Inclusive Talent Management: Model Building and Underpinning

This working paper, presented at the HRD Conference in 2014, delves into the concept of inclusive talent management. It challenges the traditional exclusive approach by proposing a definition of inclusive talent management, grounded in positive psychology and the Capability Approach. The paper introduces a four-part typology of talent management strategies, aiming to provide conceptual clarity for researchers. It explores the practical implications of inclusive talent management, emphasizing a shift from focusing on a select few to recognizing and developing the talents of all employees. The paper addresses the need for a more inclusive and socially responsible approach to human resource development, contrasting it with the functionalist tradition that underpins exclusive talent strategies. It defines key terms, such as 'inclusive' and 'talent,' and advocates for organizations to make genuine efforts to elicit the talents of all their employees. It considers the challenges of implementing such strategies, especially in large organizations and calls for a more comprehensive approach to talent management. The paper contributes to the field by offering a theoretical framework and practical insights into fostering a more inclusive and equitable talent development strategy.

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Inclusive talent management: model building and theoretical underpinning
Working paper to the Leadership, Management and Talent Development track.
HRD Conference, June 4-6th 2014, Edinburgh Napier University
Stephen Swailes & Yvonne Downs
University of Huddersfield, Queensgate, Huddersfield, HD1 3DH, UK
Contact details
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Inclusive talent management: model building and theoretical underpinning
Abstract
This paper explores the concept of inclusive talent management. By examining what ‘inclusive’
could mean in relation to talent, the paper proposes a definition of inclusive talent management
which is subsequently located in the traditions of positive psychology and the Capability Approach.
A four-part typology of talent management strategies is suggested which offers greater conceptual
clarity to researchers working in this field. The practical implications of inclusive talent
management are considered.
Introduction
Talent management is usually seen as an exclusive practice that focuses on the development of a
small proportion of high performing and high potential employees (Gallardo-Gallardo, Dries &
Gonzales-Cruz 2013). Exclusive discourses talk about talent pools and talent pipelines and of a
workforce differentiated based on ability and contribution (Axelrod, Handfield-Jones & Michaels
2002; Boudreau & Ramstad 2005; Makela, Bjorkman & Ehrnrooth 2010; Stahl et al. 2012). Indeed,
if talent management is not defined as an exclusive and distinctive strategic human resource
management process then there seems little to set it apart from human resource management.
However, the talent literature also contains tantalising but relatively unexplored references to an
‘inclusive’ talent management approach.
The meaning of inclusive talent management remains ill-defined and vague, however, and
convincing examples are hard to find. One explanation (Stewart 2008) is that the philosophy and
practicalities of exclusive talent programmes are much easier to conceptualise and implement
being far smaller in scale and scope. Iles, Preece & Chuai (2010, 127) noted that in inclusive
perspectives, ‘talent is often merely a synonym for staff’ such that talent, rather than referring to
relative ability, refers to people and thus assumes a completely different meaning. This is the case
in some of the earlier practitioner literature which speaks of focusing on each employee’s natural
talent as a way of eliciting their full potential (Ashton & Morton 2005; Buckingham & Vosburgh
2001).
One possible reason why inclusive talent strategies evade detection is alluded to above (Stewart
2008) namely that inclusive talent management is a chimera; a mythical entity far too implausible
to exist. To distinguish talent management more carefully from related areas such as strategic
human resource management, the field needs better theoretical positioning (Gallardo-Gallardo et
al. 2013) including specific consideration of inclusive, multi-level approaches (Thunnissen, Boselie
and Fruytier 2013). In response, this paper unpicks some of the terminology used in the talent

