Abstract:

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are one of the most important global development forces that mark the economy, especially in developing countries such as Colombia. Although they have competitive advantages, SMEs continue to disappear easily from the market. Very little has been asked about the internal factors that could explain the difficulties that SMEs are currently facing, especially those that involve human resources, a factor that affects other processes. This descriptive, non-experimental and cross-sectional study aim is to identify the most common processes and / or practices in the field of human talent management in a pilot sample of SMEs in the tourism, manufacturing and port logistics industry of Cartagena, Colombia, the most important economic sectors of the city. The results shown that, although SMEs recognize the importance of human talent management processes and their impact on business results, they face serious limitations in terms of knowledge and implementation of human talent management processes, which is attributed, in part, to the lack of qualified personnel to handle them. In the processes and practices the disarticulation and informality predominates, and the lack of strategic direction of the human resource necessary for the growth and competitiveness in the market; with the activities they are currently doing. Finally, it is observed that, although SMEs have a high potential to generate employment, they also have high turnover rates thus showing their difficulties in retaining human talent.