C-suite leaders in APAC expect talent shortages to dampen growth prospects

The majority of C-suite leaders in the Asia Pacific region expect talent shortages to have a negative impact on their businesses — and in Singapore, that percentage is as high as 75%, as revealed in new research released by KellyOCG.

The launch of the Workforce Agility report, attended by Human Resources, also unveiled leaders' concerns about trusting whether their HR departments are up to tackling this challenge - with just over half (53%) admitting to engaging HR throughout the business strategy development stages. This percentage was actually the lowest in Singapore at 50%.

The study was conducted amongst 210 C-suite level executives across Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, and India from industries such as banking and financial services, life sciences, healthcare and medical services, and manufacturing.

At the media roundtable attended by Human Resources, report authors Peter Hamilton, Teresa Carroll, and Tatiana Ohm, made the following points on future trends:

1. Workforce strategy must align with business strategy: The alignment of workforce strategy to business strategy is critical in planning for business in the future.
2. Training and development will gain importance: 88% of C-suite leaders in Singapore plan to maintain or increase their levels of contingent workers in the next three years.Closing gap between contingent and full-time workforce: Ohm shared on integrating contingent workforce with the permanent workforce: "Given the average time period for full-time employees to stay in organisations in Singapore is about two years, this means that there is little difference between a contingent worker and a full-time employee." HR needs to embrace this change.
3. Four-generational leadership team: Today we have four generations in the workforce together. As workers move towards virtual engagement and work structures, companies are also looking at how they can engage them virtually.