Our leadership symposium brought together fourteen business professionals from recruitment, HR and allied industries, who exchanged views on the Challenges and opportunities that leaders will face as we begin a new decade. They included current and past managing directors and CEOs of global recruitment businesses; training, development and career coaching professionals; HR and legal experts and academics including a visiting professor from Henley Business School.  

One of the major themes that came out of that symposium was engagement.   Additionally, recent research from the CIPD and PricewaterhouseCoopers tells us that 1 in 3 of your workforce will consider moving on unless you really engage them. What is clear, therefore, is that we not only need to engage with our existing talent in order to retain the very best but we must surely engage with future talent in order to once again grow our businesses as the economy eventually supports growth. Those organisations that have a highly engaged workforce will also have a highly loyal customer base.

We also need to address change in the nature of the workplace as well as the economy. We have to engage the hearts and minds of not just our existing people but also our teams of the future. And with workforces that can now comprise up to five generations – that could be the toughest Challenge of all. Research tells us that Generation Y and Baby Boomers for example want informal and frequent feedback.  Generation Y want to join a community not a company. Generation X prefer structure – and what of those born after 1997 – our next generation in the workplace – what will they want?

What is absolutely clear is that we will need a much wider leadership toolkit to engage our people in the years ahead.

Leaders must also focus on the survivors of change. While some firms may have had to make some tough decisions around issues such as downsizing, those that remain will need some TLC.

Leaders will have spent a lot of time with those that they may have had to let go – what is key is ensuring that over the coming year, those that remain are fully engaged. Unhappy stayers will just bide their time until the recovery and then jump ship. People engage and disengage all the time. The key is for leaders to recognise the early signals and re-engage people quickly before they fly the nest.

The only way to create a stand out brand is through innovation. So invite and encourage innovation. And accept that true creativity and innovation will only take place if people are allowed to take risks. With the recession still fresh in everyone’s mind, one of the real Challenges is that leaders are still nervous about taking risks – and nervous about change - which is inevitably a by product of innovation. But innovation is happening all around us and market conditions are imposing change not only on our business models but also how we interact with our customers. Technology is moving more quickly than ever before and threatens to swamp us if we do not ready to embrace the change that comes with it.  

Businesses that win will take risks going forward and create new paths for others to follow. They will not simply respond to change, they will drive it. But most importantly they will recognise that engaging their current and future workforce is the absolute priority that will enable innovation and change to take place. Without real efforts to engage employees, organisations will become stuck on a hamster wheel of recruitment, training, replacing and then training again. Replacing and replenishing is a costly affair and can be a real barrier to profit and growth.

Winners and losers in the war for talent are emerging. Companies who continue to invest in employee engagement are becoming the clear leaders – will you be one of them?