Human Capital Institute (HCI) conducted a poll of HCI members (Apr. ’08) to get a sense of what organizations are doing to address strategic talent-management challenges and whether the economic downturn (cum recession) is impacting plans or reducing today’s unprecedented urgency around Talent Management (TM). The emphasis of the poll was on large companies of 10,000 or more employees.
More than 70 percent of organizations perceived that TM was essential for business success and an important component of a compelling employee value proposition. Among the large organizations represented in the survey (25,000 employees and above), this number increased to 80 percent.
Despite the U.S. economic slowdown, the majority of respondents (86 percent) predict that talent shortages will remain the same or increase over the next 12 months. In response to economic challenges, our respondents emphasized the need to drive a focus on performance management in order to retain top performers (67 percent). Career planning was considered one of several important ingredients in improving top talent retention.
Development of Talent Strategy
According to more than 65 percent of respondent organizations, executive leadership is driving the development of talent strategies in their organizations.
Sixty nine percent of respondent organizations already share at least some TM responsibilities between HR and line management; this rises to a full 80 percent among organizations of 25,000 employees or more.
Investment in Talent Management Infrastructure
Where technology is concerned, the survey results are particularly encouraging; suggesting an increasing trend in the use of HR/TM solutions. Most respondents have plans to acquire more HR/TM technologies and many intend to pursue the long-sought vision of a truly integrated, end-to-end platform.
When asked about the barriers to the successful implementation of TM, respondents chose the lack of a unified TM solution (49 percent) and weak line management buy-in (35 percent) as the top two inhibitors.
Metrics and Measurement
Based on the overall analysis, increasing the performance of individual employees (72 percent), improving retention levels (68 percent) and ‘business goal achievement’ (61 percent) are the three most important measures and expected outcomes of investment in TM.
In general, respondents do not expect the economic downturn to impact the competition for talent or their TM plans, urgencies and expenditures. This strategy reflects on the increasing number of senior executives and board members who recognize talent as the main competitive driver in our knowledge economy.
With this perspective, it is likely that a downturn (even not a very strong recession) will not impact the progress organizations (particularly large ones) are making in their TM preparedness nor the challenges they face.
Lori Blackman is Founder and President, DNL Global, a talent-management solutions provider. Allan Schweyer is President and Executive Director, Human Capital Institute.
