Report Summary
As management guru Peter Drucker foresaw in Post-Capitalist Society, the so-called knowledge economy has put a premium on human talent, requiring businesses to compete with increasing ferocity for able and engaged people. The global nature of the economy—and the correspondingly high degree of workforce mobility—has only intensified demand.
The battle for talent varies in regions around the globe. For example, research by the UN’s International Labour Organization (ILO) confirms that constraints on the participation of women in the workforce in the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa and—to a lesser extent—Asia have significantly slowed economic development in those regions. Spurring growth, therefore, depends on encouraging and accelerating the entry of women and other under-represented groups into the workforce.
To achieve this opening of the workplace, during the last two decades organisations worldwide have sought to attract and retain engaged and talented individuals from these populations. While efforts originally focused on demographic factors like gender and race, awareness has been growing that diversity concerns also need to encompass values.
Research Methodology
In October 2013 The Economist Intelligence Unit surveyed 228 executives responsible for designing and developing their organisations’ human resources (HR) strategy. The respondents are based in Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific (about 30% in each region); the rest are from the Middle East and Africa and Latin America. The respondent pool is quite senior: more than half (53%) are C-level executives or board members, including 28% who are CEOs or the equivalent. One-half of respondents’ companies have US$500m or less in annual global revenue, while 25% have revenue of US$5bn or more. The senior executives polled are responsible for all of the main functional areas in 19 different industries.
