More than nine out of 10 (92%) UK HR and business leaders see redesigning their organisation as their top priority, according to Deloitte’s Global Human Capital Trends 2016 survey.
Two in five (42%) UK respondents said they are currently restructuring their organisation, and 49% had recently completed the process. Only 7% said they have no plans to restructure.
Anne-Marie Malley, UK human capital leader at Deloitte, said that the traditional world of work is being “dramatically” transformed. “After three years of struggling to drive employee engagement and retention, improve leadership, and create an attractive company culture, executives in this year’s survey see a need to redesign the organisation itself,” she said. “UK organisations are reinventing their internal models to innovate, compete and thrive, but many issues still remain in these areas for the foreseeable future.”
Leadership has fallen from the most pressing concern to the third most important trend for the first time in two years. However, despite this no longer being HR and business executives' top priority, effective leadership continues to lag behind. Only 13% of respondents believe they are “excellent” at maintaining clear and current succession plans and programmes, while 59% said their companies are not ready to meet leadership needs.
Malley said that leadership falling from the top spot of concern could be due to the need for UK companies to look at issues such as restructuring and employee engagement in order to compete in the short term. She warned that this could be a short-sighted approach. “It’s clear from this year’s results that the traditional leadership ‘pyramid’ is still not producing leaders fast enough, causing real concern in the medium and long term,” she said.
“Companies need to accelerate leadership development, particularly for millennials. This generation make up more than half the workforce right now, and in less than 10 years they will make up three-quarters. Deloitte’s 2016 millennial survey showed that 71% of those likely to leave their current job in the next two years are unhappy with how their leadership skills are being developed.
“If organisations don’t address this issue now they may lose their most talented future leaders,” she added.
