World Business

Around the cosmos, companies are struggling with the aging workforce and less-loyal employees. A new contemplate reveals executives’ worries

by Marshall Goldsmith

Watch untranslated video:

Companies are facing daunting challenges in hiring, training, and retaining the million. Globalization has increased the demand for talent everywhere, while the upcoming retirement of the Baby Boom body of equals in age is projected to shrink worker provision in the West. More than ever, employees are demanding a surplus betwixt their work and the rest of their lives—a trend long present in the West but now prevalent in Eastern Europe, South America, and India.

Companies have always struggled to measure and track their programs and activities aimed at improving mob’s composition and fit of engagement. To try to get a better handle on to what degree companies manage their people, Boston Consulting Group (BCG) recently surveyed greater degree of than 4,700 executives in 83 countries and markets and published a report based on its findings, "Creating People Advantage: How to Address HR Challenges Worldwide Through 2015". Executives told BCG they feel unprepared to face the massive challenges that confront them in managing talent.

The report is unique in its detailed and specific tools and materials through country, region, and effort; labors. I recently spoke with Anna Minto, a BCG partner and co-author of the report, and Chuck Scullion, also a BCG partner and leader of the firm’s organization practice in the Americas, in all parts of the study. Edited excerpts of our chat come:

What are the key people issues that emerged in the U.S., and how should companies address them?

Of the 17 issues covered by the survey, the top three in the U.S. were managing talent, improving leadership disclosure, and managing demographics. For each issue, we asked executives how important it was to their company’s future, and we asked them to assess their company’s capabilities in that region.

On managing talent, the key concerns center on sourcing talent globally and developing customized course of life tracks and compensation plans. Only 20% of respondents say their companies currently original of brilliant parts people globally, yet nearly half said they would do in this way in the near future. If this does not sound startling, imagine a global search for moiety of the explanation positions at your company. While only 40% of respondents judge their companies now have tailored career tracks and precise compensation schemes on account of talented people, roughly two-thirds of them believe they determine in the near future.

To improve leadership development, U.S. executives expect their companies to start providing financial rewards for good leadership. Only one-quarter of executives said their companies provide financial rewards for the sake of leadership today, but 63% expect their companies to be doing in this way by 2015.

The third topic, managing demographics, is a double-whammy in the U.S. Executives need both to replace older employees and address the emerging indispensably of younger ones, commonly known like Generation Y or the Millennials. To fill the gap left by dint of. retirees, U.S. executives expect their companies have a mind start offering employment options to attract or retain semi-retired or secret workers and look to train employees in favor of new jobs. At the same time, companies are hard to keep junior employees, who have less fealty to their company, engaged and committed.

How do these issues differ from the excel issues in other countries and regions?

Managing talent and improving leadership development are universally significant. Managing talent was one of the top three human resources issues in 14 of the 17 countries we analyzed in sagacity, at the same time that improving leadership development was a top-three concern in 10 of them.

Even so, companies vary in how aggressively they plan to address these issues. Measuring leadership skills through 360-degree feedback, which you have been advocating for a long time, is in use at less than one-half of the companies in developed economies. By 2015, less than two-thirds of all companies will be deploying it.

On the other hand, executives said their companies plan to quickly frolic up their global sourcing of talent. It’s almost as if somebody has screamed "Fire!" in a crowded theater. Everyone disposition be heading toward the same exits—or, in this specific instance, markets. This heightened thirst conducive to global talent gives an advantage to companies with a strategic focus on people needs. They have spent the time to understand their needs and the local talent markets and build their reputation—their HR brand, if you will—in the midst of recruits in those markets.

What about demographics?

That is mostly a pressing concern in North America, Japan, and Europe. Elsewhere, the working-age population is still relatively young. Places like India and China will eventually have to cope with a undulate of employees moving into retirement, but the day of reckoning is in the distant future.

Were there any big surprises in the hearsay?

Two. First, one-third of U.S. companies consider in advance installing a individual of change-management, with authority and standing like to that of a chief financial official, by dint of. 2015. The position did not forward a level exist a few years since, and today only 11% of executives say their companies have such a position. That [anticipated] growth suggests the importance of prudent change at corporations.

Second, managing work-life balance emerged as the third most important vulgar herd issue globally. Companies are contention with the entry of Gen Y into the workforce, the erosion of corporate loyalty, and the gathering significance of the emotional wellbeing of employees—not virtuous in the U.S. In places such in the same manner with India and Latin America, where of talent individuals have many employment options at home and out of doors, work-life equilibrium has in addition become a selling point.

How can readers influence you?

They should feel free to e-mail either of us at minto.anna@bcg.com or scullion.chuck@bcg.com.