Managing innovative talents

Abstract: Innovation is the means for successful implementation of new ideas in the company to produce materials, processes, outputs, or services which are new to the company. The vision of any innovation driven company is accomplished with a good inflow of innovative talents blessed with the capabilities of thinking out of box and generating new ideas with the entrepreneurial mindset. Thereby, managing innovative talents i.e. identifying, attracting, engaging, and retaining innovative talents is of prime importance to companies. Previous research has mostly focused on talent management, employee attractiveness and retention strategies from a general perspective and not specifically focusing on innovative talents. This study aims to study the practices used by well-known companies work to identify, attract, engage, and retain innovative employees with the help of different enablers and company elements like culture, employer branding, talent management and the company/management structure. It is built on mini case studies of ten companies identifying themselves as innovative as well as interviews from three experts. Using qualitative research techniques, the study analyzes the perspectives of the HR/Employer Branding Manager, Innovation Managers, and Innovative Talents from the case companies to understand how they work with innovation and talent management. These perspectives are compared across the different case companies as well as within a single company. The findings indicate that all the surveyed case companies recognize the importance of innovation and work with it in varying degrees. Also, there are noticeable similarities and differences that can be observed among the case companies when classified according to their innovation maturity. Further, differences are also observed to be present in the perceptions of the different personnel within the same organization with regards to the research questions in the study. The findings of this study offer a basis for future research to create a more comprehensive study of strategies to identify, attract, engage, and retain innovative talents with a global presence, comprising quantitative methods and an in-depth exploration of innovation. Further, the findings of the study can be used as a general guide for established as well as new companies aiming to work with innovation and managing innovative talents effectively.