Human resources executives and business leaders in Canada and around the world are concerned by the state of leadership development, talent retention and engagement and workforce capability in their organizations, among other challenges, according to the results of our 2014 global human capital trends survey. They’re also uncertain about HR’s ability to address these challenges quickly and effectively. If Canadian companies want to compete in today’s economy, they must do much better than “good enough”. Is your company ready? Are you confident your HR programs, methods and tools are prepared to manage a multi-generational, borderless workforce? Are leaders being developed at every level of your organization? Do your leaders know how to leverage your HR programs to deliver business outcomes?

1. Human capital
trends 2014
Proceed with action,
challenges ahead
Canada edition

2. TREND 1
Leadership
73%of Canadian business
and HR leaders believe leadership
development is their most important
challenge over the next 12-18 months
And 67% think they’re ready
or somewhat ready to do so

3. Organizations across Canada – in fact, around the
world – are struggling to keep up with the emerging
multi-generational, borderless, technology-savvy
workforce of the 21st-century.
The challenge
Growing leaders at every level

4. The way forward
Develop and nurture a leadership culture unique to
your company and connected to your customer brand
• Ask your HR organization to build programs and tools to enable
leadership development at all levels of your business
• Engage top executives now to take accountability for the development
of your leaders for tomorrow
• Build a strong bench of leaders where your strategy matters
• Align leadership strategies and programs to business goals, refreshing
as the business evolves

5. TREND 2
Talent retention
and engagement
55%of Canadian corporate
leaders agree this is a major challenge
74%feel ready or somewhat
ready to address it

6. 21st-century employees, especially millennials, are
motivated by more than a paycheque – they want to
be inspired and to satisfy their professional, social and
personal goals.
What’s a company to do to recruit employees
these days?
The challenge
Feeding the passion

7. The way forward
Focus on inspiring talent
• Align business and corporate objectives with the professional, personal
and social goals of employees
• Don’t try to keep employees from leaving; try to inspire them to reach
their goals with you
• Build a boomerang effect: when employees leave, stay in touch and bring
them back with more experience
• Provide work that is meaningful and satisfying to the individual employee
• Challenge the performance management process: Is it timely enough?
Does it provide actionable feedback? Are you developing and playing to
employees’ strengths or investing in developmental weaknesses?
• Ask employees what matters to them, and ask them frequently

8. TREND 3
Workforce capability
50%of Canada’s corporate leaders
feel this is an important issue
73%are confident they are ready
or somewhat ready to address it

9. Organizations must now compete globally for
increasingly scarce specialized skills. Even finding
the talent is a challenge in itself: they’re unevenly
distributed around the world. Add to the mix that
these scarce skills are in demand over a broader
range of industries than in years past.
The challenge
Minding the gaps in capability

10. The way forward
Build, buy and rent a global workforce to compete
in an open-talent economy
• Translate your business strategy into current and future skills needs
• Tap into new skills pools in new places
• Extend the global supply chain: develop talent centres in emerging
markets, partner with educational institutes to build a talent
pipeline, consider purchasing specialized firms and build from within
• Recognize you need multiple talent suppliers to meet your business
demand
• Foster continuous skills development

11. TREND 4
Talent acquisition
and access
45%of business and HR leaders
in Canada think this is a major concern
62%are confident they are ready
or somewhat ready to address it

12. The challenge
The battlefield for talent
is shifting radically
The rise of global talent networks, social media,
employment brands and changing views of careers is
compelling organizations to update and revamp their
talent sourcing strategies.

13. The way forward
Use new talent acquisition strategies that are
fit for purpose
• Partner with corporate marketing to build an integrated branding
and communications strategy that attracts customers, new business
and future employees
• Leverage social media to build broader and deeper talent
communities (beyond Facebook)
• Use big data tools, from vendors like LinkedIn and Facebook, to
source qualified candidates around the world
• Extend the targets for recruiting: look for new talent pools to hire
or borrow (e.g., freelancers) and search globally as well as across
industries and functions
• Use your alumni employee base to access future talent

14. TREND 5
Learning
and development
This will be a top issue over the
coming year for 42%
of Canadian corporate leaders
Here, too, leaders are confident in
their readiness to address it:
72%say they are ready
or somewhat ready

15. Nothing replaces personal business experience but the
new generation relies on technology to learn. Learning
content is now delivered via various online and mobile
platforms, massive online open courses, collaboration
tools, gamification and social media, feeding a training
model where employees choose how to develop their
skills and experts share knowledge freely.
The challenge
Corporate learning looks a lot different
these days

16. The way forward
Create experience with technology-enabled,
blended learning
• Build it into your performance goals by asking employees to think
about on-the-job learning, job shadowing and experiential learning
when preparing their performance objectives
• Redesign training programs: say yes to social and collaborative
learning
• Standardize, simplify and integrate learning technology, and on a
mobile-enabled learning platform
• Assess your learning culture: Do your managers help develop people
or just drive the numbers? Is employee development truly important
and valued in your organization?

17. Read the full report
Human capital trends 2014:
Proceed with action, challenges ahead
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