Bosses prefer 'building' staff over 'buying' them

As engaging and retaining quality talent continues to be a challenge across the world, employers are resorting to internal staff development frameworks to boost growth.

This is according to Mercer’s 2015 Career Frameworks in Talent Management Survey, which stated 73% of employers are planning to continue with their current strategy of “building” talent from within their organisations rather than “buying” talent from the external marketplace.

More than three-quarters (76%) of firms also stated their career frameworks delivered a positive return on their investment.

Moreover, 50% of organisations worldwide currently use career frameworks and an additional 37% plan to implement a career framework.

Just 3% of employers said they plan to shift from their current approach of building talent to buying it in the upcoming year.

“As companies seek to align employee expectations for career experiences with organisational needs to build the talent pipeline, we are witnessing an increase in discussions around the ‘science of structure’ and how to align expectations around career transparency, velocity and control,” said Kate Bravery, partner and global solutions leader for Mercer’s talent business.

The survey added although most organisations in Asia with career frameworks do not have complete ones, strategic workforce planning is one of the main uses for a career framework in this region.

ALSO READ: The top 4 things bosses can do to boost staff engagement

Comparatively, in North America, just 35% of companies have a career framework in place and less than half define the rate at which employees should advance within the organisation, resulting in different expectations between the employer and employee.

“There is tremendous opportunity to close this gap. With today’s multi-generational workforce, the key to employee engagement is demonstrating career paths and journeys tied to experiences and capabilities,” said Ilene Siscovick, partner and global careers leader for Mercer.

The top talent programmes driven by the career framework are training and development (73%), performance management (62%), career pathing (61%), and succession planning (61%).

While one in two organisations in Europe were found to have a career framework in place, an additional 41% stated they have have plans to implement one. However, firms in this region are the least likely to have transparency with employees as to what is needed to progress within the organisation.

The survey included responses from 1,785 HR professionals from more than 100 countries across more than 19 industries.

Image: Shutterstock