Modern-day organisations are facing many managerial challenges as a result of internationalisation and globalisation, which intensify the competition for talent (Brouwer, Veldkamp, & Vroom, 2019; Perera & Karunarathne, 2019; Xing & Cheng, 2019). As such, strategies on how to attract and retain employees in an ever-changing business environment are currently the concern of every manager (Azma, Farahbakhsh, Safarzad, & Farahnaki, 2019; Morgan, 2019; Suleman & Ogbette, 2019; Van Zyl, Mathafena, & Ras, 2017). Given the practical management reality of modern-day organisations, managers face the dilemma of integrating talent management strategies with wellness interventions. On the one hand, the uncertainty of the external environment makes it difficult for organisations to predict supply and demand of talent in the external labour market. On the other hand, it is also difficult for organisations to attract and implement wellness interventions, and develop and retain talent (Collings, Mellahi, & Cascio, 2019; Dong, 2019). For instance, Hoole and Bonnema (2015) highlighted that over the past few years focus has shifted towards people-centric practices that emphasise on positive psychology. The focus has been aligned with the need to effectively manage talent by paying more attention to the intellectual skills and capabilities that contribute to health and well-being (Moloi & Adelowotan, 2019).

However, even though there is an abundance of health improvement programmes, there has been limited research on how health programmes can be effectively integrated with talent management initiatives. A common problem encountered in the wellness programmes is the overwhelming amount of information available to employees and issues that have to do with confidentiality. As a result, some health promotion programmes lack accountability and sense of community, and feedback mechanisms are more likely to fail (Blackwell et al., 2019). As a result, organisations need creative, flexible and responsive employees to create new ideas and meet customers’ needs (Azma et al., 2019; Morgan, 2019; Suleman & Ogbette, 2019; Van Zyl et al., 2017; Xing & Cheng, 2019). Retention of a positive and motivated employee is very important for an organization’s success. High employee turnover increases the expenses and also has a negative impact on the organization’s morale (Battista, 2019; Rajenderan & Zawawi, 2019).

In this article, the literature on talent management and wellness will be explored. Thereafter, the research methodology, findings and theoretical and managerial implications are outlined. The last section provides concluding remarks and the agenda for further research.

The purpose of this study was to determine the critical success factors that influence the adoption and integration of talent management strategies with wellness interventions.

The main objectives of this research are (1) to explore the extent to which organisational context influences the adoption and integration of talent management strategies with wellness interventions and (2) to identify the critical success factors that influence the integration of talent management strategies with wellness interventions.

Although there is no consistent definition of talent management, scholars generally pay attention to exclusiveness and inclusiveness of the talent system that is the performance or potential key positions, internal development and training of talent or the introduction of external labour. Xing and Cheng (2019) define:

From this definition, we can therefore deduce that employees’ motivation is the driving force that energises the employees to excel physically, cognitively and behaviourally in achieving and sustaining organisational objectives with a sense of devotion and purpose. Therefore, talent management strategies provide requisite stimulus to employees to demonstrate their best in tangible and intangible abilities with a focus on improving organisational performance (Al-Hussaini, Turi, Altamimi, Khan, & Ahmad, 2019).

Field and Louw (2012, p. 4) define wellness as workplace health promotion activities designed to improve and support healthy behaviour of employees. In addition, Hettler (1980) posits that wellness is characterised by four constructs, physical, emotional, psychological and social wellness, which are can be further defined:

The combined perspective of wellness and health creates a complex view of relationships that are not clearly defined by wellness and health’s current theoretical models. Whilst some of the ambiguities can be resolved as terminology and definitions become more precise, other gaps in our knowledge necessitate rigorous construct development and empirical testing for research on wellness (Hartley & Young, 2019; Whitaker, 2019). Thus, wellness and well-being are used interchangeably with common constructs being physical, emotional, psychological and social wellness in this article.

The multi-perspective of talent management is valuable for the development of talent management research, but traditional academic research is rarely integrated or linked in a broader perspective (Azma et al., 2019). To strengthen the theoretical basis of talent management, it is necessary to build and integrate human resource management and organisational behaviour theory and practice (Brouwer et al., 2019). Hence, talent philosophies that capture human resource (HR) managers’ inherent beliefs about the value and instrumentality of talent will influence how they perceive, interpret or adopt talent-centric practices (Dong, 2019; Meyers, Van Woerkom, Paauwe, & Dries, 2019). The interface amongst wellness, well-being, talent and performance depicted in Figure 1 identifies two interrelated sets of health and well-being effects on performance. The first effect is on the physical, psychological and behavioural consequences. The second effect is on productivity, absenteeism and profitability (Danna & Griffin, 1999). Finally, talent management interlinks antecedents, health, well-being and performance. Thus, an organisation should implement talent management strategies such as attraction, development, deployment and retention in order to improve the health and well-being of employees, which will ultimately have an impact on individual and organisational performance.

