How is Your Talent in 2011? A Talent Health Check for Australian CEOs

Accenture and The Business Spectator asked Australian business leaders about their top issues in 2011. Overall, they reported that while CEOs predicted continued business expansion and capital investment for the year, they were grappling with a skills shortage that might put growth at risk for some. 

• The majority of CEOs (63 percent) predicted an increase in employment at their organization and an economy-wide fall in unemployment.
  
  
• Demand was expected to be highest for technical skills, with 55 percent of CEOs indicating they would hire more technical staff—but 84 percent said it was difficult to find people with such skills.
  
  
• Almost half (46 percent) said they would hire additional managerial staff, with 72 percent indicating that people with managerial skills were hard to find.
  
  
• More than one-fifth (21 percent) of CEOs said their organization had to delay or cancel growth or investment opportunities over the past year because they could not find the right staff.
  
  
• Graduate pay for technical engineers in the mining, oil and gas sector in Australia rose 38 percent between 2005 and 2009, from A$53,616 to A$73,799 (US$56,286 to US$77,480).

CEOs were optimistic about Australia’s economic outlook and the health of their own businesses in 2011. However, they ranked sourcing and retaining staff as their No. 1 concern for the next 12 months.

The natural disasters in Victoria and Queensland have tended to soak up any excess trade skills that were available. The situation is worsened by the sign off of several large energy projects at the beginning of 2011.

With competition for skills intense, and salaries (particularly in the mining, oil and gas sectors) on the rise, organizations are coming under strain. Rising wage bills are generating cost pressures, while the inability to source certain vital skills is putting growth plans on hold.

Accenture’s experience has helped it to identify eight questions for CEOs to consider as they shape their talent management strategies for 2011:

• Do we have a human capital strategy?
  
  
• Do we give our line managers the right skills to retain and develop talent?
  
  
• Do we have a skills-sourcing strategy?
  
  
• Are we delivering on our workforce productivity improvement programs?
  
  
• Do we fully leverage female talent in our organization?
  
  
• Do we approach learning in the best possible way?
  
  
• Do we capture and maximize our organization’s knowledge?
  
  
• Do we have a strong and differentiated employee value proposition?

Accenture has a wealth of experience in helping companies develop talent management strategies to enable high performance.