Business leaders are reporting a sharp increase in competitors trying to steal their talent.
Business leaders are reporting a sharp increase in competitors trying to steal their talent in a recent international survey conducted by Right Management. In the latest edition of their research, close to two thirds of employers agreed or strongly agreed with the premise that other companies are headhunting their own leaders – a sharp increase on the year before.
The survey attracted 202 respondents – CEOs and senior human resource professionals from organisations of diverse size and revenue, and which operated in diverse sectors on six continents.
When asked, ‘Do other companies actively try to recruit your organisation’s leaders?’, 63% of respondents said either that they strongly agreed or agreed, compared with 42% the previous year. An additional 22% said that they neither agreed nor disagreed (compared with 43% the previous year). In both years, 15% either strongly disagreed or disagreed.
“The new data tells us that competitive pressures have grown more acute and top talent is being targeted more than before. Many more employers now feel vulnerable to poaching by other companies, a trend identified by CEOs in every region of the world,” Ron Sims, of Right Management, said.
Sims pointed to the transparency that technology lends to organisations as one of the key drivers of this trend. “Social media and internet job boards expose the human resources of every company to outside parties,” he said. “The negative implication for an organisation’s bench strength and management succession are plain to see,” Sims added.
While Sims acknowledged that having the opportunity to poach talent in this way could pay dividends for your own organisation’s talent, he warned that the tactic ‘cuts both ways’.
