Talent Management for Enhancing the Efficiency of Human Resources in the Public Sector of Sri Lanka: A Comparative Study

: The Sri Lankan Public Sector has often been criticized for being overstaffed, inefficient and a burden to the economy. This has partly been attributed to the deficiencies in employee talents management. This study attempts to find the direction for augmenting human resource in public sector in Sri Lanka through Talent Management (TM), by benchmarking against standards from Japan, Singapore, and Norway. This study adopts a qualitative research approach. One-on-one interviews were conducted with the Executive Officers of Public Service of Sri Lanka. Also, data on TM practices in Public Sector in Japan were gathered through a questionnaire. There was also an extensive review of relevant literature on the study concept from the Public Service of Japan, Singapore and Norway, which rank top in Government Efficiency Indicator. Using the Case study approach, the data obtained was analysed by comparative analysis to compare TM policies and activities of these countries. The study revealed several drawbacks concerning TM in Public Service of Sri Lanka. Analysing various TM models of countries having high standards, the benchmark study proposes an effective Talent Management Model for the Public Sector in Sri Lanka, including Talent Gap analysis, Talent Acquisition and Augmenting, development, assessment, measurement, retention, and transition.


Introduction
With the proclamation of a "War for Talent" in 1997 by a group of McKinsey consultants, 'Talent Management' (TM) has become one of the key terms in the Human Resource Management lexicon (Michaels et al, 2001).Ashton & Morton (2005) had stated, TM is one of the most significant human capital challenges faced in the 21st century.
Sri Lanka is a middle-income country with strong state institutions responsible for implementing policies and plans for the national growth.Since, employees' performance is the major source of public sector performance, talent management (TM) strategies and opportunities can play a crucial role for its development.Public sector employment had increased rapidly since independence of SL.Moreover, Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) and the World Bank and in numerous occasions have pointed out that the Sri Lankan Public Service is overstaffed (Alwis, 2009).According to the Annual Report 2017 of CBSL, cadre in the public service cadre was 1.18 million whereas the mid-year population of 2017 was 21million (CBSL, 2018).
Sri Lankan government bureaucracy is often criticized for being inefficient and a burden not only to the National Budget but also to the economy at large (Jayasundera, 2021).To overcome those pitfalls and in response to the economic, ideological and institutional changes, there is a need for public sector reforms (Alwis, 2009).
The need to enhance the productivity of the Public Service through increased performance is essential to bring about a material change in the country.The change agent could be none other than enhancement of the Human Capital of the Public Service, which could be fruitfully achieved through implementing a proper system of TM.However, in this study, Talent management in the central government has been focused, since it represents 78% of the total employees in the Public Sector (CBSL, 2018).
The "Worldwide Governance Indicators" (WGI) project by the World Bank provides governance indicators, for more than 200 countries, of which Sri Lanka ranks 97.Six dimensions of governance, namely, Voice and Accountability, Political Stability and Absence of Violence, Government Effectiveness, Regulatory Quality, Rule of Law, and Control of Corruption are considered in preparation of this indicator (World Bank, 2018).It is apparent that lessons should be learnt from the successful nations to enhance the effectiveness of government sector, which in turn could assist in attaining Good Governance.

Significance of the Research
The political and administrative structure in SL, taking after the British influence, focuses more on process rather than on outcome.The bureaucracy in public management relies heavily on rigid rules.Seniority is still the foremost avenue for promotion rather than merit (Samaratunge, R., & Bennington, L., 2002).Dahshan et al., (2018)  In view of low international rankings of Sri Lanka in governance and competitiveness, there is an overwhelming need for improving governance in the country.Increasing the Productivity of the Public Service is a key challenge in SL.It is a focal issue since the Sri Lankan Government is the prime employer of the nation.Less attention is paid for using TM as a remedy despite it had been successfully adopted in many countries across the globe.This existing gap of empirical research in applying TM best practices into the mechanism of enhancing the Public Sector Productivity in SL will be filled by this research.