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literature to show that the concept of inclusive talent management need not be a chimera, but that
it does require a fundamentally different interpretation of ‘talent’ if scholars and practitioners are to
make sense of it in relation to exclusive approaches. Informed by the traditions of positive
psychology, the virtuous organization and the Capability Approach and a new four-part typology of
talent management, this paper moves towards a model of inclusive talent management. Through
an uncompromising focus on bettering the human condition, we deliberately provoke the
functionalist tradition that underpins exclusive talent strategies. The practical implications of
implementing a fully inclusive talent strategy are considered and the main contribution of the paper
is to offer greater theoretical definition to an elusive but attractive and socially responsible
approach to human resource development.
Defining key terms
Two interpretations of ‘inclusive’ need considering. One is that everyone has the opportunity to be
included in a talent programme and this may require positive action to equalise the opportunities
for disadvantaged or underrepresented groups of people from a range of backgrounds to show
their potential. This approach has implications for the ways that talent is identified. For example,
over and above routine performance appraisal systems, separate assessment processes may be
needed to identify a person’s current capability and future potential. While such approaches are
inclusive in that they provide opportunities for all people to demonstrate their talents, this road to
inclusivity leads back to exclusive talent programmes because the majority of employees are
excluded from the final cut. Inclusivity, in this sense, means giving everyone the same opportunity
to show their potential, but only those who exceed the threshold will be included in a talent
programme. The second meaning of ‘inclusive’ is that everyone is deemed to have talent of some
sort and should therefore have access to programmes that develop their talent. This meaning of
inclusive is used here; we are dealing with inclusive participation, not inclusive opportunity.
Talent management is commonly defined as the accelerated development of a small proportion of
employees, distinguished by their above average performance and potential for promotion, and
who have the potential to make substantial further contributions to the business and the alignment
of these employees with key (strategically important) roles (Collings & Mellahi 2009; Iles et al.
2010). Such strategies invoke practices that deliberately exclude; that separate people into in and
out groups, and into categories of high and low value. In contrast, inclusive strategies would imply
practices which are deliberately comprehensive, which involve curiosity and open mindedness and
are infused with an egalitarian philosophy of mind.
Exclusive talent strategies differ from human resource management by focussing on a minority of
employees not the entire workforce, by focussing on personal and career development not the full
spectrum of human resource management activities, and by focussing on people only for so long

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as they are in a talent pool. In defining talent management in this way it is important to note that
elitist strategies do not necessarily overlook or ignore other employee groups in the organization,
but they do appear to fit much more easily with cultures that value the segregation of employees
based on their relative potential and value. Development schemes may exist for other ability
groups albeit free of the ‘talent’ label’. Furthermore, organizations are free to define and operate
talent management in any way they choose, even if those definitions and operationalizations do
little to separate them from conventional human resource management.
Talent, in contrast, is seen as both a characteristic of a person as well as what that characteristic
produces. Feist (2013, 259), for instance, described ‘innate or natural talent’ as ‘genetically based
differences in physiological or neurological systems’. These differences exist in genes, motor co-
ordination and neural processing that affect a range of skill sets and cognitive abilities across a
wide range of activities. The scientific community is just beginning to understand the biological and
psychological bases of different talents (see Kaufman, 2013) but it is sufficient to focus here on
what talent leads to and how it manifests rather than what causes it. Trost (2000, 317), for
example, saw talent as, ‘achievement far above average’ implying that talent is found only in the
top few per cent in a particular age group in a particular domain. Gagne (2000, 67) defined talent,
or specifically what it leads to, more precisely as, ‘the superior mastery of systematically developed
abilities (or skills) and knowledge in at least one field of human activity, to a degree that places an
individual within the top 10% of age peers who are (or who have been) active in that field’. The
crucial concept here is the systematic development of abilities which in organizational situations is
usually delivered through tailored training and development interventions; talent and training are
mutually reinforcing (Feist, 2013, 260). Gagne’s definition of talent is useful for the organizational
talent field and two aspects of his definition stand out. The first is that talent is relative to others so
that only those persons possessing high levels of some ability can meaningfully be seen as
talented. Second, talent is displayed in a particular domain which may be very narrow.
Defining inclusive talent management
Relativistic definitions of talent alone could put an end to the search for inclusive talent
management. In large organizations, since talented employees can only exist in relation to others
in the workforce, then the vast majority of employees cannot be considered as talented; by
definition. Therefore inclusive talent management is a chimera; the entire workforce cannot be an
‘all star cast’. But this line of reasoning is incomplete. If the horizon is expanded so that the talent
in a workforce is compared with the talent available in a wider labour market, then in theory at
least, it is possible for an entire workforce to be talented in relation to that labour market if only
people who are in the top few per cent of an ability group relevant to their role are recruited.
Examples might occur in professional sports teams where only athletes who display the highest

