Sustainable Talent Management and Employee Engagement in the IT Sector: An Empirical Study from Kerala

Sustainable talent management has gained increasing importance as organizations seek to align workforce development and employee well-being with broader economic, technological, social, and environmental sustainability objectives. This issue is particularly relevant to the information technology (IT) sector, where rapid technological transformation, changing skill requirements, and evolving employee expectations create new challenges for sustaining an engaged workforce. Against this background, the present study examines the relationship between sustainable talent management and employee engagement among employees working in selected IT organizations in Kerala. The study conceptualizes sustainable talent management through four dimensions economic, technological, social, and environmental sustainability and examines their individual and collective relationships with employee engagement. A quantitative, cross-sectional research design was adopted, and primary data were collected through a structured questionnaire from 204 employees working in selected IT organizations in and around InfoPark, Kochi, Ernakulam, Kerala. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation, and multiple linear regression.The regression analysis revealed significant positive associations between all four sustainability dimensions and employee engagement. Technological sustainability emerged as the strongest predictor (β = .403, p < .001), followed by economic sustainability (β = .338, p < .001), while social and environmental sustainability also showed significant positive associations. The findings highlight that employee engagement in the IT-sector context is associated with a multidimensional approach to sustainable talent management rather than with a single sustainability-oriented practice. The study contributes empirical evidence from Kerala and underscores the importance of integrating technological readiness, economic sustainability, social well-being, and environmental responsibility within talent management practices to support an engaged and sustainable workforce

Sustainable Talent Management; Employee Engagement; Technological Sustainability; Economic Sustainability; Social Sustainability; Environmental Sustainability; IT Sector

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