To read Managing Talent In A Turbulent Economy: Part Two please click here

Clearing The Hurdles To Recovery

The ongoing economic downturn has added to the woes of human resources executives and top leaders who continue to struggle with talent-related issues.

The third in a series of a five-part longitudinal study, this report titled ' Managing talent in a turbulent economy: Clearing the hurdles to recovery' tracks the way business leaders are shifting their talent priorities and strategies to meet the challenges of today's economy and how they are planning to clear the hurdles to economic recovery.

Some key findings from this survey include:

  • For the first time in this longitudinal study, the number of executives who said the worst is yet to come declined, significantly, from 32 percent in March to 18 percent in May. At the same time, the group who believes the worst is behind us doubled to 16 percent from 8 percent in March and 6 percent in January
  • Cutting costs remains the top strategic priority, with 56 percent of executives ranking cutting and managing costs as their top strategic issue.
  • When asked to rank their current talent priorities, 42 percent of the executives in May put reducing employee headcount at the top of the list – slightly higher than in both March (39 percent) and January (38 percent).
  • Nearly half of executives and talent managers (47 percent) say their companies plan to recruit more critical talent to manage the current economic environment – a significant jump since March when the figure was 34 percent.

This report offers insights on talent retention issues and challenges, including plans that executives are making to retain key employees and identify potential barriers so that they can keep their core workforces intact.

Once the recovery begins to take hold, business executives and talent leaders can expect a "resume tsunami" as unemployment declines and voluntary turnover rises. While talent managers appear to be updating retention plans and devising retention strategies in anticipation of a turnaround, Deloitte believes the depth and quality of these moves will separate the talent winners from the talent losers when the economy improves.

For further information, download our report ' Managing talent in a turbulent economy: Part three'.

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