This year again – similarly to 2011 – we have conducted a pan European Talent Management Survey. The 2012 the report was written by Professor Paul Turner of Birmingham City University.

Executive Summary:

The European Talent Survey was conducted amongst the 3400 members of the European Human Capital Management Excellence Network. Over 100 organisations from Western Europe, the CIS, Baltics and Central and Eastern Europe took part.

European HR professionals and business managers have a range of views about what constitutes talent in their organisations. For some, talent is about high performance and potential of a selected number of people to move up the organization into senior leadership or managerial positions. For others, talent is an inclusive term which refers to all employees. For most, a successful talent strategy is concerned with both ends of the employment spectrum.

The European Talent survey found that 76% of respondents identified talent as a top or growing priority to support the growth of their businesses and 50% of respondents had a defined talent strategy. There was agreement that talented people could drive productivity and business growth; improve customer share and be a differentiator at a time of intense global competition. Talent was seen as a pivotal resource in delivering competitive advantage.
It was felt that talent management programmes could enhance the organisation‟s performance; support the achievement of stretch targets and provide insight to build new business segments. There was a growing recognition of the importance of „outside in‟ thinking, building talent strategy in the context of information from the external environment. The alignment of talent strategy to business strategy was of particular importance to European HR professionals.

The skills identified as priorities for talent were varied. 67% of those responding to the European Talent survey believed that the ability to deal with and manage change was a priority; 31% believed that the ability to think strategically was also important; 22% identified the need to be able to work in virtual teams as a key attribute of talent (approximately the same as 2010) and 50% believed that information systems skills were a priority- up from 25% in 2010.
The way to develop these skills could be achieved by following a „European Talent Loop‟ which linked the requirements of the workforce plan to the development of an attractive employer brand; a rich mixture of development activities, the involvement of line managers and the effective measurement of talent outcomes.

Download Full Report: EuropeanTalentReport_2012