Talent management in a changing technological environment - Human capital in the energy sector of Finland

The objective of this study is to research talent management in the energy sector of Finland. While studies exist on how the energy field is changing as a whole, the research is mostly concentrated on its product development and technological solutions. At the same time, human resource and people management studies have emerged to a degree in technology-oriented areas, due to the realization that employees are a key resource regardless of the area. The benefit of this development is that employees are paid more attention to and their talents are appreciated. People management studies in the energy field are scarce, however, leaving a research gap this study aims to fill. This gap needs to be explored, due to the fact that the technological industry, including the energy field, is continuously expanding. The amount and importance of future solutions in this industry will require a matching amount and quality of people to implement and supervise those solutions. To this end, the position and value of employees needs to be highlighted, to ensure that the technological industry will remain an appealing area for future professionals. The research problem of the study is to explore and understand how talent is acquired and managed organizations in a rapidly changing technological environment. The research problem was addressed with two research questions. First, firms’ prospective key talent’s needs and challenges are identified and addressed. Second, the study aimed to look into how firms manage their operations in terms of new and existing talent in a changing innovation environment. A diverse approach was used to conduct the qualitative research in this study. First, 160 job advertisements from the energy sector in Finland were collected and analyzed. Second, leaning on a semi-structured preliminary interview, a questionnaire with 10 open-ended questions to energy businesses was conducted. The resource-based view (RBV) framework (Barney, 1991) was used as the theoretical lens in the analysis of the factors behind energy businesses’ methods in acquiring and maintaining talent in their organization. The study shows that people in energy organizations are primarily managed in a way that aims to respond to the challenges of the changing environment. Searching for key talent includes firms expecting broad knowledge from their future employees on diverse areas also outside of the industry’s traditional functions. In addition, firms are committed to providing tools for learning and developing field-specific skills needed in the industry. Energy businesses are seeking to increase the value of their human resources by defining and implementing new expertise areas in their business. To this end, firms are prepared to offer retraining and job rotation for their existing personnel, while simultaneously working with their new employees to bring fresh expertise to the business. However, creating additional ways of retaining and gaining advantage from their existing employees, as well as developing the image of the industry in terms of attaining new talent, are areas that could still be further developed.