Despite a burgeoning labour market and reduced hiring activity last year, just over two thirds of employers have experienced recruitment difficulties due to a lack of available specialist skills.
As a result, attracting and recruiting key staff is now the top resourcing objective for almost four out of five of the 500 employers questioned for a survey undertaken by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. Moreover, the proportion intending to introduce recruitment freezes over the year ahead has almost halved since last year (22% compared with 42% in 2009.)
But growing pressure on budgets has seen a rising number of organisations – 66% now compared to only two out of five in 2009 – turn to focusing on developing in-house talent.
Just over half of those questioned are currently looking at ways to retain existing talent rather than recruit new staff, up from 36% last year. But because there is less money around, they are reducing their reliance on recruitment agencies and focusing on hiring niche skills (65% this year compared with 53% last). Moreover, just under half expect to use new media to help them compared to 31% in 2009.
Claire McCartney, the CIPD’s resourcing and talent planning advisor, said: “Organisations are facing increased competition to attract and retain the talent needed for their future success, with twice as many telling us that the pool of available talent to hire has fallen.”
But limited budgets mean that HR professionals need to think creatively as they now have to do more with less, which is why it makes sense to develop internal talent pipelines, she added.
The HR body’s ‘Resourcing and Talent Planning’ survey also revealed, however, that, in line with anticipated swingeing budget cuts by the new coalition government, some 59% of public sector organisations now expect to have less recruitment money in the pot than their private sector counterparts (51%).
The same number are planning for recruitment freezes compared to only 16% in the private sector and just over two thirds expect to cut the number of personnel that they hire compared to just under a third in the private sector.
“All in all, we see great potential within the private sector for talent development, but a rather bleak outlook in the public sector for some time to come,” said McCartney.