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levels of performance in their field are recruited such that the whole team is truly talented in
relation to all others.
It may be possible for small businesses to fill all positions with top talent if the particular domain
skills are known and in short supply; perhaps in start-up businesses in new technology fields.
However, for large, established organizations the size of the labour market they recruit from must
mean that the top 10% benchmark to recruit against can only be approximated. Coupled with the
presence of long-serving employees who have fallen below the organizational threshold for talent it
seems implausible that a large workforce comprising only of people in the top few per cent of ability
groups could exist. It seems inevitable therefore that medium to large organizations will have a
workforce that is very diverse in terms of ratings given to individual performance and potential.
Organizations can attempt to ‘refresh’ their talent base through restructuring, voluntary redundancy
schemes or the increased use of fixed-term contracts but , even so, inclusive talent management
defined as employing only top talent would appear to be very difficult to achieve in anything but
small organizations.
There is, however, another way of looking at talent that needs considering which rests on the
assumption that all (or at least most) employees are or could be talented given sufficient training
and opportunity. This might be seen as rather optimistic, but recall that talent is highly domain-
specific and the domains in which many people might display their talents may not be of use to the
organization they work for. A gifted rose-grower may be a very ordinary employee in their day job.
As such, an approach to inclusive talent management would be for organizations to make genuine
efforts to elicit the talents of all their employees; shifting the HRD emphasis away from
performance towards learning. This would enable employees to reveal the full extent of their work-
related abilities even if they fall outside the top ten per cent threshold but at least in this scenario
the employees’ abilities are being recognised to the full. The organizational challenge then
becomes one of fitting all employees into jobs which enable their talents, albeit below the top ten
per cent, to connect to those jobs. This way a person’s ability, whatever that may be, is being used
to the maximum.
This idealistic approach is what organizations, through line managers, could do to discharge their
obligations to all employees. Furthermore, it is necessary to consider those employees who are
deemed to have little talent of use to an organization. This might arise from the decline across a
person’s tenure of talent previously possessed or simply bad hiring decisions. Employees in this
position may be able to perform acceptably in their jobs but their talents that would separate them
from others lie dormant or are suppressed. It is necessary therefore to ask companies to intervene
to support and enable employees in this category to move to positions outside the organization
where their talent will fit far better with some other activity. In this, even more idealistic, situation we
can begin to see what inclusive talent management might look like. It is inclusive in that it is

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concerned with deploying the talents of all employees, in some cases this might mean
constructively helping an employee to exit the organization, but does not treat everyone as a high
performer with high potential.
As such, we propose the following definition of inclusive talent management. Fully inclusive talent
management is the recognition that all employees have talent together with the ongoing evaluation
and deployment of employees in positions that give the best fit and opportunity for employees to
use those talents. Where an employee’s talents are mutually deemed to fall below reasonable
thresholds that the organization has democratically, not arbitrarily, set and adopted the
organization should assist the employee to deploy their talents elsewhere.
Only if this second stage is attempted can a scheme be considered to be fully inclusive. Inclusive
has to mean everyone; no groups can be ignored in the management of talent. Seen in this light
inclusive talent management is not a chimera but neither is it simply a broadening of the elitist
stance except, potentially, in the small-scale scenarios noted above. This clarification is important
because it helps to prevent the use of imprecise terminology in the literature on organizational
talent.
If the suggested definition is useful to both academic and practitioner communities then it will help
to guide research into the ways that inclusive talent management is being, or could be,
implemented. However, it is not a ‘soft-touch’. If an employee does not respond to efforts to identify
and deploy their talents to best effect then it is legitimate for organizations to initiate performance
management interventions and it is legitimate for an employee to continue in a job that under-
utilises their talents so long they want to and so long as their contribution is acceptable to the
organization – but inclusive talent management does compel the organization to try to evaluate
talents in the first place.
The chimeral nature of inclusive talent management is therefore shaped by how talent is defined.
Compared to the inclusive approach, conventional exclusive talent programmes are in practice
only delivering partial talent management since they only focus on a small part of the workforce
although, arguably, a much larger share of the available talent of immediate use to the
organization. Inclusive talent management requires all employees to be embraced and this leads
us to ask how would inclusive talent management differ from a well-designed human resource
management system? The differences may be that, while human resource management would be
concerned with all employees all of the time, it would not usually reach so far as to explicitly assess
talent (regardless of the job a person does) and actively sort them into best-fit positions in the
organization (although some self-sorting will have occurred at the selection stage Fernandez &
Friedrich (2011), Rivera, 2012)). Nor would it usually be proactive in helping employees deemed to
have little fit to utilize their talent in another organization or vocation that will increase their level of

