The war for talent is a term coined by

Steven Hankin Stephen or Steven is a common English first name. It is particularly significant to Christians, as it belonged to Saint Stephen ( grc-gre, Στέφανος ), an early disciple and deacon who, according to the Book of Acts, was stoned to death; ...

McKinsey & Company McKinsey & Company is a global management consulting firm founded in 1926 by University of Chicago professor James O. McKinsey, that offers professional services to corporations, governments, and other organizations. McKinsey is the oldest and ...

in 1997, an
a book
by Ed Michaels, Helen Handfield-Jones, and Beth Axelrod,

Harvard Business Press Harvard Business Publishing was founded in 1994 as a not-for-profit, wholly owned subsidiary of Harvard University (distinct from Harvard University Press), with a focus on improving business management practices. The company consists of three ...

, 2001 . The war for talent refers to an increasingly competitive landscape for recruiting and retaining talented

employees Employment is a relationship between two parties regulating the provision of paid labour services. Usually based on a contract, one party, the employer, which might be a corporation, a not-for-profit organization, a co-operative, or any othe ...

. In the book, Michaels, et al., describe not a set of superior

Human Resources Human resources (HR) is the set of people who make up the workforce of an organization, business sector, industry, or economy. A narrower concept is human capital, the knowledge and skills which the individuals command. Similar terms include m ...

processes, but a ''

mindset Mindset is an "established set of attitudes, esp. regarded as typical of a particular group's social or cultural values; the outlook, philosophy, or values of a person; (now also more generally) frame of mind, attitude, ecte: anddisposition." ...

'' that emphasizes the importance of '' talent'' to the success of

organizations An organization or organisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is an entity—such as a company, an institution, or an association—comprising one or more people and having a particular purpose. The word is derived from ...

Demographic

The ''war for talent'' is intensified by demographic shifts (primarily in the United States and Europe). This is characterized by increasing demand along with decreasing supply (demographically). There are simply fewer post- baby-boom workers to replace the baby-boom retirement in the US and Europe (though this is not the case in most of

East Asia East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea and ...

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...

Central America Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...

, or the

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...

;

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russ ...

also tends to have similar demographics, namely an aging and/or shrinking labor force).

Knowledge work

While '' talent'' is vague or ill-defined, the underlying assumption is that for knowledge-intensive industries, the

knowledge worker Knowledge workers are workers whose main capital is knowledge. Examples include programmers, physicians, pharmacists, architects, engineers, scientists, design thinkers, public accountants, lawyers, editors, and academics, whose job is to "thin ...

(a term coined by

Peter Drucker Peter Ferdinand Drucker (; ; November 19, 1909 – November 11, 2005) was an Austrian-American management consultant, educator, and author, whose writings contributed to the philosophical and practical foundations of the modern business co ...

) is the key competitive resource (see the Resource-based view of the firm). Knowledge-based theories of organizations consistently place knowledge workers as a primary, competitive resource.

Definition of ''talent''

Talent is never explicitly defined in the book, though the Preface notes, "A certain part of talent elude description: You simply know it when you see it." (p. xii) After several further caveats, the authors go on: "We can say, however, that managerial talent is some combination of a sharp strategic mind, leadership ability, emotional maturity, communications skills, the ability to attract and inspire other talented people,

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...

ial instincts, functional skills, and the ability to deliver results." (p. xiii) The authors offer no outside support for this assertion. A 2006 article in ''

The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Econo ...

'', which mentions the book, notes that, "companies do not even know how to define “talent”, let alone how to manage it. Some use it to mean people like Aldous Huxley's alphas in “

Brave New World ''Brave New World'' is a dystopian novel by English author Aldous Huxley, written in 1931 and published in 1932. Largely set in a futuristic World State, whose citizens are environmentally engineered into an intelligence-based social hierarch ...

”—those at the top of the bell curve. Others employ it as a synonym for the entire workforce, a definition so broad as to be meaningless."

Relevance during economic downturn

The War for talent'' is seen by various sources as becoming irrelevant during economic downturns. However, there have been highly visible talent poaching by solvent firms of others who have economic hardship (e.g.,

JP Morgan JPMorgan Chase & Co. is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered in New York City and incorporated in Delaware. As of 2022, JPMorgan Chase is the largest bank in the United States, the wo ...

was raided by a European firm in March, 2009).

References

External links