Managing Talent in Tough Times: An Australian Perspective

Comments

As the global economy moves toward recovery, companies face some tough challenges and complex choices about how best to retool for growth. Since the financial markets collapsed, most organisations have streamlined, downsized and restructured to varying degrees, trying to stay on an even keel until the economy stabilised.

Now, however, a different set of questions are emerging. Have organisations cut too far too fast? If so, have they inadvertently slowed a fast return to growth? How easily can they correct course and close emerging gaps in capacity and capability? Are we on the brink of a new round of “talent wars”?

To begin exploring these issues, we recently surveyed 50 HR and business executives across a range of midsize and large Australian companies on emerging talent management priorities and strategies. We wanted to understand how organisations are defining talent and talent management, what activities they’re focusing on, how effective they think their processes are, and the degree of alignment between their talent management approach and their overall strategic goals.