The People Bulletin

‘This is a jobless recovery’ announced Robin Bew, the Economist Intelligence Unit’s editorial director and chief economist to delegates at Economist Conferences' fourth annual talent management conference – ‘Raising Great Leaders’ on 25 May 2010.[1]

In a whistle-stop forecast of the business landscape for the next five years, he queried whether the fragile recovery would actually last, making the point that the financial weakness remains because of the wide-scale bail-out of banks by governments. While congratulating businesses that had made it (by cutting costs to the bone) he pointed out that the availability of money has changed fundamentally.  It is much harder to get credit and governments are much more parsimonious. So one would expect the labour market to remain stagnant with little movement for the time being.

Yet good people remain hard to find.  The balancing act of workforce reduction vs investment in the business for the longer term is something businesses have to get right.  Bew talked about ‘the talent snore’, a theme developed by Chris Johnson[2] in his talk on ‘how today’s leaders must change.’

Recent global Mercer research revealed that while 70% of  respondents were planning for growth 75% of that group were worried about their organisation’s ability to retain and manage talent, with 80% confirming they needed to change their talent management policies.  ‘There are fewer borders, people are more mobile and leaders have to be more flexible’, said Mercer’s UK human capital leader.

Part of the problem is a growing perception that the big jobs are ‘high stress’ and tomorrow’s leaders (today’s young people) are not wowed by sacrificing a good work-life balance for top jobs. 

Andrew White, fellow in strategic management at Saïd  Business School at Oxford University, observed that talent management programmes have to be owned by the board or they lack credibility. He also made the point that really creative people have often had to leave larger organisations to have the freedom to develop their great ideas in more entrepreneurial environments – another worrying outflow of innovation at a time businesses most desperately need it.

The solution, it appears, is a visible, believable programme of performance management, leadership development, improvement in training and working pracices, performance evaluation and mentoring.  The Holy Grail of doing more with less is being smarter about making the most of what you have got before you have lost it to another organisation.

[1] www.economistconferences.co.uk/review/talent-management-conference-2010/3112

[2] See Chris’s earlier article for The People Bulletin on 18 February, ‘On and on’.