Ridderprint

Paradoxes in global talent pipelines 125 At Consumer Goods, employees’ potential was reviewed every end of year. Three labels were used – no potential , emerging talent , and high potential 11 – but employees defaulted to no potential upon hiring or promotions (Consumer Goods, 2017). Again, data were sparse in 2011 and 2012. The 1558 graduates hired afterwards received their first rating after a median of 245 days, resulting in 18.0% high potentials and 0.1% emerging talents. At Shell, reviews had occurred bi-annually – in May of 2012, 2014, and 2016. Employees received one of four labels – reworded as low, medium, high, and executive potential – reflecting their potential for the respective management level. Employees were assessed only after their second employment anniversary, resulting in a high median of 1092 days before the first assessment. These first assessments were respectively 6.5% low, 42.6% middle, 47.1% upper, and 3.7% executive management potential. With no default category, we created five ordinal categories – low, middle, unassessed, upper, and executive potential – and added a dummy variable for those unassessed. 6.4.2.4 Short-term International Assignment We operationalized short-term international assignments in two ways: (1) the current mobility status – STIA, repatriated, or local without prior STIA – and (2) the number of months an employee had spent on STIA for the organization, prior to their current position – i.e., international experience. At Consumer Goods, 324 employees (12.8%) were assigned on at least one STIA during the observational timeframe, accumulating an average eight months of international experience (SD = 5.049). STIA commenced a median of 577 days after hiring and lasted a median of 182 days, with 6-month (19.3%) and 5-month assignments (9.9%) most common. At Shell, 730 employees (11.5%) were assigned on at least one STIA during the observational timeframe, accumulating an average twelve months of international experience (SD = 6.271). STIA commenced a median 755 days after hiring and lasted a median of 364 days, with 12-month (35.8%) and 18-month assignments (11.3%) most common. In the latter cases, the longer assignments still fell under STIA policy as they were extended after their original 12-month duration. 6.4.2.5 Control Variables From the HRIS, we retrieved additional demographic information on employees’ gender, age (band) at hiring, current job level, hiring division, and base country. Advised by Consumer Goods, we also controlled for the developmental status of the countries’ markets as more turnover was expected in developed markets. Advised by Shell, we also controlled for the orientation of the traineeship as less turnover was expected in technical traineeships. 11 A fourth label existed ( High Performer ), but graduates could not receive this label due to the absence of a track record.