Talent shortages? Depends who you talk to.

Talent shortages? Depends who you talk to.

A recent Frog Recruitment survey representing 91,000 employees across New Zealand questioned how prepared employers are for the upcoming talent shortages.

Frog Recruitment recently completed a survey with organisations across New Zealand on their current views of skill shortages within New Zealand, which show both encouraging and dismaying results.

Survey respondents included CEO’s, General Managers, Human Resources Managers, Directors and Managing Directors across all industry sectors such as IT&C, education, import / export, banking, retail, healthcare, professional services and manufacturing.

According to Jane Kennelly, Director of Frog Recruitment; “The survey showed two clear positions are in the heads of those who are charged with managing organisations. On the one hand, 45% of participants viewed themselves as ‘active’ in the quest for talent. These companies boast future focused business leaders who acknowledge they will need high calibre talent coming through their doors if they want to implement their business strategies in the next 1 – 5 years. These companies are in the throes of meeting the quest for expertise and skills head on”.

The survey showed that this active focused percentage of organisations considers themselves to be fully participating in attracting, securing and retaining top talent. When asked about the key drivers propelling their active talent stance, 66% stated skill shortages as a key concern and 52% stated they do not have the right people in their business for the next 3-5 years.

As well, these organisations are using a range of options to increase their chances of success in the talent stakes. Kennelly says, “Actively up-skilling staff , investing in training and development, workforce planning, building future talent pipelines, talent attraction strategies, graduate recruitment programs, retention, and collaboration, these are just some of the plans being put in place”.

On the other hand, 37% of participants described themselves as being passive in the skills shortage debate. “These companies are not preparing to manage the skill shortage challenge any time soon” says Kennelly.

According to Kennelly, the survey highlighted key areas of concern for this group of passive companies which included: 39% having good internal people and believing they are able to locate the skilled talent they need, 22% not having the resources needed to investigate the problem, 11% in reactive mode taking each vacancy on a case-by-case basis and 11% experiencing low staff turnover. “Given the importance of preparation and planning in today’s talent market, compounded by the competitive environment, we are hopeful this group of companies will begin their forward planning immediately”.

Of note within the survey, 66% of participants believe talent challenges are different now to what they used to be. “The high percentage of responses agreeing to this question showed the very real challenges employers are trying to grapple with in our quickly changing world” says Kennelly. “New skills are required, a lack of quality, high salary demands, recruitment timeframes taking longer, increased off-shore competition and a shortage of big picture thinkers were all sited as being reasons for concern.”

The survey showed from the organisations surveyed, 26% of participants thought the outlook for the global economy looked positive, 45% believed the outlook looked negative and 29% were indifferent.

ENDS

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