Talent Mobility at Telkom Group: An International Perspective of

Cross-cultural Training and Development Management

Lelo Yosep Laurentius

, Soraya Agustina Situmorang

Character Building Development Center, Computer Science Department, School Of Computer Science, Bina Nusantara

University, Jakarta, Indonesia 11480

Keywords: Talent Mobility, Cross Cultural, Training Development.

Abstract: The objective of this research was to understand comprehensively the talent mobility as a global approach to

talent management. It was a qualitative research with a program evaluation based on CIPP model conducted

at TELKOM Group in 2017-2018. The data were collected through alumni observation using document

studies, observations, recordings, FGD and in-depth interviews conducted with respondents and

interviewees with Director of Human Capital Management (HCM) of TELKOM Group, Vice President of

People Development of TELKOMSEL, Finance & Human Capital Director and Chairman of The Union of

TELKOM Group. The data analysis and interpretation indicates that (1) Organizations that want to stay

ahead should pay attention to all matters relating to talent management, because organizations will

definitely deal with matters relating to the diversity of the workforce, the balance between work and life

outside work, demographic conditions, and other related factors with the composition and desires of the

workforce; (2) The Program of Synergy Talent Mobility is an HR program, HR practices and HR processes.

As an HR program, the program is a specific and coordinated effort to seek transformational leadership in

TELKOM Group. As an HR practice, the program is the activities of transfer, development and transfer skill

between home and host. As an HR process, the program is the stages of ensuring Good Corporate

Governance (GCG) in HR practices in TELKOM Group; (3) The program develops a culture of

accountability creating TELKOM Group's competitive advantage at the global level, but top talent at the

end of program were not strategic assets. The findings lead to the recommendation that contribution of top

managements strategic activities were needed to implement the program effectively before and after the

program.

1 INTRODUCTION

A number of TELKOM Group products such as

Flexy, Speedy, and TELKOM vision failed on the

market because their product innovations were local

and sectoral, not global. Talent mobility as a global

approach to talent management is an effort to create

innovative TELKOM Group products in the global

market with the vision of King of Digital in The

Region. The Talent Mobility Synergy Program at the

TELKOM Group then becomes a strategic control of

the top talent in the TELKOM Group in order to

align business units, functional units and subsidiaries

so that the program stages are synergized, directed,

and effective in achieving company goals (PT

Telekomunikasi Indonesia Tbk, 2015).

Navaz said talent mobility has a number of

strategic objectives (Nawaz, 2013). First, it

facilitates leader development and leadership skills.

Second, it maintains top talent who has critical skills

by motivating their performance with better career

opportunities and development. Third, it enhances

the development of knowledge and transfer of

knowledge in the work environment. Fourth, it

attracts the best talent and people with critical skills

to facilitate the company's operations. Fifth, he

ensures that the right talent is in the right place at the

right time.

The Talent Mobility Synergy Program is one of

the strategies of HCM. He aims to realize this

positive from all TELKOM Group human capital

units so that they are able to perform effectively.

Human capital strategy initiatives contributions at

the TELKOM Group have supported TELKOM

Group's business strategy in its various services.

Human capital strategy initiatives at the TELKOM

Laurentius, L. and Situmorang, S.

Talent Mobility at Telkom Group: An International Perspective of Cross-cultural Training and Development Management.

DOI: 10.5220/0010006900002917

In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Social Sciences, Laws, Arts and Humanities (BINUS-JIC 2018), pages 301-305

ISBN: 978-989-758-515-9

 2022 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reser ved

301

Group include: a) Strengthening culture in the

business environment; b) Improve human capital

policies and practices that support business

performance; c) Building a leadership system

(nurture, role modeling, development & exposure);

d) Improve performance with rewards; e) Providing

the right talent for effective business and talent

management; and f) Building a system of knowledge

management and innovation management.

Top talent movement between business

organizations in the TELKOM Group aims to

anticipate global business challenges very quickly.

However, weak coordination between program

managers has slowed the mobility of top talent to

create flexibility, productivity and profitability in all

TELKOM Group business organizations. In

addition, the weak coordination between program

managers widened the gap between program

participants and the total number of TELKOM

Group employees. The number of participants in

2018 has not reached 100 people, whereas the total

number of employees is almost 25,000 per 2018.

