Selection of Most Suitable Candidates for the Talent Pool in a Furniture Manufacturing Company

This paper deals with the question of identifi cation and development of talents in the company. The aim of the article is to fi nd one of the possible solutions to increase the objectivity of identifying talents and fi nding valuable input data for planning effectively their further development. The objective is achieved by estimates of the weights of criteria and by the multicriteria decision making method. The proposed model for solving this problem is specifi c for companies in furniture industry, as well as for companies in other sectors. For this reason, the selected methods have been applied to a specifi c example of the Czech company operating in furniture industry for over twenty years.


INTRODUCTION 1. UVOD
Talent management is not a new concept.The talent management concept was introduced around the 1990s and became popular with McKinsey's War for Talent survey in 1997 (Maycock and Ikuomola, 2015).The subject of discussion in scientifi c articles is mainly defi ned and understood as the extent of integration of talent management (Sojka, 2013) with the "strategy of the company as well as resolving the lack of talents in general" (Stephan et al., 2014).The problem is not just the lack of talents, but diffi cult identifi cation to create a talent pool in the organization, as well as effi cient planning of their training and development (Grenčíková et al. 2015).
Experts engaged in searching talents are hesitant since companies should be more focused on identify-element (Kampf et al., 2014) in identifying talents in a company is to defi ne the required and needed competencies (selection criteria).These competencies should be in accordance with the business strategy (Sojka, 2013) and this way to ensure the effectiveness of the selection of talents in the organization for their further use in the company as key personnel.Authors Ali Taha and Sikorová (2012), Bolfíková et al. (2010) and Nováková (2011) discuss the following areas of competencies (criteria): • behavioral aspects (for example: "I can -I will do"), • knowledge, skills and abilities, • soft skills, • cognitive skills (eg.diversity of thought), • experiences, • recognized values.
Every company has its own characteristics (Weberova, 2013) and specifi cities to be taken into account in determining competencies.In view of this fact, it is natural that some of the required competencies have higher weight (are more important) than other competencies (Olexová et al., 2011).When identifying talents (Hitka et al., 2013), it is not only important to determine what competencies are expected from talents, but also to defi ne their priority.(Zámečník, 2014).From this perspective, it is possible to comprehensively assess candidates when building a talent pool (Kampf et al., 2015).When evaluating workers in search of talents, different methods are used (Rebeťák and Farkašová, 2015;Lukáč, 2009) Assessment.
The quality of the assessment depends on the emphasis on objectivity and takes into account the costs that the company plans to invest in the talent pool for the future.
ing and developing talents (Briscoe and Hall, 1999).The investment in learning and development of talents (Garavan et al. 2012) has been justifi ed as a source of competitive advantage.Garavan (2012) concluded that external talent acquisition strategy has proven to be unsuccessful in the long run with many organisations (Merková et al., 2013).Lepak and Snell (1999) and Stacho and Stasiak-Betlejewska (2014) determined relative advantage of organisations developing their workforce internally.In their article, Maycock and Ikuomola (2015) show that it is more effi cient to focus on talents within the company (use internal resources) and then to invest in their training and development (Hitka and Štípalová, 2011).It opens serious questions in the practical implementation of company's talent management (Stacho et al., 2013): - Who is the talent for the company and what type of talent the company needs?- How can a talent be properly identifi ed and developed?- What will be the return of the cost of the talent pool for the company?- How to motivate the talent pool for further learning and development?
1.1 Identifi cation of talents 1.1.Identifi kacija talenata Lukáč (2009) defi nes talent as a combination of skills, personal qualities and qualifi cations, which are enriched by the potential of their further development.According to the CIPD (2007), Kropivšek et al. (2011) and Kucharčíková (2014), talented individuals are the ones who can highly contribute to the performance of the company by immediate contributing to the performance or longer-term demonstration of high potential.Hitka and Lejsková (2015) indicate that, in practice, the problem area of talent management (the processes of talent management is shown in Fig. 1) is insuffi cient setting of talents, as well as its imprecise defi nition of the competencies required for talent pooling (Farkašová et.al., 2013).The next problem area determined as defective is the wrong choice of a talent for the company based on set criteria (competencies), which usually results in an irretrievable investment.Therefore, the key

MATERIJAL I METODE
The aim of the article is to fi nd one of the possible solutions to increase the objectivity of identifying talents in the company and fi nding valuable input data for effective planning of their further development.The objective is achieved by estimating the weights of criteria and by using the method of multicriteria decision making.
The suitability of methods for optimizing the selection of talent pool will be considered based on the type of input data to be processed and usability conclusions of optimization method.Using methods of multicriteria decision, the sequence of steps shown in Fig. 2 must be respected.The selected methods have been applied to a specifi c example of the Czech company operating in furniture industry with a twenty-year tradition.

