Almost one third of surveyed CEOs state that they spend more than 50 percent of their time on talent related activities. This year’s People Matters & Monster.com CEO as the Chief Talent Officer Study shows that CEOs are embracing volatility and shortage of available skills, reassessing the importance of talent management, and accordingly, allocating their time and effort. There is clearly a big shift in how CEOs see their jobs.

When CEOs think about managing people, the first thing they consider is whether or not the organization has the right talent to execute its objectives. Business leaders want to know that their teams understand what the company is trying to achieve and make decisions in their daily jobs to align to those objectives. For any company, adding revenue and profitability growth comes from people performing their roles in accordance with the organization’s strategy.

Over the years, organizations have tried many ways to become agile, faster, innovative and profitable. Whether it is process improvement, cost rationalization, shortening of cycle times or increasing productivity, successful implementation and execution of any significant strategy begins and ends with people. The PwC 15th Annual Global CEO Survey reveals that while 47 percent CEOs are very confident about growing in the next 3 years, 70 percent of them express their organizations will not have the talent that they need to grow.

The cover story, People Matters & Monster.com CEO as the Chief Talent Officer, presents views of 21 CEOs who spoke to us about their increased focus on the talent agenda. The story also carries the 2nd People Matters CEO Survey which reflects contributions of 126 leading CEOs in India from across industries. CEOs’ focus this year is to ensure that they get the most out of the talent they have; hence they are shifting their priorities to focus on productivity, development and engagement.

For CEOs, taking an active role in driving the talent agenda will mean investing anywhere between 30 to 50 percent of their time and attention. How could CEOs make better use of their time? The Study shows that CEOs understand that building a talent pool, and ensuring they are productive and engaged, will strengthen their competitive advantage. For organizations, waiting for the business conditions to improve is no longer an option. CEOs have realized that a proactive talent management approach will go a long way in strengthening their chances of success.

This issue also brings to you, the story of SAP Labs India on building the required culture for the future workplace; an interview of Pallavi Jha from Dale Carnegie Training India on the big shift in the training arena and how measurability, virtual reality and changing training methods, are redefining the training and development space; and in this issue, also presented for you are the key findings of the Mercer and the World Economic Forum report on “Talent Mobility Good Practices: Collaboration at the Core of Driving Economic Growth”. The report presents references to Indian organizations showcasing how talent mobility and public-private collaborations has helped them overcome the demand-supply mismatch.

This issue presents a new look for People Matters. The new design is aimed at enhancing readability; we look forward to your feedback and suggestions to keep improving our magazine.

As always, we thank you for your continuous encouragement. Do write to us at editorial@peoplematters.in.

Happy Reading!

Ester Martinez
Ester.martinez@peoplematters.in
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