Talent Management and SDG 8: Human Capital Development for Inclusive Growth Linking workforce planning with decent work and productivity goals

SDG 8 focuses on the growth, sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent work. The strategic human resource operation, talent management, is central in delivering the goals by combining the workforce planning with both productivity and decent work agendas. This paper discusses the ways through which companies can utilize talent management models to maximize investment in human resource development, minimize skills deficiency, and create a fair access to career development prospects. The study is mixed-methods research: on the one hand, it provides a quantitative analytical summary of the workforce productivity indicators; on the other, it adheres to a qualitative survey of the case studies of organizational practices in manufacturing, technology, and services. The results indicate that the effective employee engagement, retention, and the ability to contribute to the economy are achieved directly through proactive workforce planning, desired skills training, and inclusive recruitment. But implementation is obstructed by, among others, the issue of resource limitations, change resistance and inadequate policy-to-practice alignment. The conclusion of this paper will include addressing feasible solutions of incorporating talent strategies in the execution of SDG 8 by agreeing with the noted limitations in terms of generalizability of data and recommendations that can be used in studying human capital sustainability in the long run