A new report from the Society for Human Resource Management gives a glimpse of the top human capital challenges for businesses now and in the coming years, according to HR professionals.
A survey conducted by SHRM found that maintaining high levels of employee engagement is the human capital challenge that of HR professionals believe is most crucial. Thirty-nine percent of the 439 HR personnel surveyed on the topic cited employee engagement as a top priority, while 31 percent said that developing the next generation of organizational leaders was a pressing challenge.
Other big organizational challenges cited by HR professionals included maintaining competitive compensation (29 percent), retaining the highest-performing employees (26 percent), retaining employees overall (25 percent) and attracting employees with increasingly specialized skills (24 percent).
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Challenges that weren't cited by many HR pros included "breaking down cultural barriers that make it difficult to create a global company," which only 7 percent of respondents cited. The same percentage cited the challenge of finding the right workers in different markets around the world, and only 9 percent said that "adapting to a changing worker profile" because of shifting demographics represented a big challenge. And only 15 percent said that replacing workers leaving for retirement was a major issue.
The survey also asked respondents if the challenges would be different over the next 10 years. In regards to many of the human capital issues, the responses were barely different.
But there was a significant difference in the perception of how retirements would affect business in the future. More than twice as many HR personnel (35 percent), said that replacing retirees would be a big challenge over the next decade, compared with now.
And for some reason, only 20 percent of HR pros believe that maintaining an engaged workforce is a top challenge of the next decade, compared to 38 percent who say employee engagement is a top priority now.
"(T)here is optimism that at least some of the key human capital challenges will be more manageable in the future," Jen Schramm, SHRM's manager of workforce trends, said in a press release announcing the study's release.
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