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Critical Talent
First off is the ageing factor. In three years time, the
first wave of "baby boomers" will reach the age of 62, the
average retirement age across North America, Europe and Asia. According
to the survey, one-third of US companies expect to lose 11% or more
of their workforce to retirement by 2008. The effect is expected to
be especially acute in the healthcare, manufacturing, energy and public
sectors. Over the next fifteen years, 80% of US workforce growth is
expected to come from people aged fifty years or over. Nor is the crisis
confined to the US: by 2050, it is predicted that 40% of Europe's total
population and 60% of its working age population will be people aged
over sixty. Then there is the skills gap. The US Department of Education
recently suggested that 60% of new jobs created in the 21st century
will require skills possessed by only 20% of the current workforce.
More than 80% of US manufacturers already face a shortage of qualified
machinists, craft workers and technicians. And according to NASA, North
American colleges will graduate only just under 200,000 science and
engineering students to replace the two million baby boomers scheduled
to retire between 1998 and 2008. Whilst some 42% of undergraduates in
China come out of university with degrees in science and engineering,
only 5% of US students do so. Again, the problem is not restricted to
North America: the number of German engineering graduates, for example,
has declined by almost a third since 1995. Many US children never even get as far as university.
Only 32% of US high school students now leave with sufficient qualifications
to attend university and only 70% of high school students who do go
on to take degree courses actually graduate. Deloitte's research is
also critical of educational standards at US universities, concluding
"in other areas of specialized education, such as information technology
and nursing, schools simply can't meet demand. Faculty shortages in
computer science departments, for example, have reached crisis proportions."
A fact echoed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, who predict that more
than 300,000 of the 1.3 million new jobs in information technology in
the US due to be created between 1996 and next year will remain unfilled.
So what exactly does Deloitte's suggest employers should
do to shelter from this predicted "perfect storm"? First and
foremost they must manage critical talent, defined as those individuals
and groups who drive a disproportionate share of the company's business
performance. This is not always "the A players or senior executives",
explains Mike Fucci, principal and US leader of Deloitte's Human Capital
practice. It is instead those who "possess highly developed skills
and deep knowledge of not just the work itself, but of how to make things
happen within a company". Who might, for example, be the couriers
in a delivery company or the researchers in a pharmaceutical firm. Having identified critical talent, above all they must
then make sure they keep it. Only half of the organizations surveyed
by Deloitte Consulting had even identified a list of critical skills
needed for future growth, let alone put talent management processes
in place. Suggested strategies include finding out what matters most
to the company's critical talent - personal growth and development,
for example, or the need to be deployed in positions that engage their
interests and curiosities. But above all Deloitte urges organizations
to become more "talent-savvy" if they don't want to take a
bath in that storm on the horizon. IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN LEARNING HOW WE HELPED DELOITTE
SAVE OVER $60M IN TWO YEARS THROUGH TALENT MANAGEMENT, PLEASE CONTACT: Walter Sonyi, Jr.
Staff Review by: Joseph (Joe) Kran, Lawrence (Larry) Maglin, Walter Sonyi, Jr. and Rick Spann |
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