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functioning. Redundancy and severance packages along with performance management
interventions clearly help employees make a transition between one activity and another but they
are a poor relation to what is called for in fully inclusive talent management as shown above.
A typology of talent management
Even in organizations without a structured talent management programme a hidden talent
mechanism seems inevitable as it is inevitable that some people will get noticed more often than
others because of their contributions and their behaviour. Those who get noticed get tested-out
and those who respond will be given more opportunities and keep climbing. This latent strategy
emerges out of day-to-day operations and is essentially a strategy that relies on natural selection
since it favours people whose abilities allow them to adapt best to organizational conditions. Where
deliberate talent strategies are attempted in organizations, this analysis suggests four philosophies
of talent management with the different forms defined by the scope of talent searching and the
scope of employee inclusion.
1. Partial exclusive talent management is the dominant deliberate form. It is partial in the
sense that only small proportions of employees, for example cohorts of management
hopefuls, are included. It is also partial in relation to developing the totality of talent that the
organization has access to. It is exclusive in the sense that the majority of employees do
not get the chance to be included in search for talent. Conventional appraisal systems are
likely to be used to identify potential although additional assessment methods can be used,
for example, panel evaluations, psychometric testing and assessment centres.
2. Partial inclusive talent management is again partial because only a small proportion of
employees is eventually included in development programmes, but is initially much more
inclusive since talent scanning occurs across a much wider range of employees to identify
people who match the organization’s models and descriptions of talent. This form and the
partial exclusive form can be seen as ways of indirectly getting the best out of the excluded
classes through the provision of better leadership which results from immersion of the
‘talented’ in development programmes.
3. Fully inclusive talent management is as defined above. The organization puts systems in
place to recognise the full range of talent in the organization and to deploy talent according
to job fit which may mean assisting some people to benefit from alternative vocations. This
model engages with the totality (the fullness) of talent in an organization and with the
principle that those who need more help to function at their best get the help that they need.
4. Elite recruitment. This might be termed the ‘Ivy League’ strategy of only recruiting and
keeping people with demonstrable high potential. It is an extension of the idea of
‘topgrading’, ie, filling all key roles needed for strategic success with top talent. Widespread
use of fixed-term contracts may be used to control tenure. The need to implement

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conventional talent management programmes is diminished in organizations pursuing this
model since most employees are already at the top of their field. However, relativity will be
ever-present and, even in an Ivy League strategy, further differentiation into super-elites
and stars may happen as finer-grained organizational stratification occurs.
Theoretical positioning
Positive psychology
This treatment consideration of fully inclusive talent management moves us towards ‘a recent
strand in organizational theorising, focusing on understanding the ‘best’ of the human condition’
(Manz, Cameron, Manz & Marx 2008); namely positive psychology (Dries 2013; Mills, Fleck &
Kozikowski 2013). If organizations can demonstrate that they are sincere in their attempts to
enable identification and deployment of each employee’s strengths then a likely response by
employees is one of enhanced happiness, fulfilment and well-being among other positive affective
states. These feelings relate to improved assessments of the present by people and some, like
optimism, affect the individual’s assessment of their future (Peters & Seligman 2003).
As well as impacting on individuals, positivity has ethical implications for the organization. If, via
strategies for inclusive talent management, positive experiences become more widespread then
because the organization is showing greater responsibility to its employees and nurturing their
potential, and attempting to capture ‘the highest aspirations of human beings’, (Manz et al 2008, 3)
its behaviour becomes increasingly more virtuous. When talent management occurs for reasons of
improved organizational performance then it is less virtuous because the humanistic
developmental actions that go with it are not done for their own sake but for reasons of self-interest
(Swailes 2012). Fully inclusive talent management would be far more virtuous because it is done to
advance the well-being and fortunes of others, even though the organization may benefit from their
enhanced performance.
Inclusivity is a way in which organizations can discharge their obligations to all employees which
draws particular attention to minority groups in relation to talent searching (Smith 2001). While
definitions of talent are not in themselves discriminatory, the ways that talent programmes are
designed and implemented in organizations can be. For example, a multinational company that
sees foreign assignments as essential for the development of future leaders (Brooke 2012) could,
albeit unwittingly, be potentially discriminating against people who because of some personal
circumstance are less likely to volunteer for or able to complete foreign postings.
Exclusive talent management maps onto the deficit view of human functioning in organizations
through its reliance on the small proportion of employees who have talents highly congruent with

