Only 17% of employers believe their organisation is effective at predicting and planning for future talent needs, according to a report from the Corporate Research Forum (CRF).
Rethinking Talent Management found that just one in five (20%) employers are satisfied with the outcomes of their organisation’s talent management efforts.
While PwC’s 2014 Global CEO Survey found that 63% of CEO respondents were concerned about the future availability of key skills at all levels, the CRF’s research revealed that only 6% of CEOs own the talent management process in their organisations, with 61% placing this solely at HR's door.
Worryingly, despite great shifts in workforce demographics, more than half of respondents (54%) said that they are not currently adapting talent management processes in response. The majority of businesses (67%) were not looking beyond a two- to five-year timeline when considering the future of their talent management process.
Gillian Pillans, co-author of the report and research director at the CRF, said that one of the most striking findings is the low levels of overall satisfaction with organisations’ talent efforts: “Today’s workforce feel they cannot count on the loyalty of their employer to manage and progress their careers, which, inversely, makes them less loyal and more likely to leave,” she said.
Jay Conger, a senior research scientist at the Center for Effective Organizations at the University of Southern California and Henry Kravis chaired professor of leadership studies at Claremont McKenna College in California, and co-author of the report, encouraged employers to be more transparent with employees.
“Having found ourselves in a double bind with talent moving into a new era and talent management needing to be reinvented, we now need to encourage organisations to open up the ‘black box’ of talent processes and share their plans for individuals with them; giving people more insight into what leaders think of their performance and career prospects,” he said.