Research Gap
Despite Talent Management had been an important buzzword in the business world, it lacks theoretical frameworks (Lewis & Heckman, 2006).Renowned textbooks of Human Resource Management and Talent Management, such as Berman et al. (2010), Pynes (2009), Berger and Beger (2010), Cappelli (2008) do not adequately discuss the practices of Talent Management in the public sector.Karunathilaka, and Pitipana (2018) assert that talent identification strategies can't be used in predicting performance in public sector organization in SL.Further they proclaim that there is a dearth of empirical research on TM in public sector in SL and future research should be conducted to identify TM strategies aimed at enhancing organizational performance.Since Talent Management is becoming relatively important and the inefficiency of the public service is hotly debated in the country, this research will fill the gap existing in this area of study.

Objectives of the Study
1. To identify the current TM Tools used in the SL Public Service, and their issues 2. To identify TM Tools used in Public Sector of the countries selected for the current study.
3. To make recommendations to the TM issues prevailing in the Public Service by using the best practices of TM used in selected countries.

To develop a framework for TM in Public
Sector in Sri Lanka.

Literature Review
What is Talent Management?Beechler and Woodward (2009), assert that a wellestablished TM process could be considered as vital for organizational success.TM ensures placing right people in the right jobs with the view to guarantee that the employees maximize their talent for optimum success of the organization.Hence, TM has an impact on entire HR life cycle.Therefore, and it is evident that TM has a vital role in all HR functions.Richard et al (2011) explains that TM works towards achieving better performance.The employee who is placed in the ideal position will be psychologically empowered and result in better performance.The success of an organization stems from the availability of appropriate Talent Management process.

Research Methodology
This is a Qualitative Research.There are two major types of Qualitative Research based on Participant observation and in-depth interviewing (Bogdan et al.,1997).
This research is based on the latter method.Openended questions were used to get as many details as possible.Open-ended questions allow for the interviewees to Informants express their thoughts freely based on their own frame of reference.
Data were gathered using the existing literature and information available in the public domain.Yin (2009) perceives that Case Study method is an essential form of methodology used in social sciences and management.Hence, similar methodological approach was used to compare and to come up with the recommendations for public sector in Sri Lanka.

Selection of countries for comparative Benchmark Analysis
Sri Lanka ranks 85 in Governance Index while Norway, which was selected for the analysis, ranks at first with New Zealand (World Bank, 2019).Even though Sri Lanka ranks better compared to her South Asian neighbourhood in terms of Government Effectiveness, the country has a long way to go towards achieving high government effectiveness.Singapore, and Japan which respectively at 06 and 21 (World Bank, 2019) was also selected given sociocultural comparations of Asian continent with SL.

Data Collection
TM tools used in recruitment, performance appraisal, training and development and promotion are identified and evaluated along with the pros and cons of the same in the central government public sector in SL.
Identification of TM tools was an important part of this study.To achieve this, interviews were conducted with four senior executive officers who are responsible for human resource management in Sri Lankan public sector.Their responses were carefully recorded for analysis.Then the service minutes of following services were intensively studied paying attention to attracting, retaining, training and development and performance appraisal.

Sri Lanka Administrative Service 2. Development Officers' Service
The role of Public Service Commission (PSC) of SL in Talent Management was studied intensively, through the 4 years' experience of the researcher in the capacity of a Staff Grade Officer and studying the Procedural Rules issued and the Service Minutes approved by the same along with the Establishments Code.
TM practices in the Public Sector in Japan were studied through questioners produced to the City Office of Muikamachi Niigata, which is a Local Government Authority in Japan.However, in response to the questions raised from National Personnel Authority (NPA) of Japan, they suggested studying the information available on NPA website.
Further TM practices used in the public sectors in Singapore and Norway were studied through scholarly articles and studies along with web-based information.
A framework for the Talent management in public sector in Sri Lanka was developed based on the analysis of primary and secondary data.The framework was developed based on TM practices of Sri Lanka and Japan as well as those of Norway and Singapore, which are ranked top in terms of the Government Effectiveness Index.
Both Primary and Secondary Data were used in this study.Secondary Data were obtained through public domain using information on websites and previous research.