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helping to deliver what the organization wants to achieve. In contrast, a truly inclusive approach to
managing talent captures the Maslowian ideal that people have an in-built need to self-actualise as
a route to happiness brought about by the realization of their full potential. While largely overlooked
by organizational researchers who have pursued more easily defined and measured constructs,
happiness is an important component of the positive movement and is receiving serious academic
attention (Fisher 2010; Van de Voorde, Paauwe & Van Veldhoven 2012). Inclusive approaches fit
with the positive psychology movement through their emphasis on enabling all employees to
flourish. Positive psychology, and by implication inclusive talent management, relies on increasing
the amount of hope that employees have in imagining useful and desirable future outcomes
(Luthans and Jensen 2002). While hope could be dismissed as a wishy-washy construct, a
moment’s consideration reveals how strong an influence hope can have. Employees who feel that
they have no hope of promotion, no hope of getting out of a dysfunctional department or no hope
of doing a different job in the foreseeable future are likely to develop feelings of disaffection and
withdrawal cognitions.
The positive psychology movement is not without its doubters, however. Fineman (2006, 273)
questions whether a person’s positive inclinations should be taken as ‘immutable’ as positiveness
can be seen as just one expression of the self and positive narratives have ‘different meanings and
implications in different settings’. However, while it is easy to see that behaviour such as
whistleblowing can be portrayed as heroic or otherwise depending on whose interests are
considered, organizational behaviour that enables people to realise the potential of their innate and
practiced talents appears to have higher ethical foundation as it is hard to see it as anything other
than courageous and virtuous. Another rider for inclusivity is that positive and negative emotions
are ‘in a continual, dialectical relationship’ (Fineman 2006, 274) such that truly inclusive talent
management will not necessarily produce states of happiness for all employees all of the time
while their talents are being realised. For example, the process of talent identification may involve
some stressful occasions for individuals that lead to negative emotions such as doubt and
pessimism that, ideally but not necessarily, metamorphose eventually into energy, belonging and a
better self-understanding (Craib 1994).
Capability Approach
Fully inclusive talent management also draws conceptual and theoretical support from the
Capability Approach which offers radical new insights to the talent domain (Downs & Swailes
2013). The Capability Approach does not tell us what inclusive talent management is, but it does
help to conceptualize it and offers information about how to evaluate inclusive talent management
in practice. It can therefore be used both for evaluating existing programmes and the degree to
which they might be considered inclusive and for developing fully inclusive talent programmes.

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In essence, the Capability Approach concerns itself with the freedoms people have to live lives
they value and have reason to value. It is in this sense a normative theory and the freedom to
achieve well-being and self-respect is a moral imperative. It does not specify what would be
necessary to achieve these things because it recognises difference and diversity and the fact that
once people have basic freedoms they may apply them differently. For example, some people do
not want to be labelled high performers and some do. The choice itself is of secondary importance.
Of primary importance is that a range of valuable options should be available to all, whether or not
these are realized. The difference between the possible and the effectively realized is
encapsulated in two concepts, with capabilities expressing the substantive freedoms people enjoy
to make choices and functionings, ie, ‘the various things a person may value being and doing’ (Sen
1992, 40) and which, importantly, they have reason to value being and doing (Sen 1999, 75).
With regard to the meaning of fully inclusive talent management, the Capability Approach both
meshes with and augments positive psychology. Positive psychology places the emphasis on ends
not means and hence development of the individual is not for the sake of the organisation. But
neither is it development for its own sake. The aim, understood in terms of capabilities, is to
expand and enhance the capabilities (understood as opportunities and freedoms) of each
employee. Whilst it is likely that this would result in a net gain for the organisation, if an individual
chose to realise those opportunities in ways that did not benefit the organization this outcome
would also be seen as successful, although it would also require further deliberation.
Nussbaum has further differentiated the concept of capabilities in order to ‘make the complexity of
capabilities clear’ (2011, 20-21). In particular, it is important to understand that capabilities ‘are not
just abilities residing inside a person but also the freedoms or opportunities created by a
combination of personal abilities and the political, social, and economic environment’ (2011, 20).
She uses the term combined capabilities to articulate these understandings and this comes closest
to Sen’s concerns that they are not vague or abstract but substantive. The notion of combined
capabilities clarifies what might be understood by inclusive talent management. Inclusive talent
management in this sense regards the presence of ability, whether this be obvious or latent, as
only half of the equation. It also involves the creation of the conditions in which abilities may
flourish.
‘Personal abilities’ are therefore not discounted and find expression in the concept of internal
capabilities. Although the distinction between combined and internal capabilities is not well drawn,
Nussbaum uses it as ‘a useful heuristic in diagnosing the achievements and shortcomings of a
society’. Internal capabilities include things like ‘personality traits, intellectual and emotional
capacities, states of bodily fitness and health, internalized learning, skills of perception and
movement’ (2011, 21) and they are not fixed but fluid and dynamic. But they should not be
mistaken for ‘innate equipment’. Internal capabilities do not equate to ‘innate powers that are either

