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Summary Two assumptions about employee reactions are currently driving debates around talent management (TM): First, that TM leads to positive outcomes in employees identified as talents; and second, that TM creates differences between talents and employees not identified as talents. This review critically evaluates these assumptions by contrasting theoretical arguments from the non‐empirical literature on employee reactions to TM with the empirical evidence available. Our analysis partly supports both assumptions. Although positive reactions to TM were indeed found in terms of affective, cognitive, and behavioral employee outcomes, our review also found evidence for negative affective reactions in employees identified as talents. Significant differences between talents and non‐talents were found for behavioral reactions, but not for affective and cognitive reactions; for the latter types of reactions, our review found mixed effects. We summarize these findings in an integrative framework on the basis of social exchange theory, which our review shows is the dominant theory underlying assumptions about employee reactions to TM. We propose that 3 elements are missing in our current understanding, which can help explain our review findings: uncertainty, power, and social identity. We conclude with recommendations for TM research and practice.

In this article, we explore the use of strengths interventions, defined as activities and processes that target the identification, development, and use of individual strengths, as an organizational tool to increase employee well-being. Engaging with one's strengths is assumed to be a pleasant activity that elicits positive emotions like joy, pride, and gratitude, which, in turn, contribute to feelings of overall well-being and satisfaction. Building on this assumption, we hypothesized that participating in a strengths intervention leads to increases in general (i.e., psychological capital and satisfaction with life), and work-related well-being (i.e., increased work engagement and decreased burnout), and that positive affect mediates these effects. To test these hypotheses, we conducted a field experiment with a sample of N = 116 Dutch working people who were assigned to either an experimental group (participating in a strengths intervention) or a waitlist control group. All participants filled in a pre-intervention, postintervention, and 1 month follow-up questionnaire. Results indicate that participating in a strengths intervention creates short-term increases in employee positive affect and short-and long-term increases in psychological capital. We did not find evidence for a positive, direct effect of the strengths intervention on satisfaction with life, work engagement, and burnout respectively, but we did find support for indirect effects via the mediator positive affect.

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Prior research in Western contexts has pointed to the benefits of supporting employees in the use of their personal strengths at work. This manuscript aims to investigate the invariance of the relationship between employees' perceived organizational support for the use of their strengths and their well-being (work engagement, burnout, and satisfaction with life) across countries. To this end, we collected a cross-sectional sample of n = 1894 working individuals from five different countries (Germany, Indonesia, the Netherlands, Romania, and South Africa). The results of multigroup path analysis indicated that the relationships between support for the use of their strengths at work and the three indicators of well-being did not differ across the five countries. Perceived support for the use of strengths displayed a significant positive relationship with work engagement and satisfaction with life and a significant negative relationship with burnout. Consequently, our findings provide initial evidence for the universal benefits of focusing on individual strengths at work.

Personal growth is not only a central individual need but also a key requirement for organizational success. Nevertheless, workplace interventions aimed at stimulating the personal growth of employees are still scarce. In this study, we investigated the effectiveness of an intervention that aimed at the identification, development, and use of employee strengths in stimulating personal growth initiative. We conducted a field experiment with a sample of 84 educational professionals who were either assigned to a strengths intervention or a wait‐list control group. In a 1‐month follow‐up study, we found that the intervention had a direct effect on general self‐efficacy (GSE) and an indirect effect on personal growth initiative. Moreover, in line with plasticity theory we found that the intervention was especially effective for participants with low to medium initial levels of GSE. We conclude that a strengths intervention may provide a brief and effective tool for organizations that aim for self‐directed learning among their staff, in particular when offered to employees who lack confidence in their own abilities. Practitioner points In a 1 month follow‐up study, we found that a strengths intervention had a positive direct effect on general self‐efficacy and an indirect effect on personal growth initiative. In line with plasticity theory, we found that the strengths intervention was especially effective for participants with low to medium initial levels of general self‐efficacy.