Methods for determining criteria weightings 2.1. Metode određivanja težine kriterija
For accurate diagnosis and selection of talents in the company, it is necessary to clearly determine the required competence.Due to the limited selection resulting from a lack of talents, the company should consider the prerequisites of candidates for obtaining some competencies.It requires categorizing competencies with respect to their weight of importance in accordance with the strategy of the company.It is often diffi cult to obtain weight importance in numerical form.For this reason, the use of estimates of weights of the criteria will facilitate the assessment of the evaluators.The best known methods (Jablonský, 2002) are the Method of Ranking, Scoring Method, Method of Fuller Triangle and Saaty´s Method.The method of ranking and scoring method are based on direct evaluation criteria (Stopka et al., 2014).In the method of ranking, the evaluator sets ranking of most important criteria (assigning a value k, where k is the number of criteria), from the most important k-1, k-2 ... to the least important, which is assigned a value of 1. Consequently, as the assigned value i-th criterion is marked as p i , it is possible to estimate scales (Eq. 1) by calculating (Jablonský, 2002): (1) The requirement that the evaluator can qualitatively evaluate the importance of the pre-determined scoring scale (eg. 1 to 10) is essential for the suitability of the scoring method.The higher the score, the higher importance will be placed on that criterion.If the value assigned i-th criterion is denoted as p, it is possible to weight the criteria calculated according to Eq. 1.These methods are not entirely favorable for the evaluator because clear assessment criteria are less accurate and do not refl ect the relationships of criteria with each other.Methods based on pairwise comparison criteria are more appropriate for the solution of the question of talents identifi cation.Principle Fuller triangle is based on mutual comparison criteria arranged in a triangular scheme (Fig. 3), where each pair occurs only once.The evaluator selects important criterion of each pair (Jablonský, 1. Creation of purpose-oriented set of evaluation criteria and setting the weights of evaluation criteria / Stvaranje namjenski usmjerenih kriterija ocjenjivanja i vrednovanje kriterija ocjenjivanja 2002), and highlights it.Unless both criteria are of equal importance, the evaluator will highlight both.Subsequently, the evaluator calculates the number of highlighted i-th criteria identifi ed as p and obtains an estimate of the weights criteria according to Eq. 1.
Saaty´s method (Saaty, 2008) is the most sophisticated of the described methods and allows for broader consideration of the impact of preference criteria based on pair comparison.The degree (Jablonský, 2002) of importance of the criteria v is assessed on a scale from 1 to 9, where value 1 indicates that the criteria are of equal importance and value 9 expresses the absolute preference of one criterion to another.If the fi rst criterion is less important than the other, this relationship is expressed by the inverse of the scales (1 / 1-9).Consequently, the fi nal evaluation can be entered in Saaty´s matrix, where each element S ij (Eq. 2 -4) can be obtained as the ratio of estimating of weights for the i-th and j-th criterion (Saaty, 2000): Substituting the calculated elements (Saaty, 1988) of the matrix into the Eq. 3 and 4 allows for calculating the weighting of importance of the particular criteria.Saaty´s method is the most appropriate form of determining (Kampf et al., 2012) the weighting of criteria for the purposes of identifying the talent pool in the particular furniture company, since it respects the complicated relationships between individual criteria.Based on the obtained weightings, it is possible to assess the suitability of each candidate and reduce the complexity and frequent inaccuracies of evaluators' decision.As input data, utilization of the results of assessment and development centre, where several evaluators can imitate the conditions to fulfi ll the criteria of individuals, who are subjected to multiple types of tasks, seems to be the optimal decision.This evaluation fulfi ls the condition of the comprehensive evaluation.

Methods based on selecting the most suitable variant 2.2. Metode utemeljene na odabiru najprikladnije varijante
There are a lot of methods for selecting the most suitable variant within multi-criteria analysis and they are based on different principles (Filová et al., 2012).The most common methods are AHP method (Analytic Hierarchy Process), ELECTRE methods PROME-THEE method, WSA method, the complex utility function method, TOPSIS method and others (Klaric et al.,2015) (Kampf, 2003).In this paper, the AHP method has been selected.It is based on the principle of paired comparisons of elements in each level of a hierarchical structure.This represents a model of the particular decision-making problem.Given the objectives of the paper, this method is selected to obtain the cardi-nal information and accessibility for the evaluators, due to the possibility of using the verbal evaluation.