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nurtured or not nurtured’ (Nussbaum 2011, 23). Rather, they are trained or developed, in most
cases, in interaction with the social, economic, familial, and political environment’ (2011, 2).
Nussbaum observes that, ‘one job of a society that wants to promote the most important human
capabilities is to support the development of internal capabilities’ (2011, 21) and that ‘it is not
possible conceptually to think of a society producing combined capabilities without producing
internal capabilities’.
The concept of internal capabilities is important for a number of reasons. First it suggests that
everyone is capable of development which links it to the underpinning rationale of positive
psychology and getting the best out of people. Second, it embraces the need to counter
Fineman’s argument about ‘different meanings and implications in different settings’. The
importance of context is always/already embedded in the idea of internal capabilities, because they
are part of ‘combined capabilities’ which insist on recognition of contextual factors. Third, it
reconfigures the reason we might want to shift from exclusive to inclusive talent management. In
shifting the emphasis away from the needs of the organization to those of the individual, internal
capabilities also, paradoxically, suggest the social responsibilities of the organization. The shift
from a narrow, perhaps selfish, focus to one that is more extensive in both reach and depth also
connects with arguments about ethicality. On Nussbaum’s terms, failure to foster internal
capabilities is a broader failure of the society, whether that be understood as society as a whole or
the organization as a social entity.
There is a radical underpinning to the idea of basic capabilities. In a meritocracy, more innately
skilled people are treated better (as in exclusive talent programmes) and credence given to the
idea that, ‘people’s political and social entitlements should be proportional to their innate
intelligence or skill’. However, in focusing on basic capabilities Nussbaum states that, ‘those who
need more help to get above the threshold get more help’ (2011, 24). The salience of this concept
to inclusive talent programmes is apparent. However, its detailed practical application requires
further work because, in practice, the ‘threshold’ tends to be set in relation to situations of poverty
and deprivation rather than to affluence in discussions of capabilities. However, the idea of basic
capabilities does support the fundamental tenets of the arguments set out for the ethical basis of
talent programmes. If the goal of society/organisations is to treat all people with equal respect,
helping those who already have the most is a mark of a society/organisation that is failing ethically.
The setting of thresholds and supporting those who are not yet there to reach or exceed it
addresses these failings.
Practical implications
Given the clearer picture of inclusive talent management developed in this paper it is unsurprising
that examples of it are hard to find as the practical implications are substantial. Four are offered

