Survey: Demographic Changes Require HR Professionals To Focus on Talent Management

A study by the Adecco Institute, based on interviews with 5,000 HR professionals, says that a key differentiator for companies competing in the global marketplace in the future will be having HR managers who focus on finding talent, developing talent and keeping talent--what Adecco calls "talent management"--rather than on its traditional filling of vacancies. Globalization in developed countries has increased the demand for skilled and highly qualified labor at the same time as demand for a qualified workforce is compounded by the demographic effects of older workers becoming the fastest growing workforce segment in most developed countries.

The study--"The new role of HR in the future: Talent, talent, talent. Finding it. Developing it. Keeping it."--reports that the average planning horizon of HR professionals today is only 1.1 years. Talent management will require preparation for a much longer time frame. Adecco says HR practitioners can start on this road today by conducting a detailed analysis of their existing workforce and categorizing jobs into functions, families, and groups based on skills.

Once these groupings have been completed, analyze the age structure of the workforce within each function, family and group. Identify areas that are at risk due to impending retirements or intense competition for talent. Create ‘early warning systems’ that will raise awareness of impending gaps in a timely manner. In a world that demands increasingly complex qualifications, "timely" can mean years in advance--a dramatic change from the "just in time" mantra that businesses have been marching to for decades.

Only then can HR develop a strategy to ensure that the ongoing workforce demands of the business will be met.

Source: Adecco Institute Press Release (April 22, 2008)

HR can help businesses plan for maturing workforce

Speaking at “Voice of Business on the Mature Workforce,” a forum which was aimed at adding the business community’s perspective to the White House Conference on Aging, Susan R. Meisinger, SPHR, president and CEO of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), one of the sponsors of the forum, told her audience that HR professionals can take steps to help their organizations plan strategically for the maturing workforce and its economic impact by:

• Conducting studies to determine the projected demographic makeup of their organization’s workforce and projected retirement rates. People are concerned about doing anything that could be construed as discriminatory, she said, but “it’s OK to look at an employee’s age for workforce planning.”
• Developing succession plans and replacement charts. “The pool to draw from is smaller. … How are you mentoring?” she asked.
• Developing processes to capture institutional knowledge. It can be difficult to focus years ahead when an organization’s immediate concern is how it is doing now, she acknowledged. Developing methods to capture institutional knowledge is probably the best tool HR can use to galvanize people and make executive managers aware of the need to plan for the organization’s future, she said.
• Creating or redesigning positions that allow near-retirees to ease into retirement. This requires stepping back and looking beyond job titles and duties and focusing on what needs to be accomplished.

HR professionals also may develop and shape workforce training and development programs.

Source: "Meisinger: HR can help stem boomer brain drain" SHRM Online (June 16, 2005)