Data Analysis
The collected data were analysed using Comparative analysis, comparing various TM practices adopted in the countries concerned.The articles we gathered covered topics such as recruitment, promotions, and career advancement.We reviewed these documents to identify TM plans, strategies, and practices.Our next step was to compare the key TM issues in SL with those in other countries.Finally, using the results of the analysis a TM Framework was designed for Sri Lankan public sector, benchmarking TM practices used in those four countries.

Contribution for Human Capital Development in Government Bureaucracy of Sri Lanka
Analysing the Budget Estimates from the financial year 2013-2017 revealed that 12%-15% of the total government expenditure, had been earmarked for employee remuneration and talent development (MoF, 2018).It reveals the vitality of the Human Resource and the need for proper TM practices in the public sector of Sri Lanka.

TM in Public Sector in SL
The extensive study of the service minutes and the interview with the senior executives revealed the following related to Talent Management Cycle in public sector in Sri Lanka.

Talent Management Tools in Public Sector in Sri Lanka
In

TM in Public Service in Japan
National Personnel Authority (NPA)-Japan (Jijiin), is the central personal administrative organization of the government of Japan.NPA makes recommendations on remuneration of public employees with the view to balance with that of private sector.Since there is no market control on remuneration decisions as in the private sector, NPA believes that it is rational to decide the remuneration in the public service in conformity with that in the private sector (NPA, 2019) NPA co-hosted with Germany and UK, an international seminar on "How can a Government Attract, Recruit and Foster Talented Personnel" in order to gain novel knowledge in the international public management.NPA has identified the necessity of communicating the attractiveness and its salient features of public service to the public extensively not only to enhance motivation and skills of the present employees but also to attract better talent in the future.Attitude survey was conducted taking after the "Employee Satisfaction Survey" of the private sector to identify where the employees find attractiveness and dissatisfaction.

TM in Public Service Singapore
Namely, Public Service Commission (PSC), Public Service Division (PSD), and Civil Service College (CSC) oversee TM.There are four key talent management schemes in Singaporean government bureaucracy as identified by Poocharoen & Lee (2013)

Public Service Commission (PSC) Scholarships
Public Service Commission (PSC) scholarships are aims at recruiting for public service functions for critical high-level.(Neo & Chen, 2007) The government of Singapore thoroughly believes that Pre-Service Scholarships is the best way to attract the cream of the crop to the public sector.For these scholarships, Applicants are assessed, based on academic performance at High School along with leadership potential and the desire to serve in the government sector.Each applicant has to go through few rounds of interviews and Psychometric Tests, which are administered by the PSC of Singapore.
Recipients of this scholarship are entitled to study under sponsorship and to choose from a varied range of courses and Universities.Upon completion of studies, the scholarship awardees will have to serve Singapore government through joining either public administration, professional service or uniformed services.
The awardees are bound for serving the government of Singapore upon completion of their studies for a compulsory period of years depending on the country they followed their undergraduate studies.(Poocharen & Lee, 2013) The Singaporean government also binds those who receive scholarships apart from PSC, such as Japanese Monbusho Scholarship to work for the government of Singapore, upon their completion of studies and return to Singapore.(Poocharoen & Lee, 2013)

Management Associate Program (MAP)
This is a career development program in practice from 2002, which provides fresh graduates a managerial career in the Civil Service.
In addition, open recruitments are available for midcareer individuals to join MAP.
First two years of a Management Officer (MA) is spent in a Ministry with a view to obtain professional exposure.Next, he is assigned to a different Ministry on an Administrative Service position for further two years, developing managerial and leadership capabilities

