Talent Quotient and Youth Employment: Finding the Strategic Fit

: The Malaysian Government announced Vision 2020 to become a developed nation with human competitiveness in the global market. It is the aim of the government to elevate the socioeconomic status of Malaysians particularly the bottom 40 percent of the working population (B40) who is economically challenged. Most of the B40 Malaysian employees are working in the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and holding lower level positions only. In most of the developing countries around the world, there will be a high percentage of people who has low incomes, similar to the B40 group in Malaysia. The lowincome group must be elevated if a nation wishes to become developed. The Malaysian government has interests to adopt the talent quotient practices and apply it to the B40 employees in the SMEs. SMEs does not adopt talent quotient practices extensively as resources are limited and there is a higher significant of employee turnover. The aim of this study is to develop a strategic fit model of talent quotient for low skilled employees in SMEs, based on human resource tools like staffing, learning, development, engagement and retention. The study deployed a quantitative data collection method with 301 completed questionnaires from B40 youth employees currently working with various SMEs in Malaysia. The research indicates that number of factors play significant role in improving the knowledge, skills, abilities and attitude of employees, thus improves their job performance and productivity. The study proposed some recommendations to relevant stakeholders and provided the way forward for realizing the government’s aspirations by the year 2020.