Next, the TELKOM Group also experiences a top

talent gap between its business organizations. One of

the causes of this gap is the remuneration gap

between business organizations in the TELKOM

Group. This remuneration gap results in a weak

working spirit that has an impact on employee

productivity.

To find out more about the dynamics of the

Talent Mobility Synergy Program at the TELKOM

Group to contribute to flexibility, productivity, and

profitability of the organization, the authors are

interested in conducting research on the Talent

Mobility Synergy Program in the TELKOM Group.

Therefore, this study aims as follows: (1) Provide

improvements to the legal aspects and program

objectives; (2) Provide improvements to the

organizing aspects including the structure and

description of program management tasks; (3)

Providing program improvement in the

implementation aspects which includes the format of

activities and the flow of activities; (4) Provide

program improvement on aspects of reporting and

evaluation; (5) Providing program improvement on

aspects of benefits.

2 METHODS

We strongly The study uses a qualitative approach,

which will explore the Talent Mobility Synergy

Program evaluation at the TELKOM Group as an

HR Strategy to achieve sustainable competitive

advantage in national markets and global markets.

Determination of resource persons for interviews

was conducted purposively. With the criteria of

senior executives and program participants at the

host for three years. This study uses observation,

interview and questionnaire techniques to collect

primary data. Whereas to collect secondary data in

the form of program participant data and program

participant data in all TELKOM Group entities,

researchers visited the PT TELKOM Group Head

Office, PT Telekomunikasi Selular

(TELKOMSEL)Head Office, the Head Office of the

TELKOM Group Trade Union, and PT

Telekomunikasi Indonesia Internasional (TELIN)

Head Office. In this study the data obtained will be

analyzed using descriptive analysis with data

reduction techniques, data presentation, and

verification/drawing conclusions.

3 COMPONENTS

3.1 Context Components

The legality of the Talent Mobility Synergy Program

in the TELKOM Group is the Decree of the Director

of the TELKOM Group's HCM for all TELKOM

Group entities (PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia Tbk,

2015). The Decree stipulates a system for obtaining

top talent from all TELKOM Group business units

(PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia Tbk, no date). The

TELKOM Group's top talents are strategic human

capital to compete at the global level. Vladi stated

that talent management is a vital process in the

organization in the form of recruitment, evaluation,

and maintenance of top talent so that they remain

tied to the company's strategy (Vladi, 2015).

However, program legality does not accommodate

top talent participation to select new critical

positions after assignment at the host. Almost all top

talents do not get new critical positions after

assignment at the host. Ideally they can choose a

new critical position at the TELKOM Group

provided that their competence is in accordance with

the organization's strategy. That is, the TELKOM

Group has not placed the program as a typical

strategic management.

From a goal perspective, the program has

SMART criteria: (1) Specific, that is only for top

talent category employees in the TELKOM Group;

(2) Measurable, namely through a fit and proper test;

(3) Attainable, namely the optimization of

TELKOM's internal HR through a career path for

critical positions; (4) Result oriented, which is

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creating future global leaders from, by, and for the

TELKOM Group with a strong leadership standard,

upholding nationalism, having a global business

understanding and having an international

perspective; and (5) Time bound, which has a time

limit for development assignments and transfer

skills. The Synergy Talent Mobility Program makes

the TELKOM Group a "talent-powered

organization", which systematically builds all

strategic human capital skills to compete at the

national and global levels.

3.2 Input Components

TELKOM Group is building distinctive strategic

management through a global talent management

approach in the Talent Mobility Synergy Program to

create sustainable competitive power of the

TELKOM Group in its core business.

Talent Mobility Synergy is a complex program

so Mullaney believes that its implementation is in

need of a systematic approach to overcome a

number of challenges and barriers to talent mobility

(Mullaney, 2012). The challenges are: 1) Aligning

current and future talent needs to rapidly change

business needs; 2) Developing deep talent

succession pools and bench strength; 3) Retaining

high performers and potentials / reducing flight; 4)

Reducing external recruiting costs; and 5) Improving

overall HR measurement and reporting. Meanwhile,

the obstacles are: 1) No single, complete view of

global talent due to spaghetti mix of processes,

systems, and data; 2) No succession planning

process, or no focused only on senior execs; 3)

Inconsistent employee assessment process and

inability to calibrate ratings; 4) Sporadic,

unpersonalized and informal employee development

process. Cheese, Thomas and Craig hold that "a

talent-powered organizations", are able to create

talent needs, find diverse sources of talent, develop

individual and collective talents of organizations,

and manage talent by engaging people and aligning

them with various organizational strategies to

achieve its goals (Cheese, P., Thomas, R. J., &

Craig, 2008). The TELKOM Group is "a talent-

powered organizations".

