Based on these types of challenges, even organizations that have deployed satisfactory talent management programs have found difficulty controlling the infrastructure — people, processes, and technology — to sustain them. Many are also finding they need to plan, implement, and manage talent initiatives with an operational mindset that more closely resembles the way they address other business challenges. This heightened focus on the operational aspects of talent strategies can be referred to as “talent-led HR Transformation” — and can be a key element in the next evolution of HR Transformation.

1. Source: Talent 2020

Today’s talent leaders are searching for ways to cope with challenges from skill gaps to globalization to concerns about succession planning and future leadership. Given the critical nature of these talent issues, organizations have responded with a broad array of initiatives that focus on talent attraction, development, and retention. According to a 2010 Deloitte survey, talent leaders’ top concerns include:

• Continuing talent shortages despite high unemployment rates in the U.S. and abroad. Many executives predict talent shortages across key business units and executive leadership — which are needed to drive growth and innovation. Nearly three of four executives surveyed predicted talent shortages in R&D.
• The global race for talent. The recession did not reduce the pace of globalization — instead, many executives recognize that the once-emerging markets of the pre-recession days have become the catalysts for future growth, placing tremendous demands on talent managers to get new people in new jobs at new locations.
  
• Challenges in developing the next generation of leaders. Looking out over a more complex and ever-changing business environment and the impending retirement of baby boomers, many executives expressed concern over their companies’ leadership development programs and pipelines, believing this will be the highest talent priority three years from now.
• Retention of critical talent. Fifty-nine percent of executives reported that voluntary turnover had increased between October 2009 and October 2010 and 61 percent believed that it would increase over the following 12 months. Moreover, 29 percent of respondents expressed very high concern about losing critical talent and 25 percent reported a very high concern about retaining leadership.