An analysis of transformational leadership, talent acquisition and talent retention of engineers at an energy provider in South Africa

Abstract

Orientation: Scholars long debated the importance of transformational leadership, talent acquisition and talent retention. Research purpose: The purpose of this study was to analyse transformational leadership, talent acquisition and talent retention of engineers at Eskom by investigating the demographic differences, relationships and transformational leadership as the mediating variable. Motivation for the study: Eskom has improved the remuneration of engineers over the years but continued encountering challenges to attract and retain them. The researcher investigated whether the perceived lack of transformational leadership caused the challenges experienced by the organisation. Research approach/design and method: This was quantitative study, which used convenience-sampling method to obtain 585 completed questionnaires from the engineers. Main findings: The researcher performed a one-way Anova test to establish if engineers from a gender and educational qualification perspectives were different from each other on the eight sub-factors identified through exploratory factor analysis. The p-values were greater than 0.05, meant that there was no statistical difference between genders and between engineers with different educational qualifications. The researcher conducted a post-hoc pairwise test (p-values < 0.05) on different age groups and results revealed that older respondents (31 – 40 years of age) had greater positive attitude on the perception of before-selection, during-selection and development than the younger group (18 – 30 years of age). In addition, the study revealed that transformational leadership mediated the relationship between talent acquisition and retention of engineers. Practical/managerial implications: The study emphasises that not only salaries are important to attract and retain engineers, but also effective leadership is essential, especially the transformational leadership philosophy. Contribution/value-add: South Africa has a dearth of engineers. The study results illustrates the importance of transformational leadership philosophy in addressing the challenge the organisation faces. Therefore, the organisation must consider designing programmes to help leaders embrace the transformational leadership philosophy.