Positive organisational behaviour studies, for instance, conducted by Avey, Luthans, Smith, and Palmer (2010) and Bakker and Schaufeli (2008), highlight the view that business leaders and employee well-being experts should play the role of stressing the link between positive organisational outcomes and wellness. Some employees interpret employee well-being messages in a way that is negative. This negative reaction is attributed to employees feeling that participating in wellness programmes is tantamount to conforming to organisational practices, such as addressing the symptoms of workplace bullying and work overload. As a result, these negative reactions to wellness interventions can impact the primary, secondary and tertiary level wellness interventions as follows:

It is also evident that wellness interventions at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels mentioned before not only address negative aspects (such as workplace bullying and work overload), but also result in positive outcomes for employees and the organisation. The use of self-reporting techniques to assess the impact of wellness in organisations is often prone to bias (Sieberhagen, Pienaar, & Els, 2009), which ultimately negatively affects the efforts to integrate talent management strategies with wellness interventions in organisations. Therefore, from a critical and practical point of view, HR professionals and wellness specialists should develop an in-depth understanding of the antecedents, processes and performance outcomes that allow the integration of wellness interventions with talent management strategies, as depicted in Figure 1.

A phenomenological approach was adopted to explore the HR professionals’ perceptions about talent management and workplace wellness as well as the critical success factors towards integrating talent management strategies with wellness interventions. Phenomenology is a form of qualitative research that seeks a deeper understanding and documents common experiences of individuals on specific matters. The research process is very important as it enables researchers to construct meanings and arrive at more profound understandings (Bryman & Bell, 2011).

The population was drawn from HR professionals who are experienced in managing talent and wellness programmes within South African organisations. Table 1 sets out the demographic profile of the 10 interviewees who participated in this study. The number of participants chosen for the study is in accordance with the qualitative research guidelines of Creswell (1998), Mason (2010) and Bryman and Bell (2011), who recommend that a minimum sample size of five is adequate for phenomenological research; however, the researchers did not only select five participants as they were seeking for data saturation (Creswell, 1998). Purposive sampling was the primary sampling method utilised. With this technique, participants were grouped according to their HR professional level and sector. The snowballing technique was utilised as the secondary sampling method. This technique enabled participants with whom contact had already been established to refer other participants who met the required criteria and who could potentially participate in or contribute to the study (Bryman & Bell, 2011). Twelve participants voluntarily made themselves available for the initial selection. However, only 10 were interviewed due to the unavailability of the other participants and 10 were sufficient as data saturation started to set in with the eighth participant. In accordance with ethical protocols and guidelines, all the participants’ names were de-identified.

Table 1 provides an overview of the demographic profiles of the 10 interviewees who participated in this study. All participants interviewed had at least a postgraduate degree. Years spent working as an HR professional varied from 1 to 10 years and above. The next section sets out the data collection and analysis method and processes adopted.

Prior to the commencement of the study, ethical clearance was obtained from the university. In addition, permission to conduct research was obtained from the South African Board for People Practices. Participation in the research was voluntary. The interview process involved the following five stages and observed ethical research practices at all times:

All interviews were recorded with consent and transcribed by the researcher for data analysis.

Ethical clearance was obtained prior to the commencement of the study from North-West University (Clearance Number NWU-00228-16-A9).

In Table 2, each of the three themes and their related subthemes are indicated and showcased with evidence quotes from the participants.

In describing the conceptualisation of wellness, most participants highlighted that wellness is the ability of a person or an employee to take care of themselves psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, physically, socially and mentally. Some of the excerpts from the interviews include the following comments:

Participants revealed that talent is the capability that an employee or a job seeker has that can improve organisational performance. Some of the conceptualisations of talent are included in the following excerpts:

The subthemes refer to talent management and how it is perceived by the participants.

All participants were aware of the need to optimise the integration of talent and wellness in the organisation. The majority of the participants indicated that wellness was not effectively integrated in the talent management process in their organisations, with only one participant indicating that integration only existed at the higher level in their organisation. However, despite efforts made by their organisations to introduce and manage wellness programmes, most participants stressed that they face challenges regarding the management and implementation of wellness programmes. Some of the interview excerpts in this regard are shown below:

Hence, the integration should not be a major challenge as it is the responsibility of HR professionals to ensure that the integration is optimised.

This study provided qualitative evidence that organisational context influences the adoption and integration of talent management strategies with wellness interventions. Wellness interventions must be viewed to be positive and integrated into talent management. The critical success factors that are perceived to influence the integration of talent management strategies with wellness interventions were identified and discussed. A talent–wellness organisational culture was found to be the main critical success factor with related subcritical factors. Findings also suggest that there is a need to understand the determinants of workplace wellness interventions and how they can positively impact talent management. Based on findings from the current study, future research efforts may focus on engaging employees at all levels of the organisation in talent management, establishing a talent–wellness culture and having a talent–wellness coordinator or committee to facilitate implementation.