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Benefits April 17, 2007
Survey: Competition and Keeping a Talented Workforce among Key Employer Concerns
April 17, 2007 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Employers say
that competition and attracting and retaining talented
employees rank among their greatest concerns in 2007, and do
not expect those concerns to let up over the next three
years, a recent survey suggests.
Reported by Adrien Martin
The survey by The Ken Blanchard Companies of more than a 1,000 human resources mangers and corporate executives found that other challenges were:
- Feasibility of growth and expansion while facing a lack of skilled labor;
- Need to shore up internal leadership and management bench strength and retain top talent; and
- Balancing high-level internal concerns and the demands created by servicing and satisfying customers.
Respondents continued to place leadership development, selecting and retaining key talent, creating an engaged workforce, and managerial skills as an important focus area in 2007, believing that good leadership can give a good competitive advantage.
Developing potential leaders has remained the number one management challenge facing organizations and has kept that spot for the last five years, according to the survey results. Top management ranked creating an engaged workforce second and HR managers ranked selecting and retaining key talent in the second place spot. However, creating an engaged workforce has remained in the third place spot for three years.
Developing managerial and supervisory skills has remained the top employee development issue for five years. Management ranked customer relationships skills as the most critical employee development need and HR managers put it in fourth place. HR places executive development as a higher priority than management itself does; top management ranks information technology and sales skills as being higher-level concerns.
To download the full survey results visit
http://www.kenblanchard.com/thoughtleadership/research_ findings/2007_corporate_issues/ .