Talent Identification, Nurturing and Mentorship: Challenges and Opportunities in the Global Economy

This chapter locates the challenges and opportunities on talent identification, nurturing and mentorship in the global economy. Over the years, the desire to attain organisational competitive advantage has occupied renewed attention by organisations. Identifying, nurturing, mentoring, and harvesting talent is becoming a major challenge grappling with organisations across the globe. As a contemporary practice in human capital management, talent identification, nurturing and mentorship is at the epicentre in building and sustaining a transformative human resource in any organisation. Lack of talent recognition, poor rewards, lack of motivation and shallow talent pool are some of the challenges obstructing talent identification and retention in Africa. Zimbabwe has also been seized with the need to innovate and industrialize in its education sector to address the skills deficit and drive the attainment of national development goals. Education 5.0 mantra is reflective of contemporary human capital practices where the education system is designed to match the changing demands in global human capital management. Leadership succession programmes, talent development programmes, incentivising of talent and establishing a match between the skills and competencies to the job in Universities and organisations are key imperatives needed to the competitive transformation of human capital in the twenty-first century.