HR Firm Finds Talent Acquisition Now a Critical Issue

HR services provider NorthgateArinso (NGA) has found that 87 percent of employees agree that talent identification is critical to their company’s success in the shot-term but greater than 50 percent think that their industry has a lack of qualified candidates. Furthermore, even if a suitable talent pool existed, 34 percent said that their company lacked a talent management program of any kind.

NGA suggests that the results indicate talent management issues are not being addressed appropriately on a global scale; especially considering the results of the current survey are little changed from the company’s 2011 Talent Management Survey. Vice president of Strategic Marketing at NGA, Michael Custers, said:

“Talent management – in particular ensuring that existing talent can be nurtured, new talent can be attracted, and key positions can be replaced if necessary – is a critical concern of businesses. There is a real worry out there that there is a lack of readily available talent and that potentially this will impact on a business’s ability to deliver its strategic vision. These concerns demonstrate clearly the need to ensure that talent management and HR planning aligns to the wider business strategy. Our findings suggest that more could be done to improve this.”

Indeed, 50 percent of survey respondents felt that HR strategy was not well aligned to company strategy.