Administrative Service (AS)
Administrative service is the executive leadership of the Singapore bureaucracy.
Administrative Service aims at ensuring that the crème' of the crop enters the Singapore's Civil Service.Administrative Officers (AOs) are appointed by the PSC and their deployment of designations and career development are managed by PSD.At the conclusion of the MAP, the MAs are interviewed for selecting to Administrative Service.
AOs are given the opportunity of exposing themselves for jobs in various disciplines, which exclusively includes serving in the Private Sector with the view to diversify experience and expertise.
"Milestone Programs" attune AOs to enhance their capacity to formulate and implement national policies while providing continuous training throughout their career.Milestone programs, which expose the AOs to the Policy milieu, are designed in such a way to be responsive to the context of the duties of AOs.
Milestone programs are aimed at taking leadership roles at an early age.As a result, Director level positions are held by officers who are in their mid 30sin the Departments in Singapore.Best performers will be appointed as Permanent Secretaries in the latter period of their career.If the capacity of an AO is estimated to be, lower than that of a Deputy Secretary to a Ministry he is asked to resign from the Service.(Neo & Chen, 2007).

High Potential Program (HiPo)
HiPo is a program developed for in-service officers.

TM in Public Service Norway
The Norwegian Strategy for Skills Policy (2017-2021) has been designed to ensure that individuals and businesses are equipped with the talents needed to sustain a competitive business sector and an efficient public service.Six components can be identified in the strategy as follows.
1. Performance Management, Management-By-Objectives-And-Results (MBOR) -The balance between the objectives of the employees as well as the organization is sought in this practice.

Skills Mapping 3. Career Guidance 4. Corporation between education and Labour Market 5. Official Committee on Skill Needs
The Official Committee on Skill Needs aims at providing the best possible evidence-based assessment of Norway's future skills needs, as a basis for national and regional planning, and for strategic decision making of both employers and individuals.

On the Job Training/ In-service Training
Talent Management Tools and practices adopted in Public Sector in the countries under study are tabulated are depicted in Table 1 as follows.

Gap analysis
When analysing the research findings, gaps in the following areas in TM could be observed compared to the benchmarking countries in SL.It could be concluded that need-based recruitment, pre-job training, incentives provided to attract and retain the best talent and the public sector being free from political interference have contributed to achieving a higher level of efficiency in Japan, Singapore and Norway compared to SL.

Drawbacks of the TM practices in Public
Sector in Sri Lanka.

• Absence of proper Need Assessments in recruiting talent
Government Policy decisions which are aimed at solving social issues such as the unemployment in graduates, lack proper needs assessment.As such, the Graduate Scheme which is launched as a remedy to provide employment to unemployed graduates is done at the sacrifice of the productivity of public service.(NHRDCSL, 2013) Instead of bringing the best out of such recruits, the scheme has even failed to provide a proper Duty Lists or a career path for them.

• Inability to go for an organization specific Talent Management Plan
As most of the TM, functions are carried out in a centralized manner, except for few specific Departments.Hence, there is a difficulty in designing an organization specific TM Plan.TM Plans are rather service specified.

• Most of the TM tools being mere form filling activities
The scope of the Performance Appraisal is confined to qualify for the annual Salary Increment.The information sought from the performance appraisal are not properly analysed nor are remedial actions taken to address talent needs of employees.Thus, it has become a mere form filling activity.
As mentioned above most of the TM tools were mere adherence to protocols in the form of form filling.Even the information gained by way of feedback especially regarding training and development activities are overlooked and necessary adjustments are not taken in response to feedback.

• Poor succession planning, turnover analysis and retention programs
In the face of frequently changing politics and priorities, Succession planning has become a major issue in Sri Lankan government bureaucracy.
Turnover Analyses are hardly carried out and less attention is paid on Retention Programs.

• Promotions based on seniority rather than performance
As the Public service, still stick into the age-old principle of promoting based on the number of years of service has prevented recognizing the best talent and motivating the star players in service.

