Global Human Capital Trends Survey Emphasizes Need New Employee Engagement, Retention Strategies

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

According to Deloitte’s 2015 Global Human Capital Trends survey, employee engagement and culture issues have risen to become the No. 1 challenge companies face around the world. As Deloitte concludes, “Today’s HR challenges require a new playbook — one that helps make HR more agile, forward thinking and bolder in its solutions.”

Today, global organizations must navigate a “new world of work” that requires a total rethinking of strategies for leadership, talent, and human resources. Since culture drives many outcomes in organizations, particularly employee engagement and retention, companies need to be responsive to these realities. Yet, more than half of respondents say their organizations have either a poor program or no program to measure and improve engagement.

The report examines 10 trends across four major themes for 2015: Leading; Engaging; Reinventing; and Reimagining. The trends are:

• Leadership: Why a perennial issue? Leadership was cited by 86 percent of respondents as one of their most important challenges, while just 10 percent believe that they have an “excellent” succession program in place.
• Learning and development: Into the spotlight: The report found that the capability gap is three times larger than it was last year, and the importance of learning increased 25 percent from a year ago.
• Culture and engagement: The naked organization: Culture and engagement emerged as the most important trend, and half of all respondents — double last year’s number — stated that the problem is “very important.”
• Workforce on demand: Are you ready? Over half of respondents said that they anticipate an increase in contingent hiring over the next 3 to 5 years.
• Performance management: The secret ingredient: Of those surveyed, almost 9 in 10 (89 percent) reported either recently making changes to their performance management process or having plans to change it in the next 18 months.
• Reinventing HR: An extreme makeover: Just 5 percent believe their organization’s HR performance is “excellent,” while only 22 percent say that HR is adapting to the changing needs of their workplace.
• HR and people analytics: Stuck in neutral: Only 8 percent of respondents believe their organization to be “strong” in this arena.
• People data everywhere: Bringing the outside in: Of respondents, 39 percent reported that they leverage social media data to help boost recruiting, engagement, and employee brand.
• Simplification of work: The coming revolution: Work simplification programs are the wave of the future: 10 percent reported having one in place, while 44 percent said they are working on one.
• Machines as talent: Collaboration, not competition: While nearly 60 percent of respondents reported this trend was important, fewer than 10 percent have an “excellent” understanding of its implications, leaving much room for improvement.

The report also includes an interactive Human Capital Trends Dashboard, which allows users to explore trends by geography, industry, and company size.

The survey was conducted among more than 3,300 HR and business leaders in 106 countries, and is one of the largest global studies of talent, leadership and HR challenges.