Managing talent is Indian CEOs’ top priority

Talent management has become the number one priority for Indian chief executives today.

According to a study featuring the views of 100 CEOs across the country, conducted by BTI Consultants (a Kelly Services Worldwide company), talent management, which was third on the list of CEOs’ priorities in 2010, has now become the top business concern. The next three concerns in the order of priority are – proactively managing risk, innovation and leadership development.

Putting into perspective the shift in CEO focus from navigating risk in 2010 to talent management in 2014, James Agrawal, MD of BTI Consultants India, told BusinessLine : “When we consider that a company’s ability to innovate and develop leaders is largely dependent upon its ability to attract, retain and most importantly engage talent, this shift in priorities makes sense.”

The three key challenges that have driven this shift revolve around talent, he said. “Talent is required to address all kinds of risks that an organisation faces; talent is also required to innovate in order to generate new revenue streams for growth and to develop a strong pipeline of leadership.”

Of the CEOs interviewed, 72 per cent said they will devote more senior management time to addressing all kinds of risks that organisations are exposed to. Seventy-nine per cent believed innovation would drive efficiency, lead to competitive advantages and generate significant new revenue opportunities over the next three years.

Only 23 per cent said their firms were “strong at developing future leaders”, while 51 per cent said they could not name a CEO candidate immediately.

The CEOs that BTI interviewed were from four broad industries– technology and outsourcing, industrial, consumer goods and services, and pharma and lifesciences (including healthcare). The study reveals that CEOs are looking to diversify the talent pool to fill in growing vacancies in specialist and high-skill roles such as change management, operational excellence, innovation management, process excellence and business strategy intervention. Executives are also looking to increase employee benefit packages, development opportunities, identify talent to be sent abroad for training, invest in employees whose growth ambitions are most valuable to the business, promote flexible work arrangements, spread employee stock ownership more widely and use more non-financial rewards such as training and mentoring programmes to enhance employees’ career growth.

Finding a potential leader from the internal talent pool and retaining top, critical talent continue to challenge CEOs not just in India but also in the US, European and Asia Pacific markets.

“CEOs continue to look out for senior team leaders who have five leadership attributes – integrity, leading change, managing complexity, entrepreneurial mindset and the ability to retain and develop talent,” said Agrawal.

However, focusing equally on people and performance is not an easy task for CEOs. “Discussions are no longer about why talent management needs to be a priority; they are instead about figuring out how, and that is what makes it more challenging than ever before,” he added.

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