The Career Committee is the main person in

charge of the TELKOM Group's Talent Mobility

Synergy Program (PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia

Tbk, no date). The Career Committee involves all of

TELKOM Group's Chief Human Capital Officer

(CHCO) entities as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: The organizational structure of the career

committee.

Career Committee structures such as Figure 1

illustrate the diversity of competencies for building

TELKOM Group's strategic human capital through

the Talent Mobility Synergy Program. Each CHCO

carries out a top talent fit and proper test before

becoming a program participant by the decision of

the Career Committee. The stages of fit and proper

test are as follows: (a) Doing grouping of talent; (b)

Determine talent assessment criteria; (c)

Determination of talent; (d) Recommendations and

talent development plans; e) The validity period of

the talent group; (f) Talent implementation plan; (g)

Requirements for talent career development; (h)

Type of talent mobility; (i) Preparation of talent

mobility development modules; (j) Preparation of

talent mobility transfer modules; (k) Preparation of

transfer skill module talent; (l) Preparation of a fit

and proofer test guide; (m) Provisions on the

remuneration of career movements in the TELKOM

Group; and (n) Preparation of the rights and

obligations of the host and home. All stages

guarantee the existence of organizational

transformation in the TELKOM Group.

The Career Committee prepares top talent for

critical positions, namely the most strategic position

to create sustainable competitive advantage of

TELKOM Group in national markets and global

markets (PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia Tbk, no

date). Top talent ethical competencies in critical

positon consist of: a) 50% weight character, namely

integrity, enthusiasm and totality; b) Competence

weighs 30%, namely skill, knowledge, personal

quality and assessment center; and c) Collaboration

weighs 20%, which is team work, team work +

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building partnership and team work + building

partnership + networking. Here, the Career

Committee guarantees effective program

implementation, so 54.50% of respondents agree

that the Career Committee carries out good

corporate governance in the top talent selection

process, but 45.50% doubt it. The FGD analysis

concluded the magnitude of the doubt because

CHCO did not conduct periodic socialization by the

TELKOM Group regarding top talent recruitment.

Regarding the duration and type of program

activities for critical positions, 59.10% of

respondents agreed that the duration and type of

program activities were connected with the

competitive strategy of TELKOM Group at the

international level, but 40.90% doubted it. FGD

analysis concludes the amount of doubt of

respondents due to lack of knowledge sharing

activities during assignments at the host.

The HCM of the TELKOM Group conducts

monitoring and program control because program

participants are critical position candidates to

achieve the vision, mission and strategic objectives

of the TELKOM Group. HCM participation in the

program according to Ingham that many

organizations see talent management as the

development of "talent" and place it within their

approach to leadership development (Ingham, 2007).

The problem is, the Career Committee did not

design a new critical position for top talent after

assignment. The reason is the lack of coordination

and communication between the top management of

the TELKOM Group and the related Career

Committee of the top talent after the assignment at

the host.

3.3 Process Components

The process of implementing the Talent Mobility

Synergy Program involves the management of

innovation through sustainable strategic human

capital through the integration of program systems

with corporate strategies at all levels of the

organization. Because, talent management strategy

has a goal, namely "the right people, in the right

places, at the right time but at the right cost".

Kehinde theorized that talent management is the

implementation of an integrated system to improve

better productivity processes by attracting,

developing, maintaining, and utilizing the skills and

abilities of people according to the dynamics of

current and future business needs (Kehinde, 2012).

Meanwhile, Collings and Mellahi confirmed that

strategic talent management is an activity and

process that involves systematic identification of a

number of different key positions for sustainable

organizational competitive advantage, the

development of talented and high-performing

employees to fill these roles, and the development of

source architecture human resources to facilitate

filling these positions from within the organization

and to ensure its commitment to the organization

(Collings, D. G., & Mellahi, 2009).

