Unlocking human power: Talent wars take centre stage

Going into the global financial crisis, the business world was experiencing a massive shift as the markets moved from the West to the East. At that time, the consultancy McKinsey stated that "There was a War for Talent" as companies were growing at rates unheard of in modern business history and struggling to hire employees fast enough.

Then, all of a sudden our attention shifted back to the West as those markets came to a screeching halt. We went from a "war for talent" to a "war on talent". Many of the companies that were experiencing record growth shifted gears to travelling in reverse. And unfortunately, companies began shrinking as their market caps went into a downward spiral.

Today, a big question looms in my mind, "What is happening after the recovery?" I am not as consumed with when the economic recovery will happen as I am with what will happen when it does.

A few facts that were true are still true after the recovery — the markets have officially shifted from West to East; The majority of explosive global business growth is in the East; the majority of the massive downsizing and layoffs has been by Euro American based companies; and there are not enough potential employees in the fast-growth and emerging markets

So, what is happening after the recovery? We are experiencing a talent shift. Not a Talent War as McKinsey has been espousing since 1997. I declare that that war is over and it is not coming back. But, unfortunately for business in the Emerging Markets, the "talent" has won.

With all of the layoffs, shrinking of businesses, and the previous "war for talent", you may be asking, "How can I say that there will not be a continuation of this war and that "talent" has won?" To understand this, all we have to do is look at the demographics. Only 48 per cent of the fast-growth and emerging market population are of working age. Yet they need to provide for all of the needs, business, products, and services for the 5,474,539,148 people living in those markets. There is a decreasing pool of working age employees and an increasing demand for business. Workforce availability is a key resource for business growth and speed.

Simply stated, there are not enough potential employees, so talent wins the war. This raises the question that we all should be asking, "What does my business need to be doing?"

Critical resource

The most important corporate resource over the next 20 years will be talent — finding them, keeping them, and getting the greatest performance from them.

The shortage of talent is the "after recovery" crisis.

So, in the Fast-Growth and Emerging Markets, once the recovery takes place, we need to make a talent shift. The fact that for our businesses to succeed and probably even to survive we must address this new crisis head-on.

So, what do we need to do to make the talent shift? Here are seven points to consider — create a talent strategy; avoid business colonialism; understand emerging market talent; look globally for local talent; develop workforce skills; build a permanent temporary workforce; and don't fight in a war already over.

Making the talent shift is not for the HR department. Rather, it is a critical new set of business skills for every leader throughout your entire organisation. The more effort your executives personally give to it, the better chance you have of making the shift and succeeding.

The writer is Vice President, Leadership Solutions, Kenexa.