The Talent Battle Never Sleeps

Recession-resistant performance linked to continuous staff development.

You can’t wait for the next economic boom to accelerate recruiting, nurture leadership training for future leaders, and assemble formal succession plans for your top partners, according to a massive, year-long study.

You must do it now, or risk falling behind. Surveying some 1,800 global executives, Deloitte said in a new study that the best performing, most confident firms are those that have kept staff retention and development as a major priority through the recession.

“These companies were on, and are on, the offense. They are not on defense,” Jeff Schwartz, global leader for Deloitte Consulting’s organization and change service line, said during a speech at the 14th annual Wharton Leadership Conference.

“They are more committed to retaining their key employees and are building a stronger internal pipeline — which is probably one of the main measures by which you might [gauge] the effectiveness of leadership programs…. They were cherry-picking in the market because they knew that a recession was a really good time to increase their recruitment.”

The survey found measurable differences between companies that actually address leadership issues and those that only talk about it.

“This was the big ‘Aha!’ to us,” Schwartz said, “Those who were actually doing something and believed they are doing a good job are actually performing differently than those that are just talking about it.” These firms, the survey findings showed, were less focused on layoffs and cost-cutting than their rivals, and reported higher morale and more employee confidence in the management.

Posted on October 20, 2010