Employers need to invest in talent, not only to continue helping the country to emerge strongly from recession, but also to help boost staff morale and create healthy competition between businesses in similar sectors.

Last year, the CBI launched its vision of how UK business will develop and be shaped over the next decade. The report, which mapped key trends and feedback from CBI members, predicted a growing trend towards talent management, indicating that investment in training is increasingly being linked to businesses’ corporate goals.

Furthermore, it predicts a growing interdependence and opportunities for collaboration between businesses and academic institutions. These predictions are a welcoming sign to businesses that the economy and jobs market is expected to move on from the turbulent past year, with a renewed focus on people development.

In addition to staff motivation, the benefits of this investment can also include a more focused workforce who can help drive the business forward, increase profitability, and promote innovation to support a stronger competitive advantage. 

Changes to recruitment and training can strengthen businesses and in some cases, allow them to adapt and seize new market opportunities. Through KTP for example, each project trains an additional 14 staff - embedding new ideas and processes across the business.

Talent can be spotted through work experience, internships or temporary employment and businesses should make time to offer one or all of these options to external candidates. For example, KTP creates an opportunity to recruit an associate for a limited period of time to address a strategic business need, as well as get skilled academic input from a university partner.

There are many schemes in place that focus on developing talent, including company internships or project-specific employment programmes like KTP.

KTP’s 2008/09 annual report revealed that SMEs have continued to invest in collaboration and innovation, despite the impact of the recession, which saw 24% more new KTP projects being approved than during the previous year. This illustrates that SME businesses are increasingly seeing the value of partnership-working in helping to boost innovation, improve staff training, as well as increase profits.

Thousands of graduates have benefited from taking part in KTP - five of whom were recognised at the 2010 KTP Awards in March. KTP’s five ‘Business Leaders of Tomorrow‘ have all demonstrated exceptional leadership and project management skills through their work as KTP Associates.

Associate Eamon Morgan is employed by meat wholesalers, The Foyle Food Group Ltd, on a project to establish a new waste processing plant for the company’s internal sites.

Within the first year of the project, Eamon has taken his work beyond the original requirements, helping to establish a green business, which will solve not only the company’s animal waste disposal problem, but also provide a solution for the disposal of waste by external organisations too.

Recent results from KTP show that through the programme, UK businesses stand to benefit from over 6,500 company staff trained, some 1,120 new jobs created, and an overall increase in annual profit before tax of over £126 million.

Investing in innovation and talent is imperative to help continue the growth of the UK economy and business sector.

It allows individuals to be given the opportunity to nurture and use their skills to their full potential, which in turn offers many advantages to the businesses.