Proposed TM Model for Sri Lankan Public Service
The researcher, having conducted the literature review and studying the talent management procedures in public sector in Sri Lanka, Japan, Singapore, and Norway proposes the following Talent Management Model for public sector in Sri Lanka.(Figure : 1)

Talent gap analysis
It is important to identify the aspirational and development needs of prospective key performers.That is, "Talent Gap Analysis" is essential in deciding whether to hire or train the workforce and to manage them sensibly.
Following methods could be adhered to in identifying the Talent Gaps.

Need assessment.
Parallel to quarterly cadre review, the Need Assessment should be conducted to detect the need for new talent and the excessive cadre.

"Felt-needs" methodology
Employees are asked to list or rank training courses of their choice.Even though this method is often used in public sector in Sri Lanka high attention should be given whether such training programs are periodically reviewed and make sure to update such training programs.

Performance analysis
Data collected through Performance Evaluation are grouped and analysed in identifying skill gaps.In this method, skills available are compared with the desired skills.Even though such skills gaps are identified in performance evaluation in the public sector in Sri Lanka, proper methodology is not adopted in bridging the skills Gap.It is highly emphasized the need for bridging the skills gaps brought to light at performance evaluation rather than making it yet another Form Filling activity.

Talent acquisition and augmenting
Pre-Service Scholarships Pre-service Scholarships can be offered to the top performers at the Advanced Level examination of Sri Lanka.This will induce best talent to enter the public service in contrast to the current system which enrols the unemployed graduates in absence of need merely as a solution to the unrest and upraise of the unemployed graduates in the country.

Reward Management
Pecuniary benefits plays a significant role in attracting and retaining talented employees.In order to attract best recruits it is important to summarise in monetary terms what employees can expect to receive in exchange for the work performed by them.It is apparent that talented candidates are not willing to join the public sector with a poor pay structure when they are offered better emoluments in the private sector.Hence salary revision which ensures the officers in the public service gets a salary equivalent to their counterparts' in the private sector is a pre-requisite to acquire better talent.

OTJ Training
The existing OTJ training should be restructured in such a way to match with the duties executed by the officers.Further, the OTJ training programs should be continuously reviewed and modified to ensure the timeliness and relevance of the talent transmitted to the novices.

Talent development
According to Appleby (1990), some form of training is essential for all employees.It provides employees with the required knowledge and skills for job performance and increases the efficiency of the organization.

Mentoring
This ensures guidance of a person specialized in an organization sharing his expertise with the other individuals of an organization.This helps to pass the tacit knowledge.Conversely, reverse mentorship too assists in talent development in the contemporary business world as the new recruits are equipped with novel talents such as information technology and technical skills which are lacked in existing senior officers of public entity.

Placement based on expertise
The practice of placing employees on adhoc basis is detrimental not only to the individual but also to the entire public service.If placements are based on expertise it will reduce the training cost and will uplift the moral of the employee.Further it will be of paramount importance to an individual who is willing to have a professional career.

Milestone program
The current capacity building programs in the public service should be replace by an efficient updated "Milestone Programs" which ensure continuous training and develepment throught an employee's career which contributes to the efficiency in the public service.

Talent assessment and measurement 360 0 Feedback
In any TM system, Performance Appraisal is an integral part.In the existing Performance Appraisal system, there are three parties involved, namely, the employee, appraiser and the moderator.Appraiser is the immediate supervisor of the employee (appraisee) whose immediate supervisor becomes the moderator.However, different parties who are exposed to witness an employee's different capabilities in various capacities provide rich and useful information to guide their behaviour and career development.The perspective of a subordinate of an employee will be distinctly different from that of the traditional appraiser.
system, there would be a moral effect on the employee to perform better and to enhance their capabilities.The results of "Performance Appraisal" should be used in promotions rather than using it as a means of getting the annual salary increment.

Reward Management
Level of Performance of an employee should be recognized with varying levels of monetary rewards depending on such level of performance.Further remuneration packages of public sector employees should be periodically adjusted comparing with that of private sector.

Talent retention Identification of HIPO (High Potential) Employees
Proper recognition of talents of a knowledge worker is essential to retain him in service.The current system has failed to identify the high potential employees, which offer a general promotional path based on number of years of service.However, identification of high potential employees and creating concise pathways for their growth and development will invariably result in efficiency in public service.

