Canadian organizations face serious leadership succession challenges

OTTAWA, April 16, 2014 /CNW/ - As many senior and second-level executives retire or approach retirement, Canadian organizations face serious leadership succession challenges. For every two senior executives, organizations have only one job-ready or near job-ready successor.

Building leadership capacity, which refers to developing leaders who are capable of stepping up to successively senior executive roles, therefore continues to be one of the top human capital challenges according to the Conference Board of Canada's third edition of Human Resources Trends and Metrics: HR Measurement Benchmarking.

"Leadership capacity is the top human capital challenge, and this reality has not changed over the past decades," said Ruth Wright, Director, Leadership and Human Resources Research. "Clearly investments in leadership development are needed, or this will continue to be a long-term problem."

HIGHLIGHTS

• Building the leadership pipeline and attracting and retaining a highly skilled workforce are two major HR challenges for Canadian organizations.
• For every two senior executive positions, organizations have only one job-ready or near job-ready successor.
• Social media is increasingly popular for recruiting executive and management-level talent.
  
  

The Conference Board of Canada calculates a leadership bench strength ratio. This refers to the number of people ready or nearly ready to assume leadership roles to total positions at the next executive level. In the third edition of the report, the ratio dipped slightly for top executives compared to previous results, posing a significant risk for organizations' leadership capability and capacity. On the other hand, it appears that investments in high-potential emerging leaders have bolstered bench strength at the second-tier executive level.

The report also looks into how organizations attract and retain a skilled workforce. Corporate internet sites and internal job postings for the general and professional workforce, and external agencies for executive talent yield the best-quality prospects. Social media and social networking recruitment strategies have also made significant gains in popularity. LinkedIn alone was cited by nearly half of organizations as an effective recruitment tactic for executive and management talent.

In addition, the report shows three quarters of organizations now conduct employee engagement surveys. Confidence in top leadership and employee recognition were the dominant concerns expressed by employees.

Human Resources Trends and Metrics: HR Measurement Benchmarking, Third Edition looks at benchmarks in 5 categories related to talent management. These categories include: acquiring, developing, rewarding, leading and engaging talent.

The data presented in the report are based on The Conference Board of Canada's 2013 HR Trends and Metrics survey that targeted HR executives and addressed key issues in HR across Canada.  A total of 169 organizations participated in the survey, representing a cross-section of public and private sector organizations, and includes all major industry categories. The report includes supplemental data from the Conference Board's Learning and Development Outlook, Compensation Outlook, and Canadian Economic Outlook series.

This publication is available to subscribers at www.e-library.ca

SOURCE: Conference Board of Canada

Yvonne Squires, Media Relations, Tel.: [phone] ext. 221
E-mail: [email protected]