Application of Saaty´s method to conditions
of a specifi c company operating in furniture industry 3.1.Primjena Saatyjeve metode u uvjetima konkretne tvrtke koja posluje u industriji proizvodnje namještaja Practical application of Saaty´s method in this article is to evaluate the importance of the required criteria of talents in a company of furniture industry.Companies producing furniture have some specifi c features (Mateides and Ďaďo, 2002, Greger et. al., 2013).Taking into account these specifi cs, it will become possible to increase the effi ciency in the management of their talents.The specifi cs that affect the business strategy of companies of furniture industry are mainly determined by the nature of their product.These specifi cs are transformed into the production process and situation in furniture trade (Potkány and Giertl, 2014).Managers have to be able to identify these specifi c features and take them into account.The example has been made on the basis of the data found in a Czech company, manufacturing furniture for over 20 years.Determination and subsequent valuation criteria discussed in this example were obtained in 2015 from the fi ve key managers (the values given are arithmetic average).In accordance with the objectives and strategies of the company, the key criteria (competencies) were determined: K1 -ability to work under stress / sposobnost rada pod stresom K2 -analytical and logical thinking / analitičko i logično razmišljanje K3 -creativity and openness to new ideas / kreativnost i otvorenost prema novim idejama K4 -expertise (expertise in furniture production fi eld) / stručnost K5 -communication skills / komunikacijske vještine K6 -team thinking / timsko razmišljanje K7 -reliability and responsibility / pouzdanost i odgovornost K8 -experience / iskustvo K9 -ability to react fl exibly to changes / sposobnost fl eksibilne reakcije na promjene K10 -purposefulness / svrhovitost.
Based on these defi ned competencies for identifying talents in the organization and assessment of their importance by paired comparison (Eq.2), Saaty´s matrix could be made.It is presented in Tab. 1.
The values of obtained weights K1 -K10 determine the importance of the required competencies for the talent.These weights can be used for decision making in the selection of talents in several ways.The simplest and the most commonly used method, in practice, is rating (Tab.2).The resulting values of rating are obtained by multiplying the assessment of candidate competencies (V j ) and the value of the criteria weight (K i ).The matrix was tested for consistency (CR = 0.096).According to Saaty (2000), the permissible tolerance is max. 10 %, therefore the consistency condition is satisfi ed.
The input data (obtained score of competencies of candidates -V j ) are in this case obtained by means of development centre and 360° evaluations (Tab.2).Candidates (n = 6) were evaluated by fi ve evaluators, who rated the range of 1-9 (where 1 -very poor, 9very strong).The resulting value is the average of the assessment of all evaluators.
Another option of decision making is AHP method, based on the principle of Saaty´s matrix.In making use of Saaty´s matrix, the candidates are compared (Eq.2) for each criterion in a separate matrix (Tab. 3).The advantage of this method is more comprehensive assessment of deviations between meeting individual criteria.A comparison of the candidates for each criterion in a single matrix is shown in Table 3.The values in the matrix are obtained based on the ratio of compared assessment of candidates to the selected criterion (Eq.2).Thus obtained results for individual candidates are used to calculate the fi nal evaluation of the candidates as shown in Table 4.
The method of rating is a quick option for obtaining rapid and relatively acceptable results.Tab. 2 shows this recalculation for each criterion of the monitored candidates (V1 -V6).The fi elds marked in grey show the highest values for the evaluated criteria.Consequently, it is possible to determine the fi nal evaluation of candidates and their sequence of suitability.The three best ratings of candidates are marked in grey.In this case, the most suitable candidates are V2, V4 and V1.
The maximum calculated values obtained by using the resulting weights of candidates and the criteria (Table 4) are highlighted in bold.Based on the sum of preferential index values of each candidate, the optimum sequence can be determined in identifying talents in the organization.In this case, the optimal candidate is V2, and V4 is the second, which corresponds to the rating of the fi rst method (Table 2).
The resulting sequence obtained by the AHP method differs in the determination of other suitable candidates, namely: V6 is the third most optimal candidate (in Table 2 it is V1), followed by V3, V1 and V5.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION 4. RASPRAVA I ZAKLJUČAK
Using the estimate of weights methods for each criterion in identifying talents improves the quality of talent selection.It this article, Saaty´s method is evaluated as the most appropriate method.The application of Saaty´s method is shown in the real case of talent selection in the Czech company operating in furniture industry.The accuracy of selection can be optimized by selecting the appropriate method for determining the correct option (the candidate) based on several criteria.AHP methods were compared based on Saaty´s matrix with simple rating (multiplying assessment of candidates and weight of criteria).Different ranking of candidates was obtained by using these methods.Divergence of results was caused by detailed paired comparison of competencies of individual candidates.The need for planning development and training of identifi ed talents was associated with increased costs, creating a need for an optimized selection.Optimized selection of candidates can be inaccurate particularly in the case of: - changes in priorities and objectives of furniture manufacturer, - inaccurate or biased assessment of candidates, by the evaluators, - incorrect or incomplete consideration of the required competencies.
The aim of the article was to fi nd opportunities to improve the quality of decision-making when identifying talents in a furniture manufacturing company.For this reason, the determining of criteria for choosing talents has to be established in view of specifi c production process and company objectives.These requirements also depend on the character and situation in the furniture market.To meet the set target, several methods could be used to estimate the weights of the criteria.Saaty´s method was determined as the most appropriate in view of obtaining cardinal information that can be further used.In this article, AHP method was chosen for identifying the best option, which allows a comparison of the candidates on the basis of verbal evaluation by several experts.Another reason was that AHP method was to provide accurate outputs that can form the basis for further targeted development planning of talents.The use of these optimization methods provides the accuracy of the results obtained and the subsequent decisions represent a reduction in investment risk for the development of the talent pool.