NelsonHall: Talent Management the Major HR Challenge for Organizations

Talent Management the Major HR Challenge for Organizations in an Increasingly Competitive Business and HR Environment

Organizations now find themselves in an environment where they need to reduce their costs and improve their ability to increase revenues per customer in their traditional markets while simultaneously increasing their ability to develop new products and markets. While there has always been a strong need for new product development in (for example) the pharmaceuticals, high-tech, and telecoms sectors, organizations are also increasingly aware that they now need to develop a strong presence in the emerging BRIC economies.

The overall business issues faced by organizations are:

• Increasing costs and cost pressure
• Need for new product/market entry
• Strong competition
• Need to improve customer service and customer retention
• Need to improve/ensure compliance with internal processes and external regulations.

These business issues are not always directly reflected in organizations' HR issues and initiatives. Overall, forty-eight per cent of organizations estimate that they strongly link their HR initiatives in support of key business issues and initiatives, suggesting some continuing need for co-ordination of business and HR initiatives.

Nonetheless, there are strong similarities in the need to demonstrate process improvement and process cost reduction within HR operations and the need to improve talent management across the organization in order to achieve success in the key business initiatives of new product and market initiatives and improving customer retention and cross-selling. Organizations in both developed and developing economies are facing increased competition for high performers, with low birth rates in the developed economies and high growth rates in the developing economies creating skill shortages. Accordingly, the major issue faced by organizations is the need to optimize use of their HR assets through improved integrated talent management initiatives.

The report, entitled 'HR Issues & Initiatives: 2007' analyzes business and HR initiatives and is based on extensive user interviewing to establish:

• The HR issues and challenges faced by user organizations overall and by HR service function
• Satisfaction with current HR service provision
• The HR initiatives planned by organizations overall, and within each of talent management, payroll services, benefits administration, recruiting & resourcing, and training & learning services
• Attitudes towards use of HR analytics and HR analytics initiatives
• Current and planned usage of external HR services overall and by HR service type.

The geographic scope of the study is North America, Continental Europe, and the U.K.

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Source: NelsonHall