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With Baby Boomers filling most executive ranks and with qualified replacements increasingly scarce, an aggressive focus on talent management may be the only solution to an impending talent crisis.
Corporate America is top-heavy. A disproportionate amount of knowledge and leadership talent is vested with older employees who may not be with their companies for much longer. Executives will continue to retire and younger employees are insufficiently prepared to fill those vacancies.
Stanton Chase, in a 2008 report entitled Business Implications of the New Reality 2008, makes it very clear that the war for talent isn't just a catch phrase; it's real. Of 37,000 surveyed executives and managers, 94 percent said they believe there is a talent shortage today or that there will be one soon, and 79 percent perceive a moderate or significant gap between retiring boomers and younger generations when it comes to qualified leadership talent. Yet, only 18 percent of respondents indicated their companies had a plan in place for talent acquisition, and 67 percent felt their organizations needed to do a better job identifying and developing potential leaders. Overall, 71 percent cited employee retention as a major challenge.
To successfully fill the talent pipeline, experts and HR leaders say, companies need to proactively address three key points:
Retain the best people currently in the company
Develop and train those people now so they will be prepared to step into executive positions when the need arises
Where a gap exists, create an organized plan to recruit the best people from outside.
Source: Human Resource Executive, May 16, 2008