Talent transition and succession planning
Talent transition plays a vital role in TM facilitating continuous availability of evolving knowledge needs.Talent transition should ensure retaining implicit knowledge of a talent worker leaving the organization.
Reeves (2010) asserts that seasoned government bureaucrats possess a wealth of knowledge, skills and abilities.Skill development process stems from the informational knowledge, which could be acquired through standard operating procedures, handbooks and job descriptions.Informational knowledge of a successor should be harnessed with practicing skills until the new incumbent's abilities can be applied without conscious thought.If not, self-learning of skills will be on cumbersome trial and error method that would leave the successor in an overwhelmingly frustrated condition.Hence, there should be a proper succession planning to transfer those knowledge, skills and abilities.

Exit Interview
An exit interview is a wrap-up meeting held between management and an employee leaving an organization.Exit interviews can be used to gather information to improve recruiting and retention.

Transfer
A well-administered transfer procedure will ensure the exposure of an officer to various disciplines and thereby diversify their knowledge.A proper knowledge management system should be implemented to pass the implicit knowledge of the leaving employees to ensure smooth functioning of the organization.

Mentoring
As per Reeves (2010), mentoring programs aids in proper succession planning, retention of key employees, enhancing morale and productivity, and knowledge transfer.The mentor becomes a coach to the protégé´ and assists in developing his personal and professional skills.Mentoring can be commendably effective and a cost-effective method to serve the needs of the organization, mentree and the mentor.

Expected Improvements from the proposed Model
1. Minimize excessive recruitments 2. Reduce the national budget gap 3. Attract the cream of the crop from the job market to the public service 4. Enhance employee development, motivation, satisfaction and performance

Conclusion
There is a need for public sector reforms in Sri Lanka in order to enhance the efficiency of the government bureaucracy, which is preliminary requirement in attaining good governance.TM's role as a change agent should be well recognized to enhance the public sector in Sri Lanka.The proposed TM model is simple yet effective at achieving the above objective.
As Lewis and Heckman, 2006, suggests the field of TM itself needs more theory both on in-depth literature review and on conceptual analysis.Empirical Studies on TM and Skills Management in Sri Lanka are limited.As an emerging economy, more research should be conducted in the field of HRM specifically on TM and skills development as the contribution to economic development from these fields cannot be undermined when studying the success of developed nations.
observes a number of advantages of TM, including improved DOI: https://doi.org/10.4038/kjhrm.v18i2.108performance, encourage learning environment and inspire positive change leading to continuous improvement and work excellence.Hence, it has become the need of the hour to implement and maintain proper TM practices to achieve long term objectives of the organizations.

Figure 1 :
Figure 1: Proposed TM model for public sector in Sri Lanka and level-based training (e.g., training on the knowledge and skills required for each position) are key methods used.For providing training professional skills required for the positions, internal training is given.It includes training across the divisions to exchange the information about the most sought-after management matters and to learn about each division.The aim of this training is to stay conscious about the full picture of the city public services and be mindful about the current issues of the city office and how the city should prioritize in solving problems.Further Educational workshops for Psychological Health Management and etiquette, as well as supporting educational opportunities for individuals who seek further skill development could be observed in the phase of talent development.At Retention and Transition phase, under the service policy, the service transition requires the service documentations.Prior to the transferring period in April, an announcement of the changes is officially issued in March, but the predecessor meets the successor of the position from the month of January to pass the work details.
(Endo K. 1998)tion are conducted.The performance Appraisal System implemented is said to be nominal, which only aims at promotions and salary adjustments.(EndoK.1998)In Talent Development, Off-Job Training (executed by an outside company) It aims at enhancing their leadership capabilities.Under this program, the officers have to attend the following Milestone training programs, Inter-agency project teams, Exposure in several Ministries/ organizations, forums on leadership cum governance and peruse complex assignments.