rawls’ ‘difference principle’ can also be used to inform talent management decisions. This says that people with above normal talents and abilities should help others who are in need up to the point that further help would make everyone worse-off (Schumann, 2001). For this paper, the implication is that the resources put into a talent programme should not exceed the point beyond which those excluded are disadvantaged. This could happen, for example, if an organization spends all its training and development budget on an elite group leaving nothing for the majority.
Stakeholder theory and Utilitarianism
Returning to the question of the extent to which employers have a moral responsibility to their employees, stakeholder theory (Freeman, 1984; Greenwood and Freeman, 2011; Stieb, 2009) is useful. Stakeholder theory relies on the principle that managers have duties towards all parties (stakeholders) that have interests (as defined by a level of risk) in the organization. Stakeholder theory is a close relation to Act Utilitarian approaches to ethical evaluation (Collett, 2010) as Utilitarianism is based on the assessment of the amount of good and harm that would be done to different constituents when decisions are made. The act that maximises benefits over harm, taking everyone into account, and thus maximises utility is the one that should be carried out even though some parties might be harmed (Snoeyenbos and Humber, 2002).