Global talent crisis ahead

Impending baby boomer retirements, a widening skills gap and ineffective approaches to talent management are combining forces to produce a “perfect storm” that threatens the global business economy, a new study says.

In a Deloitte survey of HR executives in the US, more than 70% of the respondents said incoming workers with inadequate skills pose the greatest threat to business performance over the next three years, followed by baby boomer retirement and the inability to retain key talent (defined as employees with deep knowledge not just of the work itself, but of how to make things happen within a company, such as couriers in delivery companies who have daily contact with customers). In a similar survey in Canada, 60% of respondents said they face challenges in retaining critical talent.

“The overwhelming accumulation of data, including Deloitte’s new research, points to an inescapable conclusion: the widening skills gap is a global phenomenon that will create unprecedented challenges for businesses,” says Stephen Diotte, partner at Deloitte Canada. “The confluence of demographic and social trends  —  the full force of which will begin to be felt in as little as three years — will leave behind companies that do not begin to rethink their approach to managing human capital.”

According to Deloitte, talent-savvy organizations build strategies around what matters most to their critical talent: their personal development, their need to be deployed in positions and assignments that engage their interests, and their connection to others in ways that drive performance for the entire company. Organizations that develop their critical talent generate superior business performance, and when this happens, attraction and retention largely take care of themselves.