The Talent Mobility Synergy Program through

transfer, development and transfer skills seeks for

managing training and development to accommodate

cross-cultural knowledge management in the

TELKOM Group (PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia

Tbk, 2015). Program forms guarantee TELKOM

Group as an international learning organization.

Therefore, sharing knowledge of international

business experience is a mandatory activity in the

program. The goal is tacit knowledge from top talent

must be explicit knowledge for the TELKOM Group

so that the corporation has a sustainable competitive

advantage of its strategic human capital. This is in

accordance with the opinion of 77.30% of

respondents who agree that the format and type of

program activities respond to global business

challenges for the TELKOM Group, but 22.70%

doubt it. So, the program process has systematically

regulated the existence of knowledge management,

so talent mobility, according to Nawaz, has

facilitated the development of leadership skills

(Nawaz, 2013), such as the criteria for critical

positions in the TELKOM Group.

3.4 Product Components

Vaiman and Vance argue that employee career

mobility creates flexibility to respond to the

changing role of strategic human capital for the

sustainable competitive advantage of the

organization (Vaiman, V., & Vance, 2008). On the

other hand, organizations facilitate mobility of

effective means for the retention of top talent

organizations. Consequently, the TELKOM Group

needs to create a system that enables top talent to be

active in managing their careers before and after the

Talent Mobility Synergy Program. However, the

problem is that participants do not get regular

reports regarding their performance on the host. That

is, the program stage does not provide opportunities

for top talent to be actively involved in managing

their careers. This is consistent with the opinion of

respondents that 68.20% doubted the continuity of

their careers globally through the TELKOM Group

because the program management policy that

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allowed them not to receive routine reports related to

their performance on the host, while 31.80% agreed.

Even though an evaluation involving program

participants can improve the quality of the

implementation of the Talent Mobility Synergy

Program.

On the other hand, 68.10% of respondents agreed

that the TELKOM Group provided the opportunity

for program participants to innovate as broadly as

possible for the advancement of the organization in

global competition, but 31.80% doubted it. Because,

a broad innovation opportunity is related to the

policy of placing program participants throughout

the diverse TELKOM Group organizations (business

portfolio, company size, business maturity, etc.) to

create workforce diversity. Interaction in diversity

workforce will create various innovations.

4 CONCLUSIONS

Every program related to strategic human capital

such as the Talent Mobility Synergy Program in the

TELKOM Group requires an ongoing process in

managing training and development for its top

talent. Because, TELKOM Group has made strategic

human capital as a source of sustainable competitive

advantage in national markets and global markets

that are very competitive at all times. Because

strategic human capital is a capability synergy

between people, culture and organization, the

TELKOM Group needs to improve its training and

development system after assigning top talent on the

host. Now, the Director of HCM of TELKOM

Group is program management. Furthermore, the top

management of TELKOM Group is the program

manager for all alumni of the Talent Mobility

Synergy Program at the TELKOM Group. Because

competitiveness is sustainable only if the program

has a consistent goal before, during, and after

program activities. This starts from strategic

thinking leadership.

REFERENCES

Cheese, P., Thomas, R. J., & Craig, E. (2008) The Talent

Powered Organization, Strategies for Globalization,

Talent Management and High Performance. London

and Philadelphia: Kogan Page.

Collings, D. G., & Mellahi, K. (2009) ‘Strategic Talent

Management: A Review and Research Agenda’, Hum.

Resour. Manag. Rev., 19, pp. 304–313.

Ingham, J. (2007) Strategic Human Capital Management,

Creating Value through People. Oxford, UK: Elsevier.

Kehinde, J. S. (2012) ‘Talent Management : Effect on

organizational Performance’, Journal of Management

Research, 4(2), pp. 178–186.

Mullaney, E. (2012) Talent Mobility, A Global Approach

to Talent Management. PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Nawaz, M. N. (2013) ‘Impact of Talent Mobility on

Employee Performance in Software Companies’, The

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PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia Tbk (2015) Peraturan

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Limited.

Vladi, B. (2015) Talent Management and Organizational

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