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here to provoke further thinking and discussion but this is not intended to be an exhaustive list and
there are probably many more.
First, a range of general talent development programmes is suggested to ensure that everyone has
opportunities to develop basic and internal capabilities. With respect to basic capabilities the
challenge would be to set appropriate thresholds and ensure that these are met. However, thought
also needs to be given to those who are already at the threshold and those who exceed it who
should not be neglected. The Capability Approach, to re-iterate, is about expanding freedoms so
that each person has the opportunity to live lives they value and have reason to value. The notion
of the threshold and the concept of basic capabilities are therefore not synonymous with putting a
brake on aspiration or an indication that those whose valuable functionings are linked more or less
explicitly to success, productivity and performance at work require more or less attention. Indeed,
because the approach focuses on ends and not means and because the acknowledgement of
difference and diversity is a central tenet, ensuring that some are not left behind does not mean
dragging others down. The concept of basic capabilities nevertheless reconfigures talent
management in such a way as to serve as a model for inclusivity. In terms of internal capabilities,
focusing on the responsibility of the organisation to promote the conditions in which personal
abilities are allowed to flourish might itself be read as a statement of a fully inclusive talent
management programme and suggests both the means and the ends of fully inclusive strategies.
Second, an important part of the talent identification process is enabling people to think deeply
about what matters to them and how those values align with organizational values and interests.
As such, what opportunities might be provided to employees to reveal these deep insights and
what methods might be used to make fair assessments about a person’s talent? Some sort of
appraisal meeting seems necessary but appraisal would need a shift in focus away from
performance and targets towards discussions of what the individual thinks they contribute and has
to offer and where that offer can be applied. Candid exchanges of views are required and some
‘adult’ conversations without prejudice would be necessary to reconcile the views of both
individuals and management which may be some distance apart. This requirement of fully inclusive
strategies could draw on the approaches used in Appreciative Inquiry (AI) as a way forward given
that AI was a precursor to positive psychology and the strengths-based movement (Bushe 2011).
A third implication of inclusive talent management is that organizations will need to give employees
a bigger say in the activities that they want to evaluate or try out. Greater flux is needed to
maximise the likelihood of finding opportunities to match the wishes of employees with the needs
of the organization. This intersection is of crucial importance as it influences the rate of best fit, ie,
the rate at which employees are located into roles that best match their strengths and potential. As
such, there has to be substantial movement of people between jobs or, within similar jobs, across
departments, at least in its initial stages. This happens normally to some extent but often only in

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response to restructuring or when vacancies are filled by formal mechanisms. Job rotation has a
long tradition in HRD (Cappelli, 2008) and is known for its effectiveness in helping employers to
learn about the strengths of their employees in a range of contexts (Eriksson & Ortega 2006).
Equally important, rotation is a way of enabling employees to develop their skills and correlates
with positive outcomes such as salary and promotion (Campion, Cheraskin & Stevens 1994).
Organizations would need to be more open to greater movement of people between jobs to
overcome the ‘stickiness’ that ties people to the same job for too long with the accompanying
danger that their talent becomes suppressed. Factors that facilitate job rotation, and other high
performance work practices, include the past performance of the organization, the level of market
competition and the levels of skills required by organizational technologies (Osterman, 1994; Pil &
MacDuffie 1996). Outside of competitive, high-tech sectors the levels of adoption are likely to be
low.
Fourth, organizations should approach competence frameworks and similar devices for codifying
skills with caution because they may act to constrain rather than liberate talent. Although
commonplace in partial talent models to encapsulate the skills and attributes most highly prized,
their universalist and over-generalized nature (Capaldo, Iandoli & Zollo 2006) could act as a
deterrent to employees. To provide a better fit with the more idiosyncratic needs of inclusive talent
strategies, organizations would need to be more alert to how a person’s observed talent and their
potential are being influenced by operating and supervision practices, which may be sub-standard,
and the quality of social interactions with close work colleagues which will influence their
contribution and reputation. These implications may lie beyond the competencies of those HR
departments which serve largely as technical specialists.
Conclusions
This paper suggests that if inclusive talent management is to be treated as a distinctive aspect of
the theoretical network for talent then it requires a clear definition which in-turn requires a particular
conception of the notion of talent and how it could be ‘managed’. Rather than being relativistic, as
underpins the exclusive approach, talent has to be treated as an absolute characteristic of
individuals and as something that needs to be identified and deployed in roles that map onto
present and potential talent. Given its emphasis on looking within people rather than between
them, a much higher level of self-management will be needed at individual and group level to bring
talents to the surface.
These concepts should aid more clinical evaluations and classifications of the diverse talent
strategies that are encountered in the field. Better classification of talent strategies should lead to a
better understanding of their relative impacts on individuals and on organizations. Without this

14
greater level of refinement, the talent literature will continue to suffer from the inconsistent use of
terminology which will hamper progress towards a better appreciation of a widespread but still little
understood and ethically